To all my readers!

 I have moved my site to a new address

                  http://www.xanga.com/mirai33   

                                       mirai

@@@@@@kawaii~ kawaii~ kawaiiiii~

   You will hear the word Kawaii~ many times everywhere in Japan.  Kawaii literally means cute in English, but it does not only mean cute in Japan nowadays.

I read an article that was written by a Brit.  He wondered what Kawaii meant.  He met some Japanese girls in Japan. They looked at his car and said " Kawaii~~~".  When they saw an Italian dish in a restaurant, they said " Kawaii~~".  His pants, his shirt and  his smile were all Kawaii for them!   Everything was kawaii~~~~

Kawaii has become a very useful word for clothing, food, toys, person's appearance, even manners and behaviors. Even if you are  big and muscular, you could be Kawaii (maybe cute ) easily in Japan.   Some people even think Sumo wrestlers are Kawaii.

Kawaii used to refer to things that are smaller than bigger, rounder than squarer. It became accepted to use for one's behavior that was childish or innocent.  If you are called Kawaii, it means that Japanese people found that kind of character inside you.  The newest way to use Kawaii for girls implies " It's nice ", " I like it" , " I adore it".

Hello Kitty is the perfect example of kawaii.  Japanese love Hello Kitty so much because the doll symbolizes cuteness.  I think the company that makes Hello Kitty find that the millions in profits they earn " kawaii " too.  Each prefecture in Japan has a cute mascot doll. Saitama-ken has this. ( He got an award in this video).  Kanagawa-ken,  Tokushima-ken and Kagoshima-ken.

 Today though, a new phrase"Busu-Kawaii" has become popular in Japan...    Busu means ugly....   Busu-kawaii is ugly-cute.   Doesn't sound so nice, does it?

Aiko, Ai Otsuka, Chara and Yuki are called  busu-kawaii.   

Do you think they are flattered by this?

                    The word    Gaijin

 Don't you like Japanese people to call you "gaijin"?

Gaijin  is a short form of Gaikoku-jin , which is translated as foreigner.  Gaijin literally means "outside person" and "outside-country person" for Gaikoku-jin.

The Japanese word Gaijin is controversial.  The use of this word is now very sensitive, because it can be considered offensive in some circumstances. It has been banned  in broadcasting and publication worlds.

I wonder why Gaikoku-jin is no problem to use but  not Gaijin?  Japanese have a tendency to shorten  long words like Poke-mon( pocket monster) and  Kimu-Taku( Kimura Takuya).  It is not like English term "Jap".

Gaikoku-jin and Gaijin seem to be white or black people for most Japanese, while Japanese usually refer to Asian people by using their country name. For example, Chugoku-jin for Chinese, Kankoku-jin for Koreans and Indo-jin for Indians.

Here is some history.  The first term for foreigners in Japan was Nanban-jin when a Portugese man came to Japan in 1542, but the use of it disappeared due to national isolation( sakoku ). When Tokugawa shogunate opened Japan's borders, westerners were called  i-jin ( literally means "different person" ).   The word Gaikoku-jin came up during Meiji era and Koreans, Taiwanese and other foreign people of Japanese territory were not called  Gaikoku-jin at that time.

Gaijin is just a short form of Gaikoku-jin...

Lots of people who came from foreign countries and are living in Japan hate being called Gaijin, I guess it is just because of Japanese behavior towards them using the word Gaijin. 

Westerners think the word Gaijin is an insult, as if they are being lumped together with all other people who are not native Japanese.  They consider it an insult, and Japanese are slowly starting to understand this.

An American, Italian and French consider themselves totally different, but to Japanese, they all look the same.  This is why westerners hate this word...westerners want to be referred to by their country of origin.

 What do you think ?    Do Japanese  discriminate against you?

            Black hair

    Do you like black hair for Japanese women?

Lots of Japanese women have been coloring their hair as a fashion for nearly a decade. There are various shades of  brown, yellow, blonde and red hair colors.

A recent survey said that black hair was back in Japan ! 

   Last year, after pop singer Ayumi Hamasaki showed up with a black hair suddenly instead of  her trademark bleached blonde hair, black hair came into vogue( ryuko).   She influenced many young girls in Japan to keep their black hair.

Also, some celebrities, a popular singer Mika Nakashima and an actress Yukie Nakama , have beautiful long black hair and they are fueling the craze.  Non-Japanese actresses,  Zhang Ziyi of China and  Choi Ji Woo of Korea ,who are very popular in Japan, influence Japanese girls. 

Sales of hair coloring products has dropped down from 113 billion yen in 2002 to 90 billion yen in 2005.

Some office ladies say that they started to be complimnted in their office after they got back black hair. It seems that Japanese men like black hair for women.

Is it true that black hair is becoming popular in western countries???  Wow!  Those celebrities have black hair !

               Is he fake?

   Here is big news in Japan.

  One of Japan's leading artists, Yoshihiko Wada, was questioned on suspitions that he had copied his works from Italian artist Albert Sughi's works.

Sixty-six year old Yoshihiko Wada won an Education Minister's Prize in this spring's art recommendations. It was a big award .  The man that is wearing a yellow-red necktie is Yoshihiko in the picture.

This plagiarism incident ( tosaku mondai ) is sort of funny to me.  Yoshihiko Wada has denied the alligations strongly.  However, his work looks really similar to an Italian artist Albert Sughi's in my opinion.   This work is not only the one that has close similarity.  Have a look at this one, this one too!      Over 20 of his works were clamined as imitations.    You could dig out more~    His replicating works seem  to have started from the early 1990s.

Despite that, Yoshihiko Wada said, " I have known Albert for a long time since I went to study in Italy in the 1970s. I recieved artistic influence from him and doing study and design work together with him, but the works are not stolen!" ( Albert to kyodo seisaku shita mono de, tosaku dewa nai ).

Albert Sughi said, " I never knew that he was producing works like this. They are stolen". Albert even did not know that Yoshihiko was an artist ( yoshihiko ga gaka dato wa shirana katta)., he thought Yoshihiko was his fan and let him to take pictures of his works.

Yoshihiko was born in Mie prefecture and studied at Tokyo Geijutsu university that was the best school for artists of all Japan.

It was revealed by an anonymous submission ( tokumei no shirase ) in April this year.  What do you think?  His works do not look to be original by all appearance to me...    Yoshihiko is still saying that everybody will know that those works are different....( Sughi-shi no sakuhin to jibun no mono towa onaji dewa nai to itte iru ).

It is really disgraceful for the field of art of Japan ( nihon no gaijyutsu-kai ni totte, fu-meiyo na koto da).  

To a Japanese artist, being acused of stealing is a big deal and risks ruining his or her career forever. That's why the story is such big news here!