Gomi - would you consider doing a kids birthday party themed on Japanese culture?
Like some sort of Japanese birthday clown?
I posted that back in Jan 2011 when I had just got back from my trip. AND I AM DYING TO GO BACK.
I think I was feeling a bit too much culture shock at the time. 7 days is not nearly long enough! The trip was amazing but it wore me out b/c I essentially went by myself. It was work travel, and the other guy stayed in his hotel most of the time.
Not being able to communicate wore me out mostly. I wished I knew more of the language, but it was hard to justify learning in advance b/c the trip had gotten cancelled so many times, and there was a good chance it would never happen. I only had about 2 weeks notice that it was definitely on when I did wind up going!
Actually, even I got a little culture-shocked going back over. The day after we arrived we walked all around the Shibuya/Harajuku/Yoyogi area, and then went to Ikebukuro. I was jetlagged out of my skull, my stomach was feeling like it had a rock in it, and I was really zoned out and unhappy. I felt this depression, this nothingness, like "I love it here. This is one of my favorite places! Why am I so unhappy? Why am I not overjoyed to be back at this old familiar city?" I had literally shed tears of happiness when I saw the Okaeri Nasai sign in the airport, and had felt full of anticipation and joy. The next day, I just stumbled around getting mildly pissed off at the amount of porn and prostitution at ikebukuro, and worn out by the loud flashy lights. Then we met my teacher and it was a very nice evening, during which I started to feel very good about things again. After that I was happy. The next day, I read on the internet that jet-lag/dehydration can cause, among other things, a feeling of depression and emotional numbness. I actually did miss Japan after all, and I felt extra good after I came to my host family's house again.
Sounds like a very similar experience! Did it help you to have someone else who had not seen all of your favorite things before, giving you the opportunity to share all of that, rather than be overwhelmed trying to take things in for yourself?
I capped my day of culture shock off by watching Lost in Translation while holed up in my tiny hotel room feeling lonely in Tokyo. But hey, I was ready to go explore to the point of exhaustion again for the rest of the week.
For a young-ish girl (tween?) right? Hmm. I would try to find a Japanese Bakery in your area which makes cakes. I would recommend a green tea flavored cake, or one of the more traditional flavors. Matcha, sweet bean, Yuzu, etc. are all delicious flavors that are typical of Japanese sweets. You are driving distance from NY, right? Takahachi, Panya, and Zaiya should all be providers of delicious birthday cakes. However, if you can't get that, I would recommend getting white cake and simple frosting, and adding powdered green tea to the mix before you bake it. Not too much, because kids can be picky and matcha is an acquired taste. You might just want to do a strawberry shortcake, which is also popular in Japan. You can decorate the cake with little cherry blossom shapes. Ask your daughter what kind she would like. If you want to play it safe, go to the Japanese/Asian grocery, buy a bunch of normal snacks like potato chips, Pocky, shrimp chips, and weird kit kat flavors, maybe some green tea choco or cookies. For food, you could go with a big sushi platter, with crunchy stuff tempura and less raw fish, or actually fried chicken is a popular celebratory fast food among Tokyoites. As long as the snacks are authentic, I think kids would be fine eating pizza or KFC. Get little Paper lanterns and either electric candles or real ones (depending on how much risk you want to take. We used to use real.) Sting them up all around the room and keep the lights low. Then, at the end of the party, every kid gets to take one home. Wrap your presents to your daughter in colorful cloths, like furoshiki, if you have them. Ideas for activities...Hmmm. Traditional stuff like Origami and Kanji Calligraphy, with cheap brush pens, might be fun. However, If she wants to do it all Modern girly, I know you will hate it, but they should do it SHIBUYA Style Nail Art and Fancy Makeup! Get some Japanese Fashion magazines, or research it on the internet for pictures and pickup some cheapo nail bling/crazy colored wigs/sparkle makeup and they can dress each other up as Japanese fashion girls! Next, let them take their own portraits with the digital camera, go print them out on the computer, and the the girls can take nontoxic opaque markers and stickers to them to do PURIKURA! to take home as mementos. Put on some Japanese pop or anime music in the background. I'm normally not for girly shit, but crazy dress-up is always fun. It really depends on what she and her friends are into and their personalities. Faux karaoke is also fun maybe? Everybody sing along to a playlist they pick before hand?
On a tangent: The best party I ever had was the pirate party, where my parents buried the party favors in a bin in the back yard woods and the kids had to find pieces of a map to get them. Or maybe the one in kindergarten where I planned it myself WITHOUT telling my mom, and just when she was wondering how to entertain all the kids that suddenly showed up without warning, my aunt, unaware of the situation, pulled up with a trailer her horse who she was moving to a new stable. Unexpected horse saved the day!
Those are all great ideas! The major problem I have with my daughter is that she will not try new foods. Her friends will eat anything and everything while she has a very small selection of foods she will eat. I offered to take her and some friends out to a hibachi restaurant but she declined the offer.
She does like Pocky but she prefers a particular kind (sweet milk?) that we can't find locally.
As much as I would like to throw an outdoor party February weather is not very conducive to the idea
Yeah, I wasn't suggesting burying stuff in the woods, merely reminiscing about my birthday party memories. Like I said, most Japanese snacks are pretty approachable, so get a bunch, and I am sure everyone will find at least one cookie or something they like. Japanese food also contains a lot of western influences, so getting pizza or fried chicken is actually very authentic for a party in present day Japan! Also, what about Yakitori? (grilled chicken skewers.) You could trivially grill them at home with ingredients you could get at the local grocery, and probably not scare off even relatively picky kids.
I've got imiwa (had that shit when it was kotoba, SON). I've also got iKnow, which was a reasonably good way to learn vocab on PC, but haven't used it much on iPhone. I was hoping for a more comprehensive tool with a more solid teaching system than straight vocab flash cards. I like tools that give you meanings for specific kanji, for example, because it helps with mnemonics..
I had kotoba as well before they changed names.
I saw this recommended on Twitter a while ago. It looks cute and it's free.
I would like to redact everything I said about Heißig earlier in this thread, as I had been blinded by the approach. I've now come to realize that the method isn't really very helpful in actually understanding the japanese language.
I'm surprised I missed this thread. Like Emily said, Anki is a good resource -- look up the shared decks. There's one for the Tae Kim Grammar bit and one for the core 2k/6k bit (and there is audio online, so you can hear proper pronunciation). I bet you could learn quite a bit by going through the 2k/6k in order (maybe 50 at a time, changing the flashcard type until you have those 50 solidly). Of course.. you'd need to learn hiragana first, and be open to learning deductively. If you use a textbook in romaji, toss it. Ok ok, not really, but make sure to supplement with legit japanese, or you're in for a world of hurt. I'm teaching Philip japanese atm, so we'll see how my theory pans out -- I'm biased from being exposed my whole life.
I would like to redact everything I said about Heißig earlier in this thread, as I had been blinded by the approach. I've now come to realize that the method isn't really very helpful in actually understanding the japanese language.
I still disagree because it's a means to an end, not the end itself. It's a great help for understanding written, but not spoken Japanese. Having finished Vol. 1, I can often look at something and suss out general meaning even when the nuance and pronunciation is beyond me (damned dirty suffixes).
Ro: just use AnkiWeb on your phone; it's sub-optimal, but still works.
Japanese is weird, part 28: So Mushroom is written with the radical for flower above the kanji for ear (茸) and it can be pronounced like "child of a tree" (kinoko, 木の子)
Man I should look into learning japanese again. In Australia given all the tourists and immigrants you end up learning Japanese instead of Spanish (or French or German were my other options). I really enjoyed it but then I moved. I then bought a book that was really good but I lost it, then I tried Rosetta Stone and not I think Rosetta Stone is fucking shit.
Comments
Sounds like a very similar experience! Did it help you to have someone else who had not seen all of your favorite things before, giving you the opportunity to share all of that, rather than be overwhelmed trying to take things in for yourself?
I capped my day of culture shock off by watching Lost in Translation while holed up in my tiny hotel room feeling lonely in Tokyo. But hey, I was ready to go explore to the point of exhaustion again for the rest of the week.
EDIT:
Hmm.
I would try to find a Japanese Bakery in your area which makes cakes. I would recommend a green tea flavored cake, or one of the more traditional flavors. Matcha, sweet bean, Yuzu, etc. are all delicious flavors that are typical of Japanese sweets. You are driving distance from NY, right? Takahachi, Panya, and Zaiya should all be providers of delicious birthday cakes. However, if you can't get that, I would recommend getting white cake and simple frosting, and adding powdered green tea to the mix before you bake it. Not too much, because kids can be picky and matcha is an acquired taste. You might just want to do a strawberry shortcake, which is also popular in Japan. You can decorate the cake with little cherry blossom shapes. Ask your daughter what kind she would like. If you want to play it safe, go to the Japanese/Asian grocery, buy a bunch of normal snacks like potato chips, Pocky, shrimp chips, and weird kit kat flavors, maybe some green tea choco or cookies. For food, you could go with a big sushi platter, with crunchy stuff tempura and less raw fish, or actually fried chicken is a popular celebratory fast food among Tokyoites. As long as the snacks are authentic, I think kids would be fine eating pizza or KFC.
Get little Paper lanterns and either electric candles or real ones (depending on how much risk you want to take. We used to use real.) Sting them up all around the room and keep the lights low. Then, at the end of the party, every kid gets to take one home. Wrap your presents to your daughter in colorful cloths, like furoshiki, if you have them.
Ideas for activities...Hmmm.
Traditional stuff like Origami and Kanji Calligraphy, with cheap brush pens, might be fun. However, If she wants to do it all Modern girly, I know you will hate it, but they should do it SHIBUYA Style Nail Art and Fancy Makeup! Get some Japanese Fashion magazines, or research it on the internet for pictures and pickup some cheapo nail bling/crazy colored wigs/sparkle makeup and they can dress each other up as Japanese fashion girls! Next, let them take their own portraits with the digital camera, go print them out on the computer, and the the girls can take nontoxic opaque markers and stickers to them to do PURIKURA! to take home as mementos. Put on some Japanese pop or anime music in the background.
I'm normally not for girly shit, but crazy dress-up is always fun. It really depends on what she and her friends are into and their personalities.
Faux karaoke is also fun maybe? Everybody sing along to a playlist they pick before hand?
On a tangent: The best party I ever had was the pirate party, where my parents buried the party favors in a bin in the back yard woods and the kids had to find pieces of a map to get them. Or maybe the one in kindergarten where I planned it myself WITHOUT telling my mom, and just when she was wondering how to entertain all the kids that suddenly showed up without warning, my aunt, unaware of the situation, pulled up with a trailer her horse who she was moving to a new stable. Unexpected horse saved the day!
She does like Pocky but she prefers a particular kind (sweet milk?) that we can't find locally.
As much as I would like to throw an outdoor party February weather is not very conducive to the idea
Like I said, most Japanese snacks are pretty approachable, so get a bunch, and I am sure everyone will find at least one cookie or something they like. Japanese food also contains a lot of western influences, so getting pizza or fried chicken is actually very authentic for a party in present day Japan!
Also, what about Yakitori? (grilled chicken skewers.) You could trivially grill them at home with ingredients you could get at the local grocery, and probably not scare off even relatively picky kids.
I saw this recommended on Twitter a while ago. It looks cute and it's free.
Character Chowdown - Learn how to read Japanese
If you use a textbook in romaji, toss it. Ok ok, not really, but make sure to supplement with legit japanese, or you're in for a world of hurt.
I'm teaching Philip japanese atm, so we'll see how my theory pans out -- I'm biased from being exposed my whole life.
Ro: just use AnkiWeb on your phone; it's sub-optimal, but still works.