So close, yet so far away

They're close friends (he didn't add a "san")

In Japan, how to address people correctly is a very important thing. Generally, the polite way of addressing people you know is with the last name, followed by "san". There are some varations on this with "san" being substituted for "chan" or "kun" which suggest some degree of affection ("chan" is mostly used for girls and "kun" for guys, but they can be used for both sexes). But generally speaking in a work setting, if you call people by their family names and add a "san", you can't go really wrong as it's usually better to err on the side of politeness than the other way around.


Among private friends it's much more relaxed. Calling someone by their family name and "san" is not really wrong, but can be seen as a little too polite and putting some distance between you and said friend. For really close friends you can drop the courtesy suffix alltogether and even call them their first names (although this should be agreed upon beforehand as it could possibly offend some people if they don't consider themselves as close friends as you thought...).


Last night, I met up with my old buddies from the previous consulting job, the Boy and Luke whom long-time followers of this blog might be familiar with since previous posts. The Boy was on a temporary visit back to Tokyo so we squeezed in a dinner to catch up on stuff and share some old jokes about the insanity of the office we lived through in the consulting world. The Boy shared a story that I found quite amusing and I will do my best to retell here.


His older sister got married to a Japanese guy a few years back. The Boy has been getting along well with his brother-in-law, sometimes meeting up for dinners without the sister and generally striking up a friendly relationship. All these years, The Boy has been addressing his brother-in-law with the polite form, calling him Murata-san while in return being called by his first name only without any courtesy suffix. This can be seen as somewhat acceptable as the brother-in-law is older than the Boy and as he's married to the Boy's older sister he does not need to extend the same courtesy to the Boy.


However, during a dinner they had together hanging out, the Boy had started to feel a little weird about addressing him as "Murata-san" as it creates a feeling of distance and the Boy thought that by now they had become such good friends that he could do a little more relaxed approach. So he very politely suggest to his brother-in-law that maybe he could start addressing him as "big brother"  (onii-san お兄さん) instead if he would be ok with that. He was met with a few seconds of silence, a cold stare followed by "No, I prefer if you address me as Murata-san". Awkwardness followed and the conversation never really recovered after this for the remainder of the dinner as the Boy's attempt to close the gap between them had been quickly shut down with no room for negotiations.


Let that be a lesson to you all.


(Does anyone know how to get rid of the double-line breaks that seem to be the default in blogger now since recently... It's really annoying me...)

I almost feel a bit bad... Almost...

As I was setting up a smaller party I e-mailed and talked to some friends and invited them, including the Boy. Most of the times it goes something like this:

Salaryman: (cheery) Hey, you need to come to the party I'm setting up, a bunch of people you know will be coming so it'll be fun!

The Boy: (suspicious) But you always have me do stupid shit for you every time you have a party, translating, picking people up and shit like that...

Salaryman: (slightly hurt) What?! C'mon, we're friends and help each other out sometimes, right? But this time you don't have to do anything, I promise!

The Boy: (still suspicious but softening up) You sure? I don't need to translate, buy shit or do anything? I can just come and enjoy the party like everyone else?

Salaryman: (cheery again) Sure, I promise, it'll be fun!

The Boy: Ok, fine, I'll come

Then the morning of the party I give him a call

Salaryman: (cheery) Hey there Boy, you excited about the party today?

The Boy: (again suspicious) I'll come, why are you calling me now?

Salaryman: (overly cheery) Well, I just need you to help out with a few small things...

The Boy: (suddenly very very tired) C'mon, you said I didn't have to do anything this time...

Salaryman: (overly friendly) Well, things have changed, c'mon, help me out here, I need your help, don't be like that!

The Boy: (exhausted) F**k, fine, what is it? But this better be the last time...

Salaryman: (cheery) Of course!

I almost feel a bit bad sometimes, but just barely...

Staying a night at the "Manga Kissa"...

In Japan , there are several options for those having a night out with friends and end up missing the last train and without the means to take a taxi or other transportation home.

One of the more famous are the "capsule hotels" which offers a small bed, washing and changing facilities. I have actually never stayed at one, but it doesn't seem that bad unless you have difficulties with confined spaces.

The second option is to take advantage of one of the "all night" offers at one of the many "Manga Kissa" or Manga coffee shops. Those place usually offer a comfortable seat, a large selection of manga comic books that you can borrow and read as you please, perhaps a computer or tv and a small space with a partition giving you at least a bare minimum of privacy. Also they usually offer free soft drinks. I would liken them to Internet cafes if it wasn't for the fact that Internet and tv are the secondary things and the extensive library of manga books is the main pull.

It’s been quite a few years since I frequented one of these places, back in the day when I had just moved here and did not yet have Internet access I went to those to do my mailing and Internet surfing, but in the last ~8 years I have not been to one.

Recently the Boy told me how he had missed the last train and ending up ditched by his friend a bit too far off to take a taxi home. Since it was just a matter of 5-6 hours, he made the decision to spend the night at Manga Kissa until the first train in the morning (they usually start up around six am).

However, the world of after-dark Manga Kissa showed to be a scary place after dark... The place he had picked had semi-private rooms with large partations and "saloon type" doors to your little booth and for some strange reason this place had a pretty extensive collection of hardcore porno manga (usually this is not the case) a section which was pretty heavily in use by a portion of the clientel. As the Boy was walking back from getting his soft drinks, passing by the booths, quite a few of the chairs he could see were shaking more than they should when you’re just supposedly reading a comic book. Also, strangely enough, the booths where shaking chairs could be seen seemed to be the same people who commuted to the porn corner...

Sleeping turned out to be much much harder than the Boy initially expected, despite a pretty comfortable chair and ability to dim the lights. Apparently a manga kissa at night is about as calm and serene as a mental asylum with people banging on the walls, the occasional howling and just when things seem to calm down, some sadistic bastard turns on the soft ice cream machine which operated on a noise level the same as heavy industrial equipment...

In order to turn this post into something a little educational, if finances are limited and you end up in the middle of Tokyo with a few hours to kill before the trains start moving and you don't want to spend the money on a capsule hotel or love hotel, then an all night pack usually doesn't cost more than around 2,000 yen. It's a pretty agreeable price as long as you don't expect to be able to sleep too well...

2 Million Dorks spending $4.5 BN USD on 377,873 sqkm of land?

To follow up the “Otaku” and Akiba theme since a few posts back, I believe that I have some new insight into this that you might be interested in knowing. The other day I had a discussion with the Boy about the Japanese dork phenomena, triggered by his description of visiting a maid café since a visiting friend of his so desperately wanted to experience this, now pretty famous, Japanese speciality.

The Boy seemed considerably less impressed with the maids than with the ensemble of dorks that had picked the same time to visit the café. Among the more amusing anecdotes he told me was that of the guy who showed one of the maids his four huge binders full of photographs of him with different maids (it should be added that most places charge at least $5 for a photo pose with the guest so this guy had invested considerable amounts into his collection), and that of the guy who wanted his maid to do a special pose for the photo like that of his favorite character in some obscure anime and getting alternatively pissed off at the maid when she failed to capture the pose “no, not like THAT, like THIS” and talking to himself when she again failed to get it right “heh, Azuka would never do THAT (chuckles at the absurdity of Azuka doing it like that)” and quite a few other interesting characters.

In any case, the discussion led us into a market sizing of the Japanese dork population and as I was applying a rationale taking into consideration the adult male population of Japan , % living in metropolitan areas and then applying a % to that around ~1% to get a potential dork population. I think the estimation we ended up with during this exercise was somewhere around 50,000 dorks nationwide in Japan . But as any good management consultant and/or market researcher will tell you, you also need to check for external sources to see if there is data supporting the estimate and remarkably we found this page (in Japanese). Since I assume that most readers of this blog cannot read Japanese, let me give you some highlights from the article.

The article presents some research findings from 2005 done on the “otaku” market and the different segments of Otaku that exist. Market research company Nomura Research Institute are described as “Otaku market analysis pioneers”, it should be added that, up until today, I had great respect for NRI since the research from them I have used in the past has been of very good quality.

They estimate the total Otaku population of Japan to be close to 2 MN people/dorks and the potential market, in terms of money they spend on their obsession to ~$4.5 BN USD. Frightening figures… However, there is some consolation in that this does not only take into account the classic "Akiba otaku" (Dork usually found in Akihabara focused on Manga, Anime and computer games) but a broad spectra of otaku, including fashion, cars, computer hardware etc.

And yeah, when you add up the manga, anime and gaming dorks, you end up with almost the exact figure that me and the Boy came up with during our soft market sizing exercise. What can I say? I’m a pro.

Star Wars is a great gay movie

First of all I should state for the record that I'm a pretty good Star Wars nerd, I loved the movies (especially the original trilogy) and I can do my fair share of nerdy quotes from them. However, one thing that I've always seen as obvious but that I discovered from discussions with other Star Wars nerds is that the gayness of these movies is completely overlooked. The movies are such an obvious tale of a confused young man's way to realizing he's gay and exploring that side that I'm actually stunned that people have not realized this before.

Now, you are probably one of those people who had never thought of this before and all I ask of you is a little patience and I will lay out my case and I am certain that by the time you've finished reading this post you will be as convinced as me. Once again, I would like to state that this does not detract from the movie in any way, quite the opposite, this dimension makes the movies even more enjoyable.

The movie is about a lonely young apple-cheeked farm boy living on his farm in a small town dreaming of "going to the stars" and be something more than just a farm boy (que the song "Smalltown boy"). However, by coming into contact with two droids (R2D2 and C3P0) who both appear to be masculine and in a long-term relationship he learns of an old "Jedi-master" whom he seeks out. He meets with Obi-Wan who has lived a different life than him on the farm and promises him to "show him the world" and teach him to "use the force" and "use his sabre".

Luke hooks up with this older man and the lovely droid couple in search of transportation and heads off to a gay club where Obi-Wan disciplines a few roughnecks who try to pick up his young friend. They find the two men Han Solo and Chewbacka that seem to be living in a free relationship which is hard for Chewbacka, but he loves Han Solo so much that he puts up with him playing around with people like Lando and Jaba. After all, the hate that Jaba shows for Han Solo is much more that of a scorned lover than a businessman... (I should also state that my own personal belief here is that Obi Wan and Luke never engage in a sexual relationship, just that of a mentor and apprentice, but that can be argued)

After some adventures in which Luke starts to get some competency in how to use his "saber" the merry team is confronted for the first time with the evil Lord Vader, clad in black rubber and a fiercesome looking saber of his own, red, as if it had been dipped in blood. Darth Vader represent the dark side of homosexuality; sex without feelings and self-satisfaction. Obi-Wan meets his fate and "fades away" but wishes Luke luck before he dissapears. Luke also meets the Princess Leia and is even more confused since he realizes that he has feelings for her as well which is confusing for him since he believed himself to be homosexual.

The movie ends with the climactic scene in which Luke needs to "shoot his load" directly into the "little hole" on the body of the entity they are attacking, but keeping Obi's great advise in mind he manages to unload in just the right time and there is an orgasmic explosion when he realizes that he has succeeded. For me, this is very clear; it is an elegant metaphor for Luke's homosexual sex debut in which he finds himself.

The second movie is very much a middle movie as it's about Luke finding out more about his sexuality and also the risks that he must be careful to avoid. He meets with Obi's old lover, Yoda, who is fading away in a terrible disease (very much colored by the '80s environment) who warns him to give in to his dark impulses but to seek love and happiness. Meanwhile Han Solo is hunted by his former lover and is in turn betrayed by an old lover at Cloud City, if you are observant you can notice how Chewbacka from the beginning is very cold towards Lando. It ends with Han Solo being frozen down in a suggestive pose for Jaba's entertainment.

In the third movie, it is a different Luke we meet, now safe and secure in his sexual identity, now himself a "master" of the "force", wielding his "saber" as an expert. Together with his gay band of friends they rescue Han Solo, even together with a Leia that has butched out as a special performance but later on play the role of a more traditional fag hag. The rest of the movie is a tour de force of the new secure Luke, with the help of a gang of furry dwarves he manages to reach and confront the dark side of his own sexuality and win over his dark urges by throwing it in the well.

I know that there are people who would accuse Lucas of misogyny since there are so few women in the movie and they play such insignificant roles, but I would argue that the trilogy is about "Men who loves men" and not about "men who hate women". For me, it is a touching tale of a farmboy growing up, discovering his sexuality, coming to terms with it and emerging as a secure and strong gay adult. You do not have to be gay to appreciate the message in this movie.

This is also just a brief scratch of the surface, there are so much more of these things to find in the original trilogy that I recommend you to see them again with new eyes if you haven't realized this before!

It is the decision of the council...

In a company like ours, there are a number of important decisions that must be made at certain points during the day, one of the more important decisions is lunch. Not only must a certain cuisine and specific restaurant be decided upon, there must also be concensus on when to go and whom to invite to come. This is not as an easy task as it might first seem since some places are more suitable for smaller groups and if too many people tag along it might not be physically possible to fit in.

The core lunch council consists of me, the Boy and Luke as the chairman and the discussion is usually initiated through IM around 30min before lunchtime since it can take a great while to come to a decision agreeable with all parties.

Personally I'm usually quite open to most ideas while the Boy requires portions suitably large to satisfy his abnormal hunger and in addition he rarely accept the cost to exceed 1000 yen, furthermore he also refuses to eat cuisine from the same geographical area twice in a row, never mind that there are different dishes within "Italian food".

Then we have Luke who is pretty picky on which places meets his standard on quality which means that the decision process can take significant time to make everyone somewhat in agreement. Also, to further complicate things we also sometimes have one or more guests participating in the decision process, either invited or self-invited. The phrase "I veto that" is pretty commonly used even though no one formally has a right to veto anything. But when the council has come to a decision it is irreversible and problems can occur if the restaurant in question is full and no contingency plan has been put in place...

The second important council that exists is the "Konbini Council" (or the convenience store council) which usually convene over IM sometime post lunch and the objective of that council is mostly to decide on a time to go out and by a snack between lunch and finishing hours. The general timing is sometime between 15:00 - 16:00 and often initiated by the Boy, Luke or the Texan but is much more ad hoc since it's not a guaranteed daily event even if it occurs most days. One alarming tendency recently has been by some parties to ignore the councils decision for a departure time, shaking the whole system to its core.

Then, for both these events, there's the ultimate offense, the unforgiveable; the thing you just don't do! You never ditch a member of the council and go without them unless you have their explicit approval to do so due to some specific circumstances. The intra-office politics can sometimes be difficult to navigate, but I think that I have done a good job so far in leading the council discussions and issuing announcements and declarations as necessary!

Empty Nest - Salaryman style

Those of you who have followed my blog from the beginning or has made sure to catch up on the older posts probably should be familiar with "The Boy", my former junior colleague who I first met when I joined the management consulting company that I was in when this blog got started. After I left the consultant company to become a more regular corporate suit, he stayed on and we have kept in touch as something akin to friends since I left, frequently meeting up with the old gang for drinks and very interesting rowdy conversations. Particularly me, The Boy and Luke makes for quite a dynamic team.

Considering that he's almost ten years my junior and that our first professional relationship was defined as that of him as a junior employee and me as senior, I have grown very fond of him and see him a bit as something of a mix of a surrogate son and a Mexican illegal immigrant worker I have do my dirty work for me. You can find a digest of the posts where he has played a part in some way here.

But now my little Boy is all grown up and moving out of Japan to go back to school for some fancy degree in some fancy school in Britain. Of course, I still have my biological little daughter, Baby Sunshine here with me, but seeing the Boy all grown up and moving out of the country, to a harsh and unforgiving world, makes me both worried and proud.

Looking back, some of my favorite episodes with him was probably that awfully long month we spent together with Cpt. Britain in Project, working with the boob project. After spending a month working together all day long, eating breakfast, lunch and dinner together, day after day, slowly grinding each other down, but with nothing else to do really. The final weekend together when we had to stay in Paris to finish up some things and no energy to do anything big and the Boy asks me in a very tired voice "So, yeah, you wanna have dinner together?" and I gather up all the energy I have left to put on a big smile and very enthusiastically exclaim "Yeah, I think that's a great idea, you know, I have the feeling that you and me haven't really spent enough quality time together recently".

On the bright side, maybe he'll take me to the London Dungeon and Tussauds if I squeeze in a visit!

(...and of course the title of this post is a friendly nod to neighborhood blogger Karen!)

Getting Married in Japan Part 7 - The Toastmaster...

From my earlier posts, I think you can see that considerable planning needs to go into a wedding here in Japan . But not only is the preparation phase dealt with very carefully, it is also of high importance that the actual event goes smoothly. I will deal with the program and events for the wedding reception and the planning of that more in detail in an upcoming post since there are quite a few amusing stories in that as well.

But this time, I thought I should discuss the role and responsibilities of the toastmaster during a Japanese wedding reception. Well, in terms of role, there is basically no big difference compared to a toastmaster at a European wedding reception; they are the ones making sure that the speeches and events fit in well in the program, and are in charge of making sure that things go somewhat according to plan.

For a Swedish wedding, this is not an extreme challenge since time does not need to be so strictly managed and there is a lot less risk of offending anyone by mispronouncing the name or having the order mixed up and making relative X hold his/hers speech before the much more important relative Y. As you can understand, it’s much stricter in Japan …

This area was probably the one where me and Mrs. Sunshine-Salaryman had the most arguments (thinking about it, this was basically the only area of friction) since she was very concerned about things going correctly according to Japanese customs so none of her more traditional and conservative relatives would be insulted, while I wanted to have it in a relaxed and personal way. The difficulties we had was in finding a middle ground in this and also how to solve the language problem since the guests would be a mixed bunch of Japanese and English speakers with quite a few not bilingual, requiring either a bilingual toastmaster or a translator to one of the languages.

Most people in Japan probably use a professional toastmaster/MC since that gives some assurance on things being managed professionally and with a minimum of mistakes. The toastmaster/MC would then be exclusively committed to that role and would not participate in the overall dinner and merriment. I was very resistant to the idea of having a professional toastmaster and especially the one bilingual American MC they had available annoyed me with that "HEY EVERYONE LET’S HAVE A GREAT WEDDING, MY NAME IS HARRY" faux-foreign style that some of you fellow foreigners who have lived in Japan might understand (it’s foreign, but packaged in a way that makes Japanese more comfortable with it, but makes the non-Japanese crowd feel awkward). Not to mention that it would cost a significant amount of money (around $2,000 USD…).

Since things were reaching the desperate stage and we needed to decide how to deal with this. After asking around among some of my bilingual friends here who I thought might be up to the task, but considering that these friends live in Japan and know how a wedding here works they also knew what kind of pressure this would mean, and as a result; they politely declined (just enjoying the party probably was a lot more appealing to them).

In the end, I turned to my good old friend Mr. Politician who was coming for the wedding, all the way from Sweden, and used to public speaking. In the normal Swedish way he accepted the task with honor, mentioning who he had been the toastmaster at some weddings in Sweden previously and was very honored to be asked and gladly accepted... I believe that he probably thought it would be a fun and relaxed task...

However, after waiting a few weeks after having him accept the task and making sure that it would be too late for him to turn back on his promise, I started to gradually reveal the extent of the task before him...

I am not sure on how he reacted to the stuff we mailed to him in advance to allow him to prepare for the task at hand; the time schedule charts in excel, down to individual minutes, and long strings of text that it was VERY IMPORTANT that he read exactly as they were at exactly the right time. To solve the issue of translator, with a non Japanese speaking toastmaster, we simply assigned that to The Boy, who I perceive as a cross between my son and an immigrant worker I can abuse. He only needed to follow the toastmasters lead, so the work was considerably lighter.

One of the first things I did after my friend arrived in Japan was to take him to the wedding planner for a detailed review of the activities and his tasks during the reception together with the wedding planner. During the two hour long meeting where all details and events were discussed, my friends face got gradually whiter and whiter as the extent and responsibility of his task sank in, with a tight time schedule to manage, Japanese names to remember and things he needed to take care in, to not risk offending any conservative Japanese family member.

With the risk of ending this post with a little anti-climax, in the end, he passed it with flying colors and managed to keep a nice balance between Japanese time keeping and Swedish informality, making both sides of the family very happy with the event. But at the end, he looked completely exhausted and mentioned to us that "this isn't like a Swedish wedding at all, now I know how it must feel to be the MC of a royal wedding in Sweden...".

So yeah, if someone asks you to play toastmaster at a Japanese wedding, consider it very carefully before you accept...

Happiness, Japanese-California style

Ok, early on I kinda decided that I wouldn't talk too much about personal stuff in this blog and I aim to stick to that although this post is a little borderline since it's really not that funny or bizarre in any way. But what the hell!

You see, today I attended Luke's wedding here in Tokyo and I had a great time and was actually surprised of the amount of happiness I felt on behalf of Luke when I saw him and his (now) wife. Since I know that he sometimes observes this blog (at least he goes through the notions of pretending to finding it entertaining when I tell him I posted something new and relevant to our work) I can also extend my congratulations here as well. Even though nothing is certain in life and things can take unexpected turns you can't predict and neither can or should prepare for (you can spend excessive amounts on insurances though it that's your thing), I felt that this was a special occassion and felt honored to have been invited and got to be a part of that (not to mention that the bride looked smashing). Also, the food and wine was excellent, so all in all I had a great time in a really pleasant atmosphere. Luke has been a great support for me, both in work and also helped me out with more personal things as well so he deserves all good things that are coming to him. That he's a good listener has already been document here.

From my lovely little firm, me, the boy, Meg and another person that has yet to be introduced (but deserves an introduction at some stage) were invited and we were surprised to see that we actually got really nice seats just in front of the bride and groom's seats since I was expecting that we would be placed outside the toilet or even inside it in worst case. The Boy also got recruited as the MC for the wedding ceremony which he actually managed to get through without any too serious screwups. All in all, today has been a good day so far.

So, what's the catch? Well, there's always a catch, isn't there? The catch in this case is actually not related to Luke or the actual wedding ceremony as much as it's related to how weddings are conducted here in Japan, and this wedding reception was done very much in a Japanese style. "Well, what does that mean?" you ask. Luckily I'm here to explain it to you.

Since this wedding was not a religious ceremony, at least I could avoid all the traditional and cultural trapdoors that could make me make a fool out of myself even more than usual. However, for a Japanese wedding normal "wedding presents" are not the custom, instead cash gifts are the usual thing and there's strict rules for how this is conducted. If you are a subordinate you need to give 10,000JPY (about $100), friend or same level in work you need to give 30,000JPY and if you are in a superior position you need to pay up 50,000JPY. Not only that, these bills also need to be fresh from the money press and not old used ones so just taking them out of your wallet isn't good enough. No, you need to go to the bank and get this! If this wasn't enough of a hassel to deal with, you also need to get a proper envelope for this occassion which actually isn't as easy as it seems. Fortunately the Boy could guide me on how to do this properly. I actually feel a little bad since I only gave 30,000JPY when I should have given 50,000, but this was not a strategic money management decision as much as it was due to ignorance.

So, ok, you're paying up a not insignificant amount of money for this, but what do you get in return? Well, first of all you obviously get to participate in the wedding ceremony with the drinks, food and that kinda stuff, but there's also the complex Japanese gift giving tradition to deal with. That means that you also get a present in return for you giving the gift and participating in the ceremony. I was actually partially dissapointed at the gift for this wedding since it wasn't a towel... In Japan you get a lot of towels... But it was actually a nice gift of sweets and two nice wine glasses fitting Luke's fetish for good wines.

Now I just need someone to use the glasses together with.

Looking deeply into condoms in Japan

As we are now reaching those slightly stale and awkward days between Christmas and New Year's when you don't really know what to do with all that celebratory atmosphere you built up to for Christmas and hope to maintain the momentum until the New Year's eve, I can't really be bothered to maintain my regular sharp analysis of Japan current affairs and politics.

So, instead I thought I should let you all readers know of the wonders of the Japanese condom market and one particular player with significant share; Okamoto Condoms and their animal condom series (what? I don't have any real source for it but I googled it and someone somewhere on the Internet said it so it's good enough for me!). I'm not going to get into the whole Japanese condom sizes vs. those regularly sold in the western markets, but I think it's pretty uncontroversial to say that the standard Japanese sizes are a bit smaller than the specs of those targeted for the western markets.

But, as in any market, there are niches to fill for those who do not fit into the standard norm and Okamoto does not shy away from this. For those with larger appendixes requiring larger condoms, they have the "Super Big Boy" condom (see the picture below). Note how the key visual to illustrate this is a horse...

I've seen the above brand around for quite a long time, but earlier today by chance I happened to see their newest addition to the family...The "Mega Big Boy"! For those for whom not even the Super Big Boy is enough and if the name isn't enough they have chose to use an image of an elephant as the key visual...

But if you have been blessed with a slightly smaller and perhaps more convenient size of penis where even the standard sizes prove to be a bit too large, what do you do then? Fear not, Okamoto has thought of you too and launched the "Smart Boy" just for you and the key visual is an... ... ... eagle...?

I can see the connection between Horse - Large penis and Elephant - Really Large PENIS but I fail to see the connection between an eagle and a smaller penis and I'm still trying to figure out what's smart about having a small penis?

There can be only One!

Working now during the 2nd and 3rd when most of the Japanese people as well as people in my lovely company, are either out fighting over the sales going on all over the place, or sitting at home under their kotatsu and eating mochi, me, the Boy, Dr. Y and New Girl (yet to be fully introduced) were toiling away in the office like a normal day. However, since the Boy and Dr. Y basically are finished with their current project Dr. Y had brought his Wii into the office to keep them entertained now during the calm.

It was impossible to not get pulled into some of the gaming that went on and the 2008 Mario Party Office Championships were held. I played my game strategic, both in the boardgame section and in the mini-games and managed to, without much effort, take home the title. My colleagues at least acknowledged my superiority and I think I gained a great deal of respect today! Please see the video of my victory dance! It did take a bit of time away from the horrible project I'm working on at the moment, but with the title secured I can say it was worth it and I'll compensate by getting stuff done tomorrow!

Last year I also crushed the opposition in Wii Sports (Tennis, Bowling, Golf as well as Baseball) and I still sometimes remind the Boy about the beating he received in Def Jam:Icon last year, as well as the harsh taunts he had to endure in-game.

The image characters we rely on for protection

As I previously, tongue-in-cheek, did the ranking of the top 3 worst image characters in Japan (here) I didn't really think much about it and aimed for a entertaining slant for the post. However, as I the other day noticed the official image character of the Japan fire department, I figured it is time that some serious critical journalism takes a good look at some of these characters that represent official authorities that we depend on in our daily lives. I think it is fair to say that, as a Japanese tax-payer, I should be able to put much higher expectations on such characters than those developed for commercial purposes. If you are a faithful reader you already know that I am unreliable and extremely slow in following up on earlier promises, but it is my intention to follow up other areas and investigate their characters further on as well.

The characters that are the focus of my investigation this time are Kyuuta, representing the Tokyo Fire department, and Piipo-kun, representing the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, very important tasks as you can easily understand.

Kyuuta - Protecting you from fires

This is the official character of the Tokyo Fire department and information about who he/she is and what its objectives are is very difficult find which raises the questions "what is it Kyuuta doesn't want us to know?". But yeah, after the whole Keisei Panda backstory mess, it can be a relief to have a character without a ridiculous backstory. In fact, the whole Kyuuta feels a bit amateurish and underdeveloped actually, the name comes from the final "9" ("kyuu" in Japanese) in the Japanese "911 number"; 119, and the red color of his clothes shows that he's a firefighter and the color of the helmet is for water, to extinguish the fires. The antenna can apparently flash when he needs to go extinguish a fire, but he doesn't seem to have any other biological means of making noise than his/hers mouth. I do find it pretty cowardly that they haven't assigned Kyuuta a sex, call it a boy or girl and then live with it.

(Also, introducing here for the first time the "character rating scale 1-10, 10 is the best")

Cuteness: 2

Freaky backstory: 1

Educational: 4

Creepiness: 6

Total Verdict: 3 - All in all a pretty lame character and it's pretty obvious that it was primarily made to get kids to remember the 119 number, but that's no excuse to make a half assed attempt. I would advise them to hire Sanrio and have a proper character assigned to the job, it is hard times and we can't afford to keep lame characters afloat just for the sake of it. That he has his own theme song that is extremely lame doesn't really help his case either (listen here).

Piipo-kun - Protecting the streets

Unfortunately the Tokyo PD saw the lead of the fire department and decided that they could not let themselves be seen as sloppy and not dedicated, and they created their own character. The official explanation to the design was "we took some cute characteristics of animals and used them when we created the character". One of the better things with this character is that he, as well, do not have a bizarre backstory. He does have a family however, but they are not much featured and are just serving as props in his adventures. The basic concept of Piipo-kun can be summarized in one word: "surveillance". His ears are large so he can hear what you are talking about, he has an antenna so he can react quickly to any of your sudden movements and his eyes are large so he can see what you are doing. The name is an amalgam of the English words "People" and "Police".

Cuteness: 4
Freaky backstory: 1
Educational: 3
Creepiness: 4
Total Verdict: 4 - I find this character slightly more likeable than Kyuuta, but not by much. The main redeeming feature of this Piipo-kun is that he at least is slightly cute and even if he is surveying my every move, he doesn't seem like he would pose much of a fight if it came to that.

Addition: After some more research, unfortunately I found out that Piipo-kun as well happens to have his own theme song... Not sure which one is worst, but I think this one is slightly better than that of Kyuuta since the katakana Japanese-English at least makes it amusing. Subject yourself to the song at your own risk here (click the link next to the flash icon)

Worst Image Character of Japan - Top 3 2009

Before I kick this epic post off properly into it's full glory, my own personal stance to the topic in question should probably be clarified.

As many of my readers probably know, "Image Characters" are very popular here in Japan. Plenty of companies and institutions have these characters to "soften" the message and to help illustrate whatever the message is in a cute way. Personally I don't have any problems with this approach although I know quite a few foreigners here in Japan, and a few Japanese as well I should add for good measure, who thinks these image characters are stupid and the concept in itself is for children and not for grown men.

However, sometimes these character really don't hit the mark... The larger companies go with surefire characters, homegrown such as Hello Kitty, Doraemon, Atom Boy or imported ones such as Snoopy, Moomin, Miffy or similar. The cuteness of those well established character brands is well established so there is little risk of missing the mark. Even if you can't afford to get the actual Hello Kitty license, you can at least try to get the Keroppi license...

With that lengthy and cumbersome disclaimer out of the way, let's get the real post on the road! As you might understand, this post deals with those characters that weren't... well... maybe that well thought out? Characters that fail to evoke that feeling of affection and just plain miss the mark, by far.

Worst Characters of Japan

Number 3 - The Keisei Panda

Well, this character just makes me uncomfortable... You would think that it's hard to use a panda and not get the "cute" right, but this Panda is anything but cute, I'm not sure but I think it's the mouth that gives it a slightly creepy look. The Panda is the official character of the Keisei Railways credit cards and to it's credit it has to be said that it's thankfully not very well known among the general public and I have a feeling it never well. Let's just not mention the weird backstory about how he came to earth from the rich and bountiful "Panda Planet", sent by his father to save the earth...

Number 2 - Kuutan, the Narita Airport Character

This one just feel so off the mark in so many ways... In a bid to improve the image of the Narita airport this character was created a few years ago. You would think that a better way to increase the image of the airport would be to make it more accessible and customer friendly instead of paying some stupid agency tons of money to come up with this lame design... To it's credit, the backstory is hardly there at all and Kuutan keeps a very low profile these days...

Number 1 - Sentokun, the Nara Prefecture Character

The worst of the worst, the image character of the ancient capital of Japan and home of the free roaming deers and beautiful buddist temples; Nara. I've been to Nara quite a few times and it's really an amazing place that I would recommend people to visit even if in Japan with limited time. It's less hectic than Kyoto but contains many impressive temples in a calm and nice environment. But then... this character? I believe that a mix of buddism and deers was the general concept for this one, but what they came up with was just plain... .... disturbing... His favorite foods are stated to be "tasty things from Nara", that is just a pretty obvious sign of "character creating block"... Sentokun is the well deserved winner of the "worst character of Japan 2009"!

(I'm sure that there are plenty of other bad seeds out there, so if you have any other really bad characters in your mind, please drop a line in the comments and I might follow this one up with a full top 10, I'm sure the material is out there...)

Shock and Awe

There's a lot of stuff going on in my lovely company that can be classified as unusal, crazy or disturbing but rarely do we encounter stupidity in the pure form we encountered today... It was the shock and awe tactics of stupidity, and no surprise, I was shocked and I was awed.

The most recent project I have been working together with Luke, the Boy and Mr. Chin Jr. on has been a complete clownshow with a large number involved parties competing for the role as the lead clown while we have been trying to avoid getting too entangled and as much as possible tried to stay away and watch from the side. Last week we thought we had somehow finished this mess with our honor somewhat intact, granted, some tweaking was done to adapt to the politics of the client but nothing so shameful that it demanded a harakiri session. We looked into the market, did an analysis and provided a decent report for the client which we thought would be the end of it all.

However, now it seems like the project has involved to include a second part where we are going to look more into detail. One of the key findings of this particular market was that getting access to sales channels would be one of the largest hurdles to market entry as well as differentiation of the product. We also recommended the client to develop a product that targeted a certain segment of the market where we saw some potential to grow, and also avoid the heaviest competition. So far so good, today we talked with Mr. Chin about how to proceed over the phone.

Now, for the sake of argument, let's say that this product in question is "potato chips" which is mostly sold by "supermarkets". Now in the phone conference, Mr. Chin very seriously blurts out;

"I think that it might make sense for the client to acquire a supermarket chain to get immediate access to their sales channel, I have heard that there is one that fits the customer segment that we have in mind".

For a brief moment there is just complete silence in the room, we look at each other and just shake our heads and it takes me a couple of seconds to gather myself enough to very mildly ask Mr. Chin;

"Ok, but do you really think that this potato chips manufacturer wants to go into the supermarket business? Isn't supermarkets a little different from what they usually do, and also considering that potato chips is an extremely marginal source of profit for the individual supermarket...?".

A short silence follows whereafter Mr. Chin replies;

"Well, maybe we need to just show them why it's not a good idea to do this".

Again a short silence whereafter I say;

"Really, if they can't understand by themselves why this is a really bad idea I don't think there's any point in explaining it to them... Did the client really say that they thought this would be a viable approach?!"

Again, a longer silence followed by;

"No, not specifically but..."

Thankfully, the topic changed to more meaningful discussions after this and this was not brought up again, but the moment the phone was hung up there was plenty of merriment in the meeting room. Like ambulance drivers and other people in intense professions, humour has become our defense mechanism to survive.

Now, one would think and hope that this would be enough severe stupidity for one day but shortly after this phone conference I had another phone conference with Mr. Chin together with my new team for another project that is just starting up; Meg and Dr. Y. One of the topics we brought up with Mr. Chin was preparations for an interview with a client that we have been planning and we wanted to make sure that he was comfortable with the questions we were going to ask. In the beginning the meeting goes reasonably well, with us outlining our current status in the project and the plans going forward, so far so good. Except for a few comments from Mr. Chin that didn't really make sense and made us do the question mark faces, but didn't seem important for us to really care about. Just when we thought everything was fine and set for the phone interview the following day a question comes up from Mr. Chin;

"So... tomorrow we're going to talk to this guy and ask him questions?"

The whole meeting Mr. Chin had talked and appeared to be listening, but he had never understood one thing about what the meeting was about... Meg and Dr. Y has not yet been as exposed as me to the nature of Mr. Chin so they did not respond with humour but instead with pure disbelief.

Believe me, this is heavy stuff to experience, all in one day...

Since I will be working with them for some time ahead and they might very well appear as supporting characters in my future adventures, here comes brief profiles of Meg and Dr. Y:

Meg is one of those people that almost instantly triggers my inferiority complex in that she's extremely smart, friendly and always nice. She's in a junior position but has relatively long experience in the company and therefore knows a lot of the tricks of the trade. Very "Ivy League" but not snobbish about it. I almost hope to see some really bad side of her since it would be a relief to know that she also got flaws.

Intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 6
Un-intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 1

Dr. Y is a Japanese guy in his mid 30's and in a position just one step below me. He's a Harvard doctor in biology or something similar. He quite recently joined the company and is a really nice guy but has not yet adapted to the work since it's quite different from his earlier area of expertise.

Intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 6

Un-intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 2

My very own Reality Show

Once upon when I was still a young pup, living and studying in Sweden I wasted some parts of my youth watching reality tv shows. As an exchange student in rural Japan, I had a brief fling with the show "pink love bus", but otherwise it's not a popular genre here so I haven't seen any and can't really say I miss the genre really either.

However, since I left the craziness of the consultant company behind me to the more rigid corporate stupidity I do miss some of the insanity that went on there and it's a lot more fun when you're on the outside looking in. I also still keep in touch with quite a few of the people there through instant messenger, during working hours and I've realized that I treat the ongoings there very much like my own slightly interactive reality drama. The main characters I follow are The Boy and Luke with a large host of supporting characters and the drama in the ongoing projects serve as different plot lines that I eagerly follow. It's got everything, comedy (especially the antics of El Presidente), action (especially the antics of El Presidente) and tragedy (especially the fallout of the antics of El Presidente), basically anything you could wish from a reality show. Granted, there's not much sex or romance, but you can't have everything.

Like Friday last week, in the middle of a nonsense convoy with the Boy about nothing in particular I suddenly get the message:

"Oh shit, El Presidente is going monkey!"

"He's losing it, saying fuckfuckfuck loudly to himself!"

(imagine the entertainment for me to follow this in realtime)

"now he's screaming to himself, saying that he needs paper"

"it's gone quiet now"

Obviously this raises my interest so to get another perspective on this I message Captain Britain and he can give me another perspective on the "how"s and "why"s of this monkey episodes. They basically act as my cameras into the action and allows me to see the action from different perspectives. The greatest reality drama ever and there is going to be a 360 review (which I have described earlier) which will yield plenty of interesting drama and I will tune in to catch this!

Also, on rare occasions I get the opportunity to guest star as I did pretty recently when I had lunch with El Presidente and Mr. Shachou to discuss possible areas to work together in the future (none I made sure). If they filmed this I promise that it would be a reality tv-show hit!

Home Security, for a price...

After the recent burglary that our little neighborhood experienced a few months ago (see here) and a rush among many of our neighbors to start using the services of one of the many home security companies here in Japan, we started to feel the pressure to do the same ourselves.

Not that I personally felt overly worried, but Mrs. Sunshine thought the whole thing was a bit scary and being one of the few houses without any form of security services would increase the risk our house ending up as a burglary target.

The two main players here in Japan are the market leader SECOM followed by Alsok (hey, I think at least, this is not backed by any statistics!) with some minor players like CSP. As the shrewd businessman that I am, I am very careful in picking which company to use and the main tool I use to determine this is through watching the commercials that they show on TV.

First, let's take a look at the runner-up, Alsok and their commercial featuring the olympic medal winner female wrestler whose name escapes me at the moment. This is probably the first time that she actually has worn make-up!

Then, we can see the commercial from SECOM. This one is a bit older though, the more recent ones feature the boy band SMAP:er Kimura Takuya (whom neighborhood blogger Corrinne's sister in law has very strong feelings about), but the newer ones are a bit harder to understand if you don't know Japanese so I think this one is representable enough.

As you can probably understand, the decision was easy and we went with SECOM. After a visit from their lady "Advisor" (read: sales rep, whom shockingly enough was one of the first people ever that Baby Sunshine didn't scream out in terror when first meeting her, not sure if that's good or bad though...). We basically went with their full plan, which without having electrified floor or hidden laser turrets, still felt pretty hi-tech and was asked as to whether we wanted to purchase the system or rent it. Purchasing the system would have amounted to a hefty 350,000 JPY (~$3,500 something) and I briefly managed to through the lady rep off guard when I told her that if we would purchase it, it would be among the most expensive things that we have in our house and that I would be afraid that the thieves would steal it.

We sealed the deal and one week later they would come over and install all the hi-tech equipment and we were told that they were extremely busy, so there would likely only be one person doing the job. Come the next weekend and four people from SECOM show up at our base of operations, later on joined by a security guard who came in without knocking (ok, the front door was open and a lot of stuff was moved in and out) casually hung out in our living room for a little while, telling one of his colleagues that was there that he came over because "I had nothing better to do and thought I could hang out here". I think someone had words with him because five minutes later he was gone as silently as he had joined the party.

But all in all, we're happy with the security now and even installed a lock on the inside of our bedroom door that probably would withstand a medium size dwarf going at it for a few minutes before breaking down (Mrs. Sunshine wanted it for security while I thought more of the convenience of stopping Baby Sunshine from wandering in at ... ... ... inconvenient times when she's a bit older). Perhaps a break-in to our house could be featured in the next Mission: Impossible movie?

The Crazy Bunch

On Friday this week we had something that can be most suitably be labeled " a carnival of incompetence". Basically a minor chain of continuous incompetence over an extended period of time that culminated in an intense outbreak of incompetence.

I am not completely certain of the scale used to measure incompetence, but this would end up on the higher end of the scale, we're talking incompetence that if it would be an earthquake easily would level even the sturdies built cities...

Anyway, the story behind that is tied to my current project that I've touched upon a little earlier and surely will have reason to come back to more later on, but I thought I should spend today's post on some of the merry pranksters that make my office so interesting and unintentionally funny from time to time. So, make sure you sit comfortably and have a refreshments handy (whisky would be my personal recommendation) and I'll give you a brief description!

Ok, first and foremost, we have El Presidente, the CEO and co-founder of our little company. Actually a pretty nice guy at most times, but has some problems with his temper. Depending on his mood of the day things can become a little blown out of proportion and cause grief and bodily harm. Fortunately, the main target of his agression is not me or the people working on projects, but there has been collateral damage... The main target is the co-founder and vice president, Mr. J.

Intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 5

Un-intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 6

Then we have the co-founder and vice president, Mr. J. He is a very serious person that likes to drive his teams into the ground. Often with soul-crushing mind numbing work that is completely pointless and anyway gets scrapped when El President lays his eyes on it. He's also a hopeless masochist that time and time again puts himself in the line of fire of El Presidente's wrath. A complete lack of humor also makes for many amusing situations. He is often the source of many of our incompetence related accidents... I probably need to devote an entire post to more in detail describe the relationship between El Presidente and Mr. J since it is too complicated to describe here quickly, and there's plenty of humor there I wouldn't wanna simplify here.

Intentional Amusement Level (1-10): -2
Un-intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 10

Then we have Mr. K who just started in the company in a managerial position. Actually a very reasonable person with common sense. It's still a mystery to us how such a person joined our company... The main discussion in the office regarding him is whether he's gay or not, not that it is anything that anyone in the office would have any problem with, but it vexes us.

Intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 5

Un-intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 4

Then we go further down in the organization...

We have Ms. A in a mid-level position, actually a very nice japanese lady in her early forties. She is also very very Christian... I personally am not too hot about religion and that opinion is shared by most of my colleagues as well. Standing by her desk feels more like you entered the Sistine Chapel by mistake... There's the bible and some other illustrated biblical book, various copied proverbs lying around and Christian themed screensavers. I have not been directly affected by this, but there has been incidents when she tells people how God guides her business decisions...

Intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 4

Un-intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 7

Then comes the Texan, one of the least modest people I have ever met... Actually a very nice guy and someone whom I share a number of interests with, but not a very modest person to say the least. Although this very much fits my image of people from Texas, as a European person I don't know how much is prejudice, but anyway. He's also the person responsible for us in the office having to endure a "sexual harrasment" training later this month... To add to the irony, he will be out of the office the time we have the training...

Intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 6.5

Un-intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 3

Moving slightly down in the organization we have Luke, one of the people in my current project team and together with had to endure the recent tsunami of incompetence. He looks like he was rejected from the Ramones with the phrase "get a haircut!". He's also the kind of person that never is in any hurry, stress just never seem to be able to reach him. However, beneath the ragged looks and slow manners is an extremely sharp brain and unexpected interest; wine and cooking....

Intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 8

Un-intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 3

To continue with the people in my current project team, we have the Boy. A half-japanese, half eastern European guy in his early twenties that insists that he's Japanese because that's what his passport says. He's a pretty thin guy, but the amounts of food that he can down at lunch time never ceases to amaze me, we're talking pretty large volumes here... His hunger is so great that it has a gravity of its own and it happens that I get pulled into it as well on occasion.

Intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 7
Un-intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 1

Another source of great amusement is Mr. M, also a young guy in the early twenties who for some reason seem to think that he's much better than the other people at the same level as him. For some reason he's also very open about his love life, or rather, his lack of a love life. He has confided in several people that not only has he never had sex with anyone, but he has never even kissed anyone in his whole life... What surprises us the most is that he actually volunteers this information by himself without being pressured into it at all. I believe that I will have plenty of opportunity to get back to this topic again later on...

Intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 2
Un-intentional Amusement Level (1-10): 9

That's about half of the people in the office and I might gradually introduce newer characters as they make entertaining appearances (which I am sure of), but to start the drama of, I think these will do.

An honorable death?

I freely admit that I'm not really providing you people with the latest news from Japan and news and other items often nest themselves in the back of my head and slowly move forward to in the end manifest themselves in this little blog.

You see, about a month ago there was an incident in Osaka where a fire started in a building with a video booth shop in it. As a Swede, these type of establishments are very much connected with the red light districts and has an overall seedy image and I don't think I hardly ever even has seen one until I came to Japan. Also, after the home video became widespread I think most of those places dissapeared since people could now get their regular porn fix in the privacy of their own homes and the few remaining establishments must have catered to that crowd of people that for some reason got a kick out of going outside for their porn fix.

However, not so here in Japan, I don't know how many such establishments there are in the Ikebukuro area where I live alone, but I would guess that at least 50 is not a bold estimate. In the local restaurant and nightlife area they are a common sight nested in between the bars, the restaurants and the places that provide recommendations to the bar/hostess bar/sex club scene. Looking from the advertisements and signs it seems like they very much target the salaryman crowd, perhaps they like to "take a break" there before going home to the wife and kids in which watching porn has proven to be to difficult.

Now, in the Osaka fire, something around 7 men were caught in there, couldn't escape and died from the smoke and the fire. In Japan, such an event is of course nation wide news and it was the headliner news on basically all the news channels. The peculiar thing that I noticed was that no names were given... If a similar accident had happened at, say a department store, they would list the names of those who expired in the fire, but nothing such for this event. I am not sure on whether this was because the relatives that didn't want to have it blasted all over the news that their husband/brother/child frequented such establishments or because the tv companies decided that keeping it a little more discreetly would be the best route. In any case, it's a tragic event and nothing to joke about really.

Personally, I have never visited one of these places, but I do admit to a general curiousity of how it works, how the rooms look and how the service is, it wouldn't be to "use the facilities" but more to see how one of these places actually look like. However, the thought of being in a room where hundreds and hundreds of people have been sitting jacking off is less than appealing to me (do they clean the walls too?) so I decided to outsource it. For the bargain sum of 2000 yen plus expenses covered, The Boy will visit one establishment on my behalf and provide me with some pictures and a report. The current timeline for this project is in two weeks and I will happily report back to you so you can decide if it's worth taking a look.

I did clearly state that I could provide no insurance for him in the case of a fire, but I could approach his mother and tell her that he visited at my request which I'm sure she wouldn't believe in any case...

Maybe you just shouldn't read that stuff?

Back in my former consulting days, I worked pretty closely for a long time especially with the Boy and Luke, resulting in that we got pretty close, which in turn resulted in this weird work tradition of giving each other birthday presents. For his birthday, quite a while back, I gave him the great book "American Psycho" (whatever you do, don't watch the movie and think that you know the book), which is filled with pornography mixed with pretty intense scenes of torture and violence. Don't get me wrong though, it's a great book.

Then a bit later, during our boob trip to Paris I gave him the great Jeffrey Dahmer biography "The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer" after I had finished with it. At the time, he didn't bother to read it, but brought it home and during a recent trip overseas he had it with him and finished it.

What happened later on was, that the Boy, for reasons not completely known to me, left both books clearly visible on a table during a visit to his parents, and his mom (not Japanese and not that good at reading Japanese) for some reasons picked them up and read through both of them, cover to cover. Resulting in somewhat of a shock for the Boy during his following visit to his parents when his mom confronted him with the books he had been reading (and she in turn had read), to check that he was not in secret a bloodthirsty sexual predator serial killer.

He explained that both books had been a gift from his former boss (which I'm sure assured his mom of the professionalism of the consulting company he works in...) and during a particular part where his mom, on the verge of tears, expressed her utmost disgust for a description on how Jeffrey Dahmer once cut up the stomach of one of his victims and used the still warm entrails as masturbatory tools, he asked the obvious question "If you find it so disgusting, why did you read through all of it?". From what I've been told, there never came a satisfactory answer to that question.

I have been thinking of sending him more serial killer biographies that he can put at random places in his parents home and see how many of them she'll read before she'll realize that she probably shouldn't read that type of books...

Yeah, let's go for Chinese food!

Today me and the boy got fed up with the standard menu which all restaurants in Paris seems to carry which consists mainly of steak and fries. We thought we should try something a little different and since Captain Britain is away (for some reason he always vetoed Asian or Indian food) we thought it could be interesting to try some Chinese food here in Paris and get a little change.from all the meat and fries.

Well... we were in for a surprise... We actually looked at one place and discarded it as crappy looking and went for the place with red ailings and gold writing which should be an universal sign of authentic Chinese cuisine. It is hard to describe the quality and service we received at this place, and the bad quality of the food was almost entertaining. Since we in Japan are quite used to Chinese food and your Mr. Salaryman has also been to China having the real deal I think it is fair to say that we know decent Chinese food when we have it. This place didn't have it. The soup I had as a starter really tasted like warm water and The Boy refused to believe it for a good while until he tasted it. To add insult to injury the place wasn't particularly cheap either and service consisted of a middle-aged Chinese man with a bad moustasche coming to our table, looking pissed off and aggressively shouting out the name of the food we ordered. At least the extreme bad quality of the food resulted in some entertainment from me and The Boys side speaking in English and probably embarrasing the middle aged British couple next to us, probably on their second honey-moon or so thinking they had hit the genuine deal. I can tell you that we're not going back, looks like steak and fries is the safest way to go here in Paris...

Things I really hate about France and the French 5:

Chinese restaurants in Paris...