Is that right, volume 5? I dunno, I've lost count over the years.

I figure, having lived in this country for almost 5 years now, that I've pretty much seen and heard everything. Well, not everything mind you (I don't live in Tokyo), but I think I've had my fair share of knock-you-on-the-floor-WTF moments. From The Greatest Question Ever ("how many women have you raped?"), to Ms. Americanized's "c'mon America, come bomb the shit out of us", and even the one time I was greeted by a 14-year old Japanese girl with "Hey nigga!" only to have the Japanese woman standing next to me exclaim "What the fuck?!", all in English*, I kind of figured there wasn't much else that could phase me anymore.

Boy, was I wrong.

*I'm still amazed that the universe didn't collapse into itself upon this incredibly unlikely sequence of events converging upon each other at one specific point in time.

***

Try to imagine: you're an Australian guy, you came to Hokkaido, Japan as an English teacher where you worked for two years. Wanting to get out of the English teaching field, and a change of scenery, you manage to find a job in translation in Osaka. Not long after you've moved your whole life from the green rolling hills of Hokkaido to the hustle and bustle of Osaka, and left behind the joys and wonders of English teaching* for a desk job, some of the guys at your new workplace take you out for a few drinks. And it doesn't take very long for the Korean guy to ask you, "Now, exactly how long is your dick?"

*Complete sarcasm.

I really don't remember how the conversation got to this point. It could have been anything, really - we could have been talking about Care Bears, the state of the American economy, or The Spanish Inquisition (which nobody expects). All I know is that we ended up on penis size, and the Korean guy, in 100% earnestness, asks the Australian guy "C'mon, how long is your junk?"

If you've been reading along, you know that I'm no stranger to conversations about my penis, or someone else's penis, while in Japan. When I lived in America, the penis was a lot like The Illuminati: something that possesses great power, but only works in the shadows. The penis was never seen or talked about - when there was a use for it, it appeared, did its job, and disappeared back into the mysterious shadows. ...This is not the case in Japan. Holy crap is it not. But while I've been subject to a lot of penis discussion, most of it has still been laden in innuendo - how monstrously big I must be, and how poor Japanese guys must look small in comparison.

I can honestly say that this is the first time I've ever heard someone just flat out ask for a precise measurement.

Not only me and the Australian guy, but the other Japanese guys there as well are floored by the question. The Australian guy does, really, the only thing he can do in this situation - attempt to deflect the question like a skillful politician. "And what about Az? Why aren't you asking Az this question?" The Korean guy's answer: "Oh, I already know."

He's referring to a snowboarding trip we took a few months ago. The resort we stayed at didn't have private bathrooms, so we all had to bathe together in the public baths. On the first day I managed to avoid going at the same time as everyone else, but on the second day it was now or never - and given the choice of keeping my naughty bits unseen, or having to endure a 7 hour bus ride while dirty...well, I jumped in the bath. Cleanliness > modesty.

Me: ...Aha! I knew it! I knew you'd look.
Korean Guy: Of course I did. When else am I going to get such a fine opportunity?
Australian Guy: ...And?
Korean Guy: I thought, yeah, not bad while small, but I couldn't help but to wonder how big it'd get hard...
Me: THERE WAS NO REASON FOR ME TO GET HARD WHILE BATHING TOGETHER WITH ALL OF YOU.
Korean Guy: Yeah, I know, but still, I had to wonder. I thought about maybe coming over and talking about porn with you, seeing if I couldn't get a rise out of you.
Me: I repeat: THERE WAS NO REASON FOR ME TO GET HARD WHILE BATHING TOGETHER WITH ALL OF YOU.
Korean Guy: Yeah, yeah, I know. Anyway *back to Australian Guy*, so, how many centimeters long is your dick?

As we try to explain to the Korean guy that this is not really a question that men ask each other, he tells us its quite common in Korea - in fact, according to him at least, when guy friends want to cement their bond, they go to a public bath together and size each other up.

...We all agreed that Korea was going to be dead last on our list of "Countries To Visit Next."

***

One day out of the blue, Small Wonder turns to me and the Australian guy and asks "What does '7th Heaven' mean?"

...A cheesy show on the WB that has somehow eluded the cancellation hook?

All jokes aside, we tried to explain that it meant something really good, like how eating a slice of New York cheesecake might put you in 7th Heaven or something. Small Wonder asks us if its a common phrase. We tell her no, we don't really use it that often.

"Oh," she says, "so I guess I can't really use "take her to 7th heaven with your new monster tool!" in any English conversations, can I?"

...For the love of God, PLEASE stop trying to pick up colloquial English from spam email titles. No good can ever come from this.

***

There's a new Japanese lady at work. She speaks English quite well - she's married to an Australian guy (not the same guy from above), and had spent several years on study abroad in America and in Australia with her husband before coming back to Japan. She tells me that she'd stayed in the good 'ol south while in America, and even had a southern accent to boot! She no longer has the southern accent, but I really wish she did, as nothing would round out my experience in Japan better than a Japanese woman speaking in a country drawl.

Anyway, one day I was talking to her about all the various things I have to do around the house. As we're both working, my wife expects me to pull in my share of the housework. If she cooks, I have to do the dishes. And I have to remember to properly do the laundry before it starts to pile up. Things I may drag my feet about...but no matter how much I want to argue about it, ultimately she's right so the only thing I can do is just suck it up and do it.

So as I was explaining this, this Japanese woman stops for a minute and says "Oh, waitaminute, you're...you're...oh, I know this word....you're pussywhipped!" When her outburst reduced me to a laughing mess on the ground, she fretted "oh, I've been picking up too much bad language from my husband..."

Now, when a Japanese woman tells you, in English no less, that you're pussywhipped...I think that's sort of a code red emergency. I feel like I need to round up 299 of my fellow countrymen and defend the ideals of freedom and justice in a fight to the death against 1 million Persian soldiers. While I wear nothing more than a cape, a helmet, and some speedos. Nothing less will allow me to reclaim my manhood.

***

One day, Doris and the Japanese lady mentioned above were processing refunds. The Japanese woman was marvelling over some type of bra with gel pads designed for extra lift and roundness and...whatever it is that bra pads do. My knowledge about bras is limited to how to take them off with one hand. While translating and processing the item data, we'd come across the description for the "super gel pads" or whatever, so the Japanese woman was thrilled to get to see a real live one. As I'd done the translation for this particular product, I was a bit curious, so I turned around to also get a look at it.

"Here you go," Doris says, handing me one of the gel pads. "You just wanted to touch some gel titty, didn't you?" she says. I tell her that wasn't my intent, but her answer to that is "No no, it's okay - you've been in Japan for awhile now, haven't you? I can imagine you're pretty titty-deprived." She turns to the Australian guy who sits next to me. "C'mon, you can touch the gel titties too!" The Australian guy, who is ordinarily pretty reserved, refuses the offer, but Doris literally throws the gel pad into his hand. "C'mon, you're a guy, don't be modest! You can be honest about wanting to grope a little titty. It's okay."

As the Australian guy continues to deny wanting to cop a feel on a bra pad, Doris begins another one of her epic dialogues. Pointing to me and the Australian guy, she says "See, you guys probably know nothing about bra pads. You both come from countries where the women have ample bosoms and don't need these kinds of things. But see, we Asians aren't that blessed - we NEED these. Without these, we just look like flat-chested little boys. But hey, with these bra pads, maybe we can almost start to look feminine! Oh, if only I'd been born in America! Then I could join you two in being amazed over bra pads, and not secretly thinking of all the padded bras I have at home!"

You know, if I ever do put Operation D-Cup into motion someday, I think I've found a passionate and committed general to help spearhead the cause.

***

Speaking of, I got Doris to repeat her "Asians are flat" rant. The Japanese lady asked Doris to tell her a funny joke...Doris then defaulted to me, and then I once again pulled out the nearest catalog, and pointed out how all of the regular clothes models were Japanese, but then when it came to underwear models, they all suddenly became Gaijin. Doris repeats her "Asians are flat!" rant, which the Australian guy and Japanese woman had never heard before, and thus were floored laughing.

"Unfortunately," Doris says, "this isn't a joke. This is reality. Look at this," she says, pointing to a rare page that featured a Japanese underwear model. "You don't think - oh, sexy beautiful woman! No. This makes me think of that little strip of highway that airplanes land on."

"You mean a runway?" I manage to blurt out between laughs.

"Oh, is that what its called? Yeah, a runway! See, look! *flips to a page with foreign models* Beautiful, sexy, curvy women. *flips to the page with the Japanese model* Japan airlines flight 22, now landing on runway 6. Just straight and flat."

I'm starting to think she has a bit of a complex about this.

***********

For those who keep asking about the wedding fund: click on the button below for donations.

The official date is September 20th. I will try to throw up a few pictures of the event - its the least I can do.

Remember in the last update when I said that my wife wanting a baby was serious business? Well, actually, it's far worse than I thought.

Faithful readers may remember that my wife got a little antsy about marriage when her two best friends, K-san and S-san, both got married at more or less exactly the same time. So now, you're probably figuring that either K-san or S-san got knocked up, which is making my wife antsy about the parenthood thing. You would be close, but continuing with the "God Is Conspiring Against Me" theory - actually its something completely different.

Despite the usual Japanese tendency to get a newlywed wife knocked up as soon as possible, both K-san and S-san don't have any buns in the oven yet. Apparently, with S-san's husband working the typical life of a Japanese salaryman, he comes home tired on the weekdays and unable to do anything*, therefore the two only have sex on the weekends. So, no baby yet.

*While I suppose this is a decent sex life, it goes against my fundamental theory of "If I Can, I Will." The theory goes a little something like this - if I can, I will. It really doesn't matter what state I'm in - dead tired, sleepy, drunk, sick, injured, melancholy, emo, retrospective, whatever. I can be on the brink of death - as long as I can rise to the occasion, I'll do it. I didn't even let my broken collarbone break my stride. I think this is the result of me being sexually frustrated all throughout high school, and college for the most part. I'm like a starving Ethiopian child - can't turn your nose up at whatever scraps might come your way, because you never know when the next meal is gonna be.

Continue reading "Baby Blues"

Yes, despite reports to the contrary, I was not dead these past two months. No, rather, the next best thing - I've been working like a Japanese salaryman. Not that I'm putting in long hours anymore, but I no longer have the time to write articles in secret at my desk. I don't always have the luxury to do them at home either. I'd been thinking "Man, I really want to update the site!", but a whole week would go by without me being able to do anything, and the next thing I knew it was a whole two months. Man, time flies.

So, as it seems people are curious, just a few updates as to what's been going on lately. And no, the title of this piece has nothing to do with anything computer related.

***

Yes, I am actually married now.

"But wait," many of your are saying, "didn't you say September?" Yes, yes I did. Funny, that. You see, more or less the instant I proposed to my girlfriend...well, wife now, in her mind we were already married. The rest is just formalities. In my head I'd had a one or two year engagement in mind. She wanted to go ahead and get married in May. I managed to talk her into September. But sometime around January, she said we should go ahead and submit the official paperwork for the actual marriage. ...There really wasn't anything I could say otherwise.

Her: Let's go ahead and put the paperwork in now.
Me: Why rush? We've still got time.
Her: So...you don't want to marry me?
Me: No, I didn't say that. I mean, the actual ceremony won't be until September, so the paperwork can wait, can't it?
Her: So...you don't want to marry me?
Me: No, I mean, its okay to take our time with the paperwork, isn't it?
Her: So...you don't want to marry me?
Me: ....What I meant to say was, we should go ahead and submit the paperwork now.
Her: ^_^

So yes, legally we are all married and stuff. The wedding ceremony though is still set for September. Wedding plans...so far with the event still quite a few months away, there isn't much do to. Right now the big thing is saving money. I'm having to put back pretty much the majority of my paycheck that isn't devoted to bills, and even then I'm not sure I'll be able to save enough. So yes, I am still looking for ways to whore myself out for a few extra yen. And failing that, if nothing else presents itself, I suppose I could teach English. But that's only if the whoring plans never pan out. I have been looking for part-time work, but both the wife and my mother are opposed to the idea for the potential strain it might put on the relationship...so I'm not sure what to do in that regard yet.

Continue reading "System Update"

When I first started my job, I didn't do the translations - I merely checked translations done by other people. The people who were primarily doing the translations were Japanese. As many of you can probably guess, this lead to some hilarious Engrish.

Not to take away from the translators abilities. Japanese and English just don't directly match up, and anyone translating into their non-native language is bound to encounter a few problems. But still, these lines struck me as funny, so I wanted to showcase them. ...Also, in a lot of cases, I think the original Japanese was pretty screwy as well.

And one final note - while the translations for clothes catch-copy sometimes provided for great entertainment, the ones I'm focusing on here are all related to condoms, lube, and sex products. Why? Cause I'm a huge perv. Er, man. Same difference.

***

Continue reading "Very Lost in Translation"

Hey all. Nothing new for Gaijin Smash today, but as I did write a new editorial for Outpost Nine, I thought that those of you who are truly bored at work might want to check it out. Keeping Men Happy is what its called, and its the first dating/relationship themed ed I've done in awhile. Check it out if you're interested, and as more interesting (Japan-themed) stuff happens I'll keep GS updated as well.

As OP9 doesn't feature a comments system, I'll leave them activated on this post for those of you who'd like to add your $0.02 to the discussion.

Reading my mailbox lately, again I've been noticing many of the same questions popping up over and over again.

Yes, I do read all my mails. I'm terrible about replying, but if people are taking the time out to write me, the least I can do is read it. I usually think "I'll reply later when I have time", and before I know it six months have elapsed. If it makes you all feel any better, my own mother often complains that I don't answer her emails frequently enough. My own mother!

Anyway, as I'm noticing the same questions popping up over and over, I thought I might like to devote another editorial for a FAQ. Saves everybody time if I answer questions here.

***

Continue reading "Questions, Comments, Concerns"

I woke up Saturday morning in a hospital bed, vomit stains on my shirt, with my company president and my supervisor standing over me. As I start to sit up, the president stops me - "Don't get up. You're not wearing any pants." I look down, and sure enough, I am naked from the waist down.

And this is a very curious thing. I mean, its one thing to wake up in a hospital bed and have no idea how you got there...but to do so with no pants? How, exactly, does that happen? I was going to have to backtrack a little bit. Today was Saturday...what did I do on Friday night?

That's right...I went out drinking with my co-workers. It wasn't an official company party, but quite a few people ended up going, including our president. We went to a restaurant owned by a neighborhood friend of one of the employees. I'll call this woman...Cindy*. Cindy has a reputation for being quite the drinker around the office, so most of us were kind of bracing for a wild night from her. Also, when she gets drunk, she has a habit of flirting with me heavily, and making all sorts of innuendo towards what would happen between the two of us if I didn't have a girlfriend already. I should point out that Cindy is married; however her husband never seems to come up in the discussions of "I love Az."

*Yes, I know my nicknames are no longer creative. I do not care.

While I'm explaining Cindy, I need to add a word about my supervisor. If you'll recall from the Work Barbecue editorial, this is the same woman who fed me generous amounts of beer and whiskey. She happens to have the same first name as Cindy, so I'll call her Boss Cindy. I find her to be a very, very attractive woman. I think the feeling is somewhat mutual, but for various reasons (not the least of which, my FIANCE) we both hold back. At the restaurant, to accommodate our large group two tables had been moved together. Originally, I sat at one table with both Boss Cindy and Married Cindy, but as the night went on Married Cindy began to make her way down to the other table. This is an important logistics point, so remember it. Also keep in mind that both Boss Cindy and Married Cindy can drink a lot of alcohol.

Continue reading "You Are What You Drink"