About
Think the world is becoming a smaller place?
You may be right, but why is Japan for most people just as remote and inscrutable as it’s always been?
Japan has twice the population of either France or Great Britain, roughly 50% more people than Germany, and nearly as many people as Russia.
It boasts the world’s second largest economy–substantially larger than that of third-ranked Germany–and a GDP more than double that of fourth-ranked China with one-tenth the population.
Its cultural traditions have fascinated, delighted, and puzzled the rest of the world for centuries.
Yet Japan is not accorded the baseline respect received by these countries. The Japan presented by most of the world’s mass media bears little or no resemblance to the country I see with my own eyes every day. They portray a place that seems to exist only in the minds of reporters who seldom know the language, live for short periods in the foreigners’ enclaves of Tokyo—if they live here at all—and patronize with an offhand smugness a country and a culture that for them is still lost in translation.
In the English-speaking world, blogs often arbitrage this discrepancy between agenda and reality, but the authors of most English-language blogs about Japan seem to enjoy indulging themselves in a comic book vision of the country that depicts Nippon as the Goofball Kingdom of East Asia.
I have a different objective for this website. I have lived in Japan since 1984 and have been working as a Japanese-to-English translator and interpreter since 1990. I present a picture of Japan sono mama—as it is. As in any country, the people and its customs range from the sublime to the silly, but this site will not be informed by the fashionable irony and ill-concealed sense of superiority that too frequently infects the foreigner’s view of Japan.
This is Japan from the inside out. I hope you enjoy reading about the country and its East Asian neighborhood as much as I enjoy writing about them.
- Ampontan (AKA Bill Sakovich)
Saturday, January 6, 2007 at
Dear Ampontan,
Congratulations on creating such an interesting, and fair, portrayal of Japan. Finally! A web presence that isn’t fixated on the negative. I, too, am tired of seeing so many English-language blogs about Japan showcase only the odd or unusual or problematic, as if the bloggers are forever needing to reinforce their sense of superiority.
Instead, yours is an eloquent celebration of Japan ‘as it is’, and that is truly appreciated. As someone who comes to visit my wife’s family in Kagoshima every year for the last fifteen, and who lived in Kagoshima in 2005, and traveled quite a bit in the country, I have a deep respect for Japan: its people, its rich history and its culture. Yes, like any country, it has its shadow side that isn’t exactly hidden, but I’d assert that focusing solely on the negative does indeed provide a warped view that is unjustified and, frankly, unfair.
Kudos to you!
Saturday, January 6, 2007 at
Thanks for the kind words and the visit, Alan. I hope I can continue to make it worth your time in the future.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 at
I like the topics you have been posting on and look forward reading more great postings in the future.
Thursday, February 1, 2007 at
GIK:
Thanks for the kind words. I hope to keep you interested!
Monday, February 5, 2007 at
Excellent site. I’m surprised to see that it was only set up this year. It’s obviously been decades in the making, though…
Tuesday, February 6, 2007 at
Jason: Thanks for the kudos. Only a couple of months, not decades…
Wednesday, February 7, 2007 at
You’re welcome. I meant that according to your blog you’ve been in Japan since the early 80s, which is why it runs deep despite being only 2 months old.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007 at
I’ve been checking out this site ever since seeing Marmot advertise it. You’re doing a great job so far. We need more Japan blogs like this.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007 at
Thank you, James A. I hope to continue in the future.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007 at
Thanks for interesting and thoughtful materials. However, you seem to be facinated by Japan by heart that may make you hard to be objective about Japanese media or Japan as well.
Often, I found Japanese media is very much subjective like anyone else, and its group-centered (non-individualistic) culture makes hard to reveal second opinions..
Judging from western point of view (that lacks understanding many times like you said) is bad for sure. However,
Sometimes, you need to look from the outside as well to see the whole pictures of unfiltered views.. Being objective is quite tough when you have love or passion on one thing..
Thanks.
Sunday, March 25, 2007 at
I saw this topic that said that Koreans treated Westerners like craps, but I think it is not that true. Well, I won’t say that every Koreans like Westerners, but let me tell you. Some Korean like Westerners and some don’t. If you are writing a paragraph like this, think first how Japanese treated Koreans. They treated them like an animal no worse than animal when they took over Korea.
Friday, March 30, 2007 at
looking for books that give a balanced view on the causes of WWII in the pacific.
Saturday, March 31, 2007 at
At last a knowledgeable, thoughtful, thoroughly-researched and deeply-involved site about Japan! I say ‘at last’ because I have only just discovered your marvelous site. Wish I had known it before. Your exposure of the NY Times’ deliberate mis-quotation of Prime Minister Abe’s remarks on the gratuitously revived WWII comfort-women / sex-slave issue was right on point. It’s hard, as you note, to find a rational motive for this and for the U.S. Congressional resolution on the issue. Perhaps there are those who wish to distract diplomatic attention from bringing the North Korean regime to account for their belligerent nuclear threats and for the continued holding of kidnapped Japanese captive, by suggesting some sort of equivalence between those issues. For the U.S. Congress to engage in this sort of mindless posturing at the expense of a vitally close ally (Japan) is sheer lunacy.
Your site has numerous other very fine resources, which I will explore. Please keep up the good work.
Monday, April 9, 2007 at
Finaly not just another Japan-bashing blog, authored by a brain-less 20-something English teacher from the West.
I’m glad I found this site.
Regards,
Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at
Thank you David!
Wednesday, May 2, 2007 at
love the blog, bill
Tuesday, May 22, 2007 at
Mr. Sakovich,
I’m doing an article on blogs in Japan for Asahi Weekly, and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions. Can you contact me at this address? (It’s a bit of a rush job.)
Thanks,
James Watt
Sunday, June 10, 2007 at
Just found you site, looking forward to reading your stuff…
Wow, you have been in Japan for a while!
Sunday, June 10, 2007 at
Hi, Nathan. Hope you like it!
Sunday, June 10, 2007 at
Another recent reader, though have seen the site mentioned increasingly often at for eg Japan Probe. Wonder how much this site takes of your time….
This is interesting, and probably should be in the About section:
あんぽんたんは、「阿呆」と愚か者の意味の「だらすけ」が複合された、「あほだら」「あほんだら」が、転じた言葉である。
「阿呆」は「あっぽ」とも言われ、「陀羅助（だらすけ）」という薬（「陀羅尼助」の略）もあったため、「反魂丹（はんごんたん）」や「萬金丹（まんきんたん）」という薬の名から、「安本丹」ともじられた。
あんぽんたんは、近世に上方で生まれた言葉で、宝暦末年（1764年）頃には、江戸でも流行したことが、江戸時代の随筆に残されている。
(A word from Kyoto that gained popularity in Edo in the late Houreki period, meaning ‘dope’ or ‘fool’….)
Sunday, June 10, 2007 at
Hi, Overthinker, I’ve been reading your comments here with interest.
Some of these posts do take time, and I’m still trying to figure out how to work this into my schedule without staying up until 3 AM every night. Translation work has cut into my writing time quite a bit lately.
That’s an interesting definition of Ampontan. I didn’t know about the possible medicinal origins. Where is that definition from?
Years ago, when I first came to Japan as an English teacher, I flipped the Disney cards teaching vocabulary to primary school students. Whenever the boys saw one with Goofy on it, they used to say, “Ampontan!” If the shoe fits…
Sunday, June 10, 2007 at
Got that definition from http://gogen-allguide.com/a/anpontan.html, as a chance comment by Aceface made me wonder if there was more to the name than some obscure Kyushu dialect, which is what I assumed it was before.
A minor point about the blog style: it’s a very serious and academic blog (which is good - there are other places to go to if I want a giggle about Japanese-English on t-shirts or the latest bizarre Hello Kitty outrage against taste), but given that, I am rather surprised to see you use the first-name surname method of giving Japanese names. I could understand an entry-level blog, so to speak, doing that, but these entries are generally far more deeper than someone with just a casual interest in the country would need - that is, it seems to me that anyone with enough interest to read a long article on, say, the Northern Territories issue, is going to know the difference between Abe Shinzo and Shinzo Abe. Obviously it’s your blog and you can write names how you like - it just strikes me as somewhat odd.
Sunday, June 10, 2007 at
I’ve thought about that, Overthinker. Perhaps one reason I don’t is that I’m used to the conventions of the translation business. That’s just standard practice in the industry. Another is that I try to make it comfortable for everyone to read, including those whose interest in Japan may be only casual. I’ve lost that perspective for myself, and wonder if the normal Japanese order would look contrived to that audience. Still, it does lack consistency, as I keep the family name first order for Chinese and Japanese names.
And hey, I’ve even done a Hello Kitty post myself! See what you think:
http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/01/21/hello-kitty-the-japanese-kris-kringle/
Friday, August 3, 2007 at
Hello!
My name is Meenakshi Ravi. I work with a team based in London which produces a weekly global media watch show called the Listening Post for Al-Jazeera English. Our broadcast takes critical and irreverent looks at global news coverage - of events and non-events. We also track developments in the use of media.
A story we are planning for our upcoming broadcast has to do with the Japanese media and its role in the current political tumult in the country. Through our story we’d like to be able to reflect on the state of the media in Japan and its relationship with the Japanese government and political parties. Some of the questions we are hoping to answer are:
- How free is the media in Japan? Is media freedom there conditional upon certain norms (written and/or unwritten)?
- How does Japanese news media handle the government? Are they reverential towards it? Or is there a sense of critical assessment?
- Do Japanese politicians feel a need to ‘play’ the media? Manipulate it?
- How crucial a role is the media playing in the current unsettled Japanese political situation?
A section of our show is called Global Village Voices. We ask for people’s opinions on the week’s stories via webcam.
I read your blog and it’s clear that you are interested in issues involving the Japan. It would be great to hear your response to some of the questions up there.
Just in case you are able to do this, I have attached our list of hints and tips for video blogging. We would like to get your video file by Sunday if possible. The file will need to be uploaded, and I have attached instructions on how to do it below. You need not answer all the questions I have put up there. They are just for you to get an idea of what we are looking for. Feel free to pick just one and give us your reply. You could even break the mould completely and give us an opinion about Japanese media that’s all your own.
Here are those tips:
- Install any software that comes with your webcam - unless you already have it.
- Plug in your webcam.
- Find a quiet place to record your comment, so that background noise doesn’t cause a problem.
- Think about what is behind you in the picture. A plain backdrop is usually the best.
- Secure the camera on an even surface so that it doesn’t wobble or shake.
- Frame the picture so that you have your head an shoulders in frame with about a quarter of the frame left empty at the top, for head space (the more of your face we can see the better!)
- Make sure that your microphone (often part of the webcam) is directed towards your face (if possible!)
- Think about what you want to say before hand, but don’t worry about getting it all word for word, it’s good to be as natural as possible.
- Don’t worry about getting it right first time you can always re-record as many times as you like.
- If you find it difficult to look into the lens of the camera and talk, find a spot to focus on just above the camera and talk to that.
- Record on your webcam software OR quicktime (.mov)
- Once you start to record count 5 seconds in your head while looking at your spot, before you start to talk, and when you have finished count 5 seconds before stopping the recording. This will give us clean in and outs for edit.
- Start your piece by saying your NAME, PROFESSION and LOCATION
- Speak clearly and not too quickly.
- Around a minute is the optimum length.
- Once you are happy with your piece, save it and upload it to http://www.yousendit.com (you may need to register for free first). Direct the file to listeningpost@aljazeera.net.
Would love to hear from you!
Thanks,
Meenakshi
Saturday, August 11, 2007 at
日本人の私も、とても興味と好奇心と感心を持って，字引片手に拝読。
健闘と継続を期待しています。７３歳、女性。
Saturday, August 11, 2007 at
Ms. Fujii,
Thank you very much. Your note is one of the best I’ve ever gotten.
Thursday, February 21, 2008 at
Very impressed by your website and comments - it’s refreshing to see someone actually speak out against the tide of PC rubbish (or should I say garbage?) which sadly seems to be washing up on Japan’s coast all too often too lately.
Keep up the good work!
Thursday, February 21, 2008 at
Thanks Kurt!
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at
This is damn good stuff!
Bravo!
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at
Thanks Mr. G!
Saturday, May 3, 2008 at
Very refreshing to see one of the few Japan-based blogs that doesn’t parrot the negativity (meaning the worst possible interpretation of anything Japanese) that infect so many other Japan-oriented sites. Thank goodness there are others that see complexity behind J-issues that self-proclaimed progressives have elsewhere reduced to soundbites of orthodoxy and mindless regurgitation of the tired old mantras so common to non-Japanese media. Good work!
Sunday, May 4, 2008 at
Mike G: We see eye-to-eye!