Czech Republic’s contribution to the world is more than just the invention of lager, and possibly the best damn tasting beer in the universe, Pilsner Urquell. Sure, you can get Pilsner Urquell almost anywhere these days, but to truly appreciate the beer mastery achieved by the citizens of Plzn, a city near Prague, one must simply go there and drink the stuff locally, while preferably dining on potato cakes. I really think something about crossing a large body of water makes beer lose its flavor. Heineken, for example, is hideous in America, but dadgummit, in Amsterdam, it almost tastes magical. I have no explanation for this, save for maybe the fact that the beer is simply fresher.

So, anyway, i was talking about Czech Republic’s OTHER contribution, and it’s the word “robot”. It was coined to mean mechanical human being, complete with artificial intelligence by a Czech gentleman by the name of Karel Čapek in the 1920s. It apparently comes from the word “robota”, meaning, roughly, “labor”.

After inventing the word, Europe has done precious little in the way of robotology, and the mantle was passed onto East Asia, Japan and Korea, who now vie regularly for things like whose robot has the most articulated fingers and who can produce a robot capable of terminating Sarah Connor. Well, that’s not totally accurate. The Terminator is technically a cyborg (CYBernetic ORGanism), a robot wrapped around in big muscles and a flat top hair cut. Anyway, i digress.

Well, in TEPIA, a so called “machine industrial commemoration mansion”, a display some cool robots are taking place in Japan. A really popular one is a walking chair robot from Waseda University, presumably to help elderly or the disabled, and uh, Bandai(a toy company most famous for Gundam and junk) robots, which includes… DORAEMON!

What exactly does this robot do?

From
TEPIA

shibuya is a crazy place.

this is the first place i’ve ever been to in japan, and in retrospect, that might not have been the best idea. after flying into narita one dreary evening, without thinking much, i took the good ol’ yamanote (山手) line into shibuya hachiko exit. as i’m sure anyone who’s ever been to that particular area in the evening can tell you, the place is an absolute madhouse thronging with people, with dizzying lights from the billboards and sights and sounds. one can certaily find a better place to go to ease into a shock that is japanese megapolis. some place like ueno, for example.

being there again, and knowing what to expect certainly eased the stress that comes with the place. but it’s still pretty difficult to get used to the sheer number of people on the street.

therefore, one must take rest and find a refuge in a form of a restaurant or a cafe or something.

here’s something i’ve never noticed about shibuya… they have some incredibly large rats on the street. i don’t mean some cute little mousy-critter that scurries here and there, i’m talking about giant beasts that hang out in street corners size of small rabbits. as i sat in one of the coffee houses drinking a beer, i idly watched several of these plague carrying menaces stroll about. absolutely horrifying.

mingling with the locals and gyarus with makeup that made them look like large raccoons, i was taking a break in one of the street corners enjoying an odd cigarette when for minutes at a time i kept on hearing some bizzarre music behind me repeating the refrain “tarako, ta-rako…”

“tarako”? if iremember correctly, tarako is a type of spicy fish egg, popularly used in pasta (i know, the concept is pretty disgusting, but it’s actually pretty tasty).

tarako pasta

anyway, the song went on and on, and i had to admit it was pretty catchy. later on in the hotel i would discover that this particular song is sung by these two little girls in a group called “kigurumi”, and the song “tarako, tarako, tarako” is number two in japanese music chart.

here’s the music video from good ol’ you tube. a bit of warning. to keep your sanity, watch it once. just once. i mean it. you watch it more than once, and the song will never leave your brain, and you will go through your day humming “tarako, tarako” like some kind of fish egg loving zombie.

just like that song from a few years ago, “osakana tengoku”, this song is now played wherever tarako is sold.

hello, everyone,
i’m sure many of you’ve noticed skimpier postings than usual. i’ve been traveling through japan and korea for the past couple of weeks, and the website has been on an autopilot. i will be posting on some of the things i’ve observed during my travel, so please stay tuned.

and this website will be returning to more regular postings of its usual irrelevant and useless drivel. thanks for continuing to visit.

here’s a pic from odaiba, tokyo, where people go on weekend to hang out, enjoy the artificial beach, and to of course, shop. there are a couple of ways to get there, the usual train route, or by driving over the bridge, or the method i chose, the 20 minute ferry ride. on the way to odaiba, you can see a miniature replica of the statue of the liberty as well as the man made beach, and other shoppin complex.

i had lunch in “aqua city”, a type of mall with a movie theater and many shops, and of course, restaurants.

this particular dish is called “roast maki” which is like a maki-zushi, except instead of fish, a thin strip of beef is wrapped around rice and stuffin’ inside. concept is… unique, but the taste is pretty good.

this is something i’ve wondered about a long time. the two countries of japan and korea are very close together, and due to the proximity, there are many similarities in culture as well as language. what’s even more striking is the fact that two cultures can be vastly different in some respects, as well as the language, which when it comes to non-kanji and hanja derived traditional words, are usually very dissimilar.

yet, in terms of the grammatical structure, one can almost say that the two laguages are identical, and is uniquely monotonal in east asia. this is one of the reasons why a korean can learn japanese relatively quickly, as the sounds and grammar of japanese are easily grasped by koreans. japanese people, on the other hand, have a bit more difficulty, even though the grammar maybe identical (retaining the subject, objective, verb order, as well as the entire particle system), the pronunciation of korean is much more difficult for most japanese.

it seems obvious, even discounting the influence of chinese character derived words like “air planes” and “baseball”, these two languages are somehow related. the question is, how? some scholars theorize that japanese language originated in isloation, which i find hard to belive, since if that was the case, why would one see such remarkable similarities in structure and the sounds of the two languages?

some theorize that japanese is derived from korea, many hundreds of years ago. and some say the other way around.

i have a feeling that it maybe that korea has influenced language of japan, and there has been much indigenous development as well.

well, here is shimizu kiyoshi, a japanese professor who supports the korea influencing japan theory. he argues that many indigenous words of the two countries, such the word for “bear” is remarkably similar. “gohm” is the korean word for it, and in the olden days, it was “goma”. compare that to modern japanese word for bear “kuma”, and one can kind of see where he is going with this. another example might be the japanese word for “cut”, which is “karu”, comparable to the korean word for knives or swords “kahl”.

so why not japanese influencing korean? generally he says, that more complex sounding language usually evolves to a simpler sounding language. and since japanese sound is more streamlined and simpler in its sounds, it seems pretty likely that the infleunce is from korea to japan, not the other way around. and historically, there has been cultural infleunce in that direction since the yayoi period of japan.

read the full article in korean here

you would never think that with a name like “beard papa’s” you would be getting some of the tastiest pastries on the go. but this is precisely what you get at beard papa’s; great tasting cream puff made while you wait.

the company started out in osaka in 1997, and has since spread like a sweet, creamy kudzu all over the world, including korea and the u.s. you say you live in the u.s. and have never seen a beard papa’s? well, they can be mostly found in new york and parts of los angeles.

i’ve tried the cream puff from the los angeles beard papa’s, and well, the taste is exactly the same as the one you can get in osaka. that is, crispy and flaky on the outside, with creamy, not too sweet oozing creme inside.

if you’re lucky, the crust will have been freshly baked, and you get some warm cream puff and you just can’t beat walking back from work, munching on a warm cream puff.

and it’s always been my experience that you can always trust a product from a guy with a santa claus beard and a pipe. thanks, papa.

want to know where a beard papa’s is in your neck of the woods? check here

未来

future

未= hitherto, not yet
来= come, due, next

japanese: みらい [mirai]

korean: 미래 [mireh]

jeju island in south korea is a sub-tropical island that is really popular with tourists and honeymooners. the island has been isolated for a long time in korean history, and the people who are native to the island have many distinct customs and a dialect that most koreans can’t understand very well.

the place is famous for sea food, and especially sea urchins, as are the women, called “he-nyo” (해녀, 海女), divers who descend to the depths for minutes at a time to collect these yummies, all without any underwater breathing devices. it is said that all divers in jeju are women, as the men do not dive because of taxation on men’s labor (i suspect they might be just at home relaxing and made that part up).

according to the go world website, this might be the only place in “confucius asia” where a birth of a girl is more celebrated than the birth of a boy, since a boy will grow up to be a freeloading no-gooder, whereas a the daughter will grow up to be a he-nyo who brings in the bounty from the sea.

another interesting thing about this southernmost part of korea is that mainland does not really govern the island, instead, there is a provincial government of jeju to handle their own affairs.

from this interesting island comes a pretty weird fruit, called “sugar apple” which looks sorta like a grenade. most koreans are fascinated by this, as no such fruit exists on the mainland. it is said to be very sweet and has a tropical fruit flavor. no one’s quite sure where this fruit originated, but it is now mainly found in south america.

has anyone eaten one of these? i’d love to know what you think of the fruit’s taste!

find out all about sweet apple here

“it’s (you’ve) been helpful.”

japanese: 助かりました [tasu kari mashita]
korean: 도움이되었습니다 [doumi deh uhtsumnida]

温泉

spa, hot springs

温= warm
泉= spring, fountain

korean: 온천 [on chuhn]

japanese: おんせん [on sen]

from the truly weird news of the day, i came across this little tidbit: some believe jesus is buried in aomori, japan.

yep, that’s right. contrary to what is written in the bible and the belief of billions, a small city of aomori in tohoku region, the gateway to hokkaidou claims that jesus escaped from jerusalem, went across siberia, and ended up in aomori.

as a rice farmer.

Most visitors peer at the grave curiously and pose in front of the cross for a photograph before heading off for apple ice cream at the nearby cafe.

But some pilgrims leave coins in front of the grave in thanks for answered prayers.
The cross is a confusing symbol because according to the local legend, Jesus did not die at Calvary.
His place was taken by one of his brothers, who for some reason is now buried by his side in Japan.
The story goes that after escaping Jerusalem, Jesus made his way across Russia and Siberia to Aomori in the far north of Japan where he became a rice farmer, married, had a family and died peacefully at the age of 114.

A villager hinted that I might be able to meet one of Jesus’ descendents - a Mr Sajiro Sawaguchi, who is now in his 80s.
His family owns the land on which the grave stands and his house is at the foot of the mountain.
I set off to find him but was told he was too ill to speak to me.

However, his grandson Junichiro Sawaguchi did agree to talk. Was I about to meet someone with a true touch of the divine?
The tubby middle-aged gentleman in glasses who spoke to me did not seem particularly Messianic.
Local legend says Mr Sawaguchi is a living descendant of Jesus
“Actually, my family are Buddhists not Christians,” said Mr Sawaguchi.

from bbc news
man, you can’t make this stuff up.

this is probably one of the greatest differences between japanese and koreans. whereas most japanese maybe be spiritual, for them religion is in many ways, a convenience. there’s even a saying that a japanese is born shinto, marries christian, and dies buddhist. certainly, christianity, or at least the flavor of christianity is present at weddings where a fake priest usually presides over the ceremony, and usually, a foreign, white-looking students or english teachers looking to make a few extra bucks on a weekend impersonates a man of the cloth.

in almost any town square, one can find a little shinto shrine, usually with an offering left by those who are in need of extra little fortune. i usually found a bottle of yogurt drink, but sometimes a burger.

contrast this to korea, where as the only east asian nation to fully embrace christianity, one can find protestant and catholic churches everywhere. and unlike japan, many korean are very active, and one can see protestant proselytizers on the streets and train stations all across the nation.

this is not to say that christianity has no foothold in japan. it’s just that compared to korea, it is very low key and less than 1% of the population claim to be adherents.