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Sometimes Japan can be a puzzling place. Because
the majority of Japanese wash their clothes then hang them out
on the balcony to dry, there are sometimes problems with "shitagi
dorobo" (underwear thieves), men who are compelled to steal
ladies underwear -- quite a bit more antisocial than the panty
raid craze that swept the U.S. in the 1950s. Now a 37-year-old
Yamato delivery man has been arrested for repeatedly raiding
ladies underwear from a laundromat while he delivered packages.
The proprietors were trying for months to figure out who could
be stealing the unmentionables, until they finally realized that
the thefts were always taking place on Tuesday, the day the
delivery man dropped off packages.
One of the first kanji characters anime fans
or students of Japanese become familiar with is "ko,"
which means child. Ko is commonly used with girl's names, e.g.
Keiko or Hanako, and it sounds very cute to people here,
although fewer and fewer babies are being named with "ko"
names these days. A lot of food names use the "ko"
character, too, such as kinoko (lit. "child of tree,"
meaning mushrooms), takenoko ("child of bamboo," or
bamboo shoots), tarako ("child of cod," or cod roe),
and a favorite of Tomo's, hachinoko, ("child of bee"
or bee larvae). Place "ko" in front of any animal and
you have the word for the young version of that animal, e.g.
koneko (kitten), koinu (puppy), etc. Anime fans who know their
Macross may recall that the baby of Max and Miriya in the
original series is named Komiria. The term gal (gyaru) describes
the generation of overtanned Tokyo girls in their early 20s with
lots of money to buy fashionable things, and kogal refers to the
spoiled girls in their teens who immitate them.
Like most of the world, Japan is buzzing about
the final Star Wars movie. Unfortunately, they still have a long
wait ahead of them, since the film won't open here until July 9,
the traditional month for Star Wars film releases. I think the
reason Japan is always one of the last countries to get the
films is, George Lucas has a special connection with Japan, and
he wants to be here in person for the premier. Happily, I don't
have to wait til July to see the new movie -- thanks to the
upcoming A-Kon anime convention in Dallas, I'll be going to the
U.S. in a little over a week. Incidentally, we hope to see you
at the show -- see http://www.a-kon.com for convention details.
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