Like finding a lost scrap of a stranger’s to-do list or shopping list in the street…
Today I found this bit of unintentional poetry in a Japanese person’s English vocabulary list.

speculate, acoustic, excerpt, contemplation, fervor, scrutinize

For me the English vocabulary list was a creative challenge like Magnetic Poetry Kit I might come across on refrigerator door. It sounded to me oddly poetic:

Speculate acoustic.
Excerpt.
Contemplation.
Fervor scrutinize!

Using a web-based art tool called “Montage-a-google “ that employs Google’s image search to generate a large gridded montage of images based on keywords (search terms), I entered that vocabulary list. Then “Montage-a-google “ generated montages of the word pairs, which I animated into this “found-word” poem.

For more fun with pattern-forming serendipity, try using the online WordCount.org that lets you interact with patterns of the 86,800 most frequently used words in the English language.

What’s a “Pythagoras Switch” and what does have to do with Penguins, Prisons and Ninjas? .

“Pythagoras Switch” is an educational television show on NHK—a rollicking science program for kids (like me). As I first covered this a year ago in the 3Yen in report NHK’s “Pitagora-Switch” on Japanese public TV. The show is aimed at early mental development of children, as well as plain old fun.

One of the fun segments of the Pythagoras Switch show is the, “Algorithm March”—the Group Exercise/Taiso. Watch the three following YouTube videos of the Algorithm March with: Ninjas, the Japan Polar Research Team, and Pinoy Prisoners!

Pythagoras Switch - Algorithm March with Ninjas!!

Penguin Pitagora Suiichi
NHK’s Pythagoras Switch - Algorithm Taiso with the Japan Polar Research Team!

Not to be outdone, and with similar fashion sense….

Pinoy Prison Pitagora Switch
Algorithm Taiso performed by 967 inmates of the Cebu Detention and Rehabilitation Center, Philippines

Click for video.
Junko Yamamoto’s “Forty-eight basic techniques in rest room
-The Japanese style by the women body-“

Ahhh, you gotta love Japanese college girls, especially art students. This senior graduation project atTama Art University sure is amusing even if the artist, Junko Yamamoto is wearing a leotard. Be sure to watch the short video with some English subtitles.

Actually, this isn’t the first eye-opening art project I’ve seen from Tama Art—they tend to encourage freedom of expression more than most universities in Japan. At the “First International Moblogging Conference” –that is, the first conference on mobile weblogs and cellphone cameras held in Tokyo in July of 2003, the girls from Tama Art blew away anyone and myself with there wildly sophisticated technical work of mobile blogging art. Called T’o'RIPSPACE, Ayako Idate, Maki Toida and Tomoko Yagi from Tama Art University demonstrated of software for sharing photos based on GPS location data.

As my Chicago homeboy, Justin Hall [Hi Justin, I know you are ego surfing out there] a stringer for the New York Times, Wired Magazine, Salon, etc. wrote that the Tama Art University girls surprised everyone with, “Their polished demonstration of a sweet tooth group moblogging photos of good cakes from favorite cafes was a delightful bit of colorful, tasteful tangibility.” All in all, not bad, not bad at all for art students who were not old enough to drink at the after conference bash.

Anyway as I said before, watch the short video art work [山本純子『便所四十八手〜女体による和式〜』]

Ok, ok, I hear you complaining that that art video lacks “edge” and the artist is wearing a modest leotard. Never fear. The 3Yen’s kind sponsor, J-List.com has plenty toilet-themed Japanese videos and games that would make Paris Hilton blush. For example, perhaps the worst bishoujo game ever: Peach Princess’ “Water Closet: The Forbidden Chamber.”

In this Japanese simulation/role-playing game with English subtitles lets you to choose different female characters and play through different scenarios from that character’s point of view. You take on the personalities of each of the characters such as Ikumi-chan, a traditional girl from a conservative Japanese family who loves the Japanese tea ceremony but has no bladder control. Whenever Ikumi-chan gets nervous, such as when she’s on a date with a guy she likes, she gets an incredible urge to urinate. Frustrated by her problem, she consults a urologist…
Well, you get the idea. It’s the only prevy game to score a perfect -50 on the game reviews at Something Awful, so you know it’s got to be B-A-D!

If you think that is disgusting but only anime, check out the J-List videos for Japanese “Whale Showers” shio -fuki (she-oh-foo-key), which is so raw I can’t even post a picture here!

My “special” machine-translated version of Mainichi.co.jp News, 2007-Jan-16, 09:28:12am, Okinawa, Japan
…Posing as their school principal, a giant rabid squirrel receives the kids at the school gate. You can see the smiling face of the principal….The new term of school year is opening early, he’s waiting for the children as the Ryukyu boar.…more...

I looooove it.
Finally, a use for Hello Kitty and Japanese Kanji…toilet paper!
Leave to the 3Yen’s kind sponsor at J-List to offer ” Kanji Quiz Toilet Paper” —the perfect Christmas gift for those sad, sad souls who are studying Japanese over the holiday break.

Last week, I sent out my presents—ultra-cool calendars with Japanese written all over them, which is always the perfect gift of the “Mysterious Orient” for people outside Japan. Japanese calendars with mind-bending anime, JPOP themes, or even traditional calendars featuring Japanese stuff like sushi, kanji calligraphy, or Japanese idols are always a hit back home.
< --!--Crass Christmas commercial warning-->
It’s getting late to send Christmas presents, but Peter, the owner of J-List, reminded me to plug his J-List Gift Certificate, which can be sent to your recipient via email, and which includes a spiffy custom created PDF gift certificate which can be printed out by your recipient. Check out the J-List’s huge variety of Japanesque calendars here.
< --!--end warning-->

I think this ad is just a typo and they wanted to hire ‘blue or green hair, blonde eyes & brightly character’ aliens, hee, hee.

Yamanashi English school want ad: “blonde hair blue or green eyes and brightly character”
debito.org, November 28th, 2006
A school in Yamanashi is specifically advertising in the local international association jobs for “blonde blue-eyed brightly” foreigners, because the local kindergarten wants a typical foreigner for acclimatization to “eigojin” [English speaker]. It’s just business, you see, they explained to me….more…

Can you imagine the brouhaha this ad would cause in the real world? No doubt the Japanese schoolmaster who placed this ad is some kind of perv with a blond fetish and doesn’t realize the potential liabilities for a sexual harassment suit (a new tend in Japan).

American professor arrested for stalking woman in Tokyo
JapanToday.com, Thursday, September 28, 2006 at 21:18 EDT, TOKYO –A 59-year-old American professor at Atomi University in Tokyo was arrested on Thursday for stalking a 23-year-old woman on more than 10 occasions. The professor, identified as Christopher Drake, was arrested for trying to break into the woman’s apartment on the night of Sept 15…When Drake was arrested, he had a rope and was wearing a mask over his eyes and was ringing the doorbell. “...more…

I cannot tell which is funnier: professor Christopher Drake as the Batman and as Scholar of the Month.
Even if Professor Drake was “wearing a mask over his eyes” as the newspaper describes, he would not be disguised in any Japanese neighborhood. Ahhh, it was romantic in him that was his downfall. According to the report, “‘I fell in love with her at first sight and I just wanted to meet her,’ Drake was quoted as saying by police. ” This serves a warning to any Japanese scholar wannabe of what studying Nihongo will do to you, hee, hee.

Yakuza beg for anti-gang film to be banned to prevent discrimination
MSN-Mainichi Daily News / July 15, 2006– A yakuza gang has asked the local education board not to show schoolchildren an anti-gang video local police are producing for fear it will lead to discrimination of gangsters’ children, it was learned Saturday….On June 29, the board received a letter titled, “Petition,” signed by Takeo Hayashi, supreme adviser to the Kudo-kai crime syndicate, and its secretary-general, Mitsuhide Honda. “If the video is shown at schools, children of crime syndicate members will be bullied. It would constitute discrimination,” the letter partly reads…more…

The supreme adviser of the Kudo-kai crime syndicate “signs” a threating letter to the school board and the lazy Japanese police do nothing. Then the press reports the threat in paper as though this is reasonable. SHEESH.
However, this is not the first time the Yakuza have there hands in “film direction.” Back in 1992, senior members of the group attacked and seriously injured Juzo Itami, a film director who made a satirical movie about dealing with yakuza extortion techniques.

Hmmm. This all reminds me of about I walked into a Yakuza drive-by shooting. Back in the Bubble Days, 1989…. I rounded a corner at a pachiko parlor and walked into the haze from a full-clip burst of a silenced Mac-10. The chimpira hard emptied a full-clip, 30 rounds into the windows of the brand-new “rival” pachiko parlor. His eyes were closed—very spray and pray. There in Komagome Toshima-ku, obviously the new pachinko guys had not made accomodations with the other pachiko parlors in the area. Not a scratch on me—the Pickard-Borg Effect* seems to cover all aliens in Japan in me.

*In Star Trek. the Borg ignore individuals who pose no threat to their Collective.

Opponents of compulsory singing of Kimigayo using English parody
Crisscross News, Monday, May 29, 2006 at 10:42 EDT, TOKYO — Opponents to the compulsory singing of the national anthem “Kimigayo” at graduation and entrance ceremonies in schools have sung a parody version in English… hard to tell who is singing the parody and who is giving an authentic rendition of the anthem, because the English version, apparently about so-called comfort women, or wartime sex slaves, sounds very similar to the Japanese original...more…

These “parody” lyrics have been floating around since last March or so. Like so many Japanese soramimi –Japanese phrases that sound like English– it only sounds that way to Japanese. Compare the parody version below with the real version.