TheLeong.com

Wow. You may remember me telling you about the ridiculous Mega sandwiches that McDonald’s Japan served up for a limited time. I also blogged about it, and still have regular hits from Google Image Search for that post. Anyway, apparently McDonald’s wasn’t satisfied with it’s last raid on Japanese hearts, and is now preparing another wave of attack. But they’re not just coming with their same old mega artery clogger strategies; they’ve got some new firepower this time around.

Behold, the next wave in McDonald’s Japan’s tactics to sink this island nation:

Yeah that’s right. 3 sandwiches all coming out for a limited time soon. The press release page is here all in Japanese. The official Mega Mac site is supposed to be updated tomorrow. Let me summarize the press release a bit for you. First, this purple text is a semi-translated version of the headlines at the top.

Mega Happiness (メガな幸せ)?! Are we joining a cult? This sounds horrifying. Yet somehow drawing. So basically they are offering different Mega sandwiches depending on the time of day, probably with the hope that someone will be so fat and retarded that they’ll eat Mega burgers for every meal of the day, which I believe is exactly what turned the Gremlins from furry baby monsters into the huge creepy monsters singing New York New York. And since these regular but sporadic Mega Mac assaults can only do so much, they’ve also decided to add the normal Mega Mac to the regular menu after this whole campaign is over. It will probably never go away.

The bad boy that started it all, the Mega Mac is like a double Big Mac, with 4 beef patties. The Mega Teriyaki, which came out in the 2nd wave of Mega in June 2007, is two pork patties covered in teriyaki sauce. The new weaponry this time around, the Mega Muffin, is the Egg McMuffin on crack. It’s two pork patties, an egg, and bacon on an English muffin. Sure it’s not as horrible as it could have been (more egg, hash browns, patties of butter, babies), but this has got to be almost comparable to that thing Burger King tried to pull off years ago, the Ultimate Omelette Sandwich or whatever.

I love the part in the press release where they go on about this stupid campaign: This time, we’re not only reviving the Mega Mac and Mega Teriyaki, but to answer the many requests to “be able to eat Mega anytime,” we are debuting the Mega Muffin in the breakfast hours. What people are requesting these beasts? Average retail price for the Mega Muffin is 290, Mega Mac is 380, and Mega Teriyaki is 360. That’s just the sandwich, not the set. The US dollar has dropped to about 1 to 100 yen, so the conversion’s pretty self-explanatory.

I guess these aren’t quite as deadly as the Mega Tamago I ate, but I’m pretty sure I won’t be eating any of these regardless.

Old people are always complaining about the fashion and style of younger people. I guess I’m slowly becoming one of those old people, since such fashions and styles are increasingly annoying me. OK, that’s a lie – things like that have always annoyed me, but I didn’t have a reason to blog about them much before. I walk down the street and think to myself how mind-numbingly awful that girl’s hat is, how gyaru yamanba fashion needs to stay dead, how ugly girls with a lot of make-up and fake tans are still ugly, and how men shouldn’t ever wear pants that tight. I guess a lot of this has to do with me being in Japan, where fashion seems to be multiplied by a factor of 100, usually for the worse.

You may have heard me mention Chickenheads in the past, which is the term* for the young Japanese/Asian hairstyle that is so popular these days. It’s easily recognizable by its volume, usually brown or orange color, resemblance to a cartoon character’s hair, and the DB-ish life form hanging under it. The officially documented scientific makeup of a Chickenhead hairstyle is 15% hair, 75% hair wax or spray, and the remaining 10% being a combination of cigarette smoke, sweat, tears, small woodland creatures, and man-juice. I did a Google Image Search for “asian hairstyle” and found some examples on the first page. Rather than pollute my server with more Chickenhead pictures than absolutely necessary, here’s a link to another blog with a whole bunch of them. And here’s another page with even sadder examples.

The Chickenhead style is often used in conjunction with the Asian mullet and/or long, pointy haircicles down the side disguised as sideburns, even though upon closer inspection it’s obvious that they’re not connected to the sides of the face. I didn’t have a name for these dangling scrotums of hair, but let’s call them fakeburns from now on.

This was actually supposed to be just a quick picture post, but I got on a bit of a rant. Today I’m here to show you a picture of a slightly more rare Japanese hairstyle, called the mane or Lion-O**. It’s a distant cousin of the Chickenhead, a more horrible and evolved form. It requires many more years of hair-growing and about 20 times the amount of bad dye and product to correctly form this forest of follicles. As the name(s) imply, it can look like a lion’s mane, surrounding the entire head and even flowing down the back, as seen in today’s ridiculous example that I saw at Tsudanuma station:

* I might have created this term. I don’t remember, and it doesn’t matter. Please spread.
** Usage copyright 2008 TheLeong.com

The morning of the test, I had to head out and be on a train by 8AM. I got to Nishi-Funabashi to transfer to the Toyo-Kosoku line. As soon as I walked down the stairs to the platform, it was one of the weirdest sights I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to explain, but even though almost everyone was Asian, you could tell immediately that it wasn’t a usual crowd of Japanese people. Almost every single person waiting on that train platform was a foreigner, and everyone was going to the same place as me to take the JLPT. Tons of people were holding up JLPT preparation books in various languages, checking notes and talking to their friends about the test. It was unreasonably loud with chatter too. It was so strange. The best way I can describe it is like the Harry Potter movies. You know, when they go to the train station and you see all these magic people, wizards, etc running around with shopping carts? Only instead of magical school kids and giants, it was nerdy looking white guys and Korean girls in emo glasses and trucker hats.

And that brings me to my next point. While you’d expect “group of foreigners in Japan” to mean a bunch of predominantly white people, you’d be pretty wrong. Actual Asians make up the biggest percentage of foreigners here. And that never applied more heavily than to the people taking the JLPT. Of course I only experienced one test site at Funabashi, but I’m willing to bet everyone else had similar experiences.
Does this match everyone else’s examinee groups fairly well?

In an attempt to make my page more intelligent-looking, I have constructed a pie chart showing the groups of people who were taking the JLPT this year. This has been scientifically validated and checked a few times by my imagination.

Let us examine each of these groups individually.

• Asian chicks – as I said, most of the foreigners taking the test seemed to be Asian, but then it also seemed that most of them were female. However, I had to add an extra subgroup (see next) to help classify further. This is the “without glasses” group.
• Asian chicks with emo glasses – It’s almost ridiculous how many of these girls were wearing emo glasses. It’s even more common now than the stupid trucker hats and furry collared-coats. But there are some girls who rock all 3, and I’m pretty sure they’re always the Korean ones. By the way, if you do a Google Image Search for “emo glasses,” most of the pictures that show up are of Asian chicks.
• Other Asians – guys, really really ugly females, and TheLeong.
• Middle Eastern guys – Although I don’t tend to see a lot of Middle Eastern-looking guys around Chiba or even when I go to Tokyo, there seemed to be quite a few taking the JLPT. And they also always seemed to be in groups, even more than the other groups present. Seriously, I never saw a lone Middle Eastern guy at the test. I didn’t seem to see any Middle Eastern girls though.
• Other – Mainly this is white people. Also the one black guy I saw. There are of course many sub-classifications for the white people I saw at the test, such as “confused looking old guy” and “huge nerd wearing way too much winter gear.”

Well that’s enough statistics and data for one night.

On Sunday I finished the JLPT, the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, called the 日本語能力試験 in Japanese. This is kind of like the TOEIC test, but to measure Japanese ability for foreigners. Unfortunately, unlike TOEIC it’s only available once a year, meaning if you mess up and fail the level you take, you have to wait an entire year to re-take the test. There are 4 levels (級), with 4 being very basic (I passed this back in high school), and 1 being the most difficult. I took 2級 since I looked at last year’s 1級 exam and it would require a lot more studying than I wanted to do. Level 2 was pretty do-able I think. According to the official site, the requirements to pass level 2 are as follows:
The examinee has mastered grammar to a relatively high level, knows around 1,000 Kanji and 6,000 words, and has the ability to converse, read, and write about matters of a general nature. This level is normally reached after studying Japanese for around 600 hours and after completion of an intermediate course.

While I certainly don’t consider myself anywhere near fluent in Japanese, I’d like to think that my abilities are at least better than just being able to communicate about “matters of a general nature.” The official description for Level 1 says to pass you need to have “an integrated command of the language sufficient for life in Japanese society.” I’m pretty sure that I have been living a pretty sufficient life for the past 15 months, but oh well. I think the descriptions are just off, because like I said, that test looked ridiculous, with kanji and vocabulary that even Japanese people don’t use realistically.

I registered for the test back in September, and even bought some books to help prepare for the test. As should have been expected, I didn’t really do any prep for the test until mid November when I did last year’s exam as a practice test, then some actual studying the week leading up to the actual exam. Oh well. The test went pretty well overall, though more difficult than I was expecting. I think last year’s test seemed easier to me, but I could be wrong. As you only need a 60% (yes, that’s right) to pass levels 2-4, I’m fairly confident I’ll have a certificate being sent to me in February. I’m not going to count my chickens too early though. And yes, we have to wait that long for the results of a scantron test.

No real stories to tell about the test, although during the second section, Listening, some girl in the back of the room’s cell phone went off. At first it was a short alarm, maybe an e-mail, but then it started going off even more. While she may have been able to get by if she’d have shut it off really quickly and acted like it wasn’t her, the proctor finally got up and red carded her, ejecting her from the room and disqualifying her completely. Girl even tried to argue a little bit. Ha, ha. Yes, I have the right to laugh at this girl since the distraction probably cost me a question. Also a Thai girl sitting next to me didn’t even show up until the second test, meaning she already lost 100 of 400 points. On top of that, she didn’t understand the instructions in Japanese that one of the assistant proctors was saying, so I’m under the impression that 2級 was hopeless for her anyway. Overall, the people taking the test were more interesting than the test itself, so that leads me to the next post…

By now I’m sure all of you back in the states are reeling in pain over how much turkey and stuffing you’re eaten over the past few hours. I am extremely jealous. It’s Friday afternoon here, and it’s also Thanksgiving! Well, kind of. It’s actually Labor Thanksgiving Day, a kind of Japanese Labor Day. Anyway, it’s a convenient coincidence and also a day off over here, so that’s a bonus. While it’s possible to get turkey here, it’s even more impossible to find a way to cook it, so we’re all going out tonight for Korean BBQ at Top Run, the super yakiniku buffet, to gorge ourselves properly.

A quick story to start the day. I had a private lesson scheduled at 1PM today, so I was sitting around at the station waiting for the guy to show up. He calls me at 1:01 to say he can’t make it. Come on! I haven’t decided if I’ll make him pay for the lesson, which I think I’m supposed to do. I probably will. Anyway, as I go back to the illegal bicycle parking area, where I had been towed from less than 2 weeks ago, I take the lock off my bike and throw it into the basket. (Yes, my bike has a basket and a bell. Shut up). I get tapped on the shoulder by this old guy in a windbreaker. Excuse me, can I talk to you for a minute? Great, I figure. There are a few different religious groups and cults who hang around Chiba station trying to recruit people, so I figured this guy was one of them. I was just about to pull the old Sorry I don’t speak Japanese line when the guy reaches into his jacket pocket, presumably to pull either a brochure or a gun on me. Either way I didn’t want it. I’m not a weirdo or anything, I’m actually with the Chuo-Ward Police Department, he explains as he shows me his ID and badge. Crap. I assumed he was going to give me grief for parking my bike illegally along with the other 100 people who had done the same. Not at all.

Turns out him and his partner, who was standing behind me without me previously noticing, were just going around to do checks and stuff. They noticed the built-in lock on my bike had a key in it and looked broken, and just wanted to check. They asked me where I lived and my name. After I said Leong, I think he also kind of assumed me being foreign was part of the reason I was so weirded out by their sudden approach. Sorry to scare you, just wanted to see if your bike was OK. I explained that I don’t use the built-in one so I leave the key in it while I keep the other on my key chain. I use a stronger lock, which I pointed to in the basket.

So that was my first ever stopped-by-the-police encounter here in Japan. They didn’t need to see my ID, didn’t give me any grief, nothing. They were just trying to make sure I knew my bike might have been broken. They were actually some of the nicest random people I’ve spoken to here, which is saying a lot for Japan. It was kind of weird though, because they weren’t just the bike cops, they were actually plain clothes officers. Maybe detectives? Who knows. I’m just glad I didn’t give them any lip or didn’t to ignore them as I rode away, assuming they were cult members. The day might have gotten a lot messier.

For about a week and a half I was working up in Wako city, which was actually pretty fun. The most painful part of the assignment was the commute, which involved riding trains and subways for about an hour and a half one way. First I rode from Chiba to Tokyo, then from Tokyo to Ikebukuro, then from there up to Wakoshi station. The first leg of the trip was usually pretty full in the morning, and I never got to sit down. Standing for about 40 minutes surrounded and crowded by mostly middle-aged to old men is no picnic, especially when you get a good whiff of “old man smell” that makes you want to vomit bloody diarrhea. And if you ever experience some guy pressing his sweaty back direct against yours, you too will feel the burning rage comparable only to Nick Roberts witnessing someone hawk a loogie onto the sidewalk.

Luckily, the last two trains I rode in the morning were usually less crowded and I was able to sit and sleep for those rides. It’s strange when you start a train routine, even if only for a week or two, because you adapt and start to remember all kinds of weird things, like which car to get on so that you’ll be closest to the escalator when you arrive. You also start to see the same people, whom of course you would never speak to, but there is that silent and awkward bit of acknowledgment in the split-second of eye contact you make when you realize this is the old man who almost drooled on himself the previous day. Or the old guy who was reading hardcore pornography last week. There was also the high school girl who probably thought I was just being creepy, even though I was just trying to figure out how a completely Japanese-looking girl was reading a super thick English mystery novel. Even I don’t attempt books that thick.

And there is no bigger victory on a train commute than scoring a seat, especially a corner seat, on a crowded train. For the most part my return trip from Tokyo to Chiba was always packed, even more than in the mornings. Having a seat was not a realistic goal. Once though, a miracle happened. I was standing in front of a corner seat, swaying back and forth on the grips while staring at posters advertising about 50 different brands of canned coffee. Somewhere around Kinshicho, which is relatively early in the ride, the guy sitting in front of me starts to gather his things and stuff them into his man-bag. I recognized immediately that he was going to get off the train. The seat would be mine. As soon was we stop, however, the greasy salaryman next to me starts to move. OH HELL NO. I casually yet powerfully swing my briefcase, already retrieved from the overhead rack, into the seat space and perform a counter-clockwise spin placing myself gently and smoothly into the treasured corner spot. Middle aged salary man didn’t know what hit him. I slept the rest of the journey in luxurious comfort, not only because I was sitting down after a long day’s work, but because I had just shown the guy now standing in front of me who’s boss of them all since 1983. ME.