{"id":7409,"date":"2009-07-15T10:46:37","date_gmt":"2009-07-15T14:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=7409"},"modified":"2009-07-15T10:50:06","modified_gmt":"2009-07-15T14:50:06","slug":"wit-life-44-%e6%b0%b4%e7%ad%92%e7%94%b7%e5%ad%90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2009\/07\/15\/wit-life-44-%e6%b0%b4%e7%ad%92%e7%94%b7%e5%ad%90\/","title":{"rendered":"WIT Life #44: \u6c34\u7b52\u7537\u5b50"},"content":{"rendered":"

WITLife<\/a> <\/strong>is a periodic series written by professional Interpreter\/Translator\/Writer Stacy Smith<\/a><\/strong> (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03).\u00a0 Recently she\u2019s been watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together <\/em>w<\/em>ith her own observat<\/em>ions.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u6691\u4e2d\u898b\u821e\u3044 (shochuu mimai)<\/em> or mid-summer greetings to everyone!\u00a0 I apologize for my absence, but I was traveling across the country for the past three weeks as an interpreter for a Japanese delegation participating in the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program<\/a> (IVLP).\u00a0 My co-interpreter and I shared some wonderful adventures with this group that I will detail in a post soon to come.\"\"<\/p>\n

First I would like to talk about the rage currently overtaking Japan: water bottle boys!\u00a0 As you probably know, the Japanese love to find trends and attach catchy names to them, thereby creating a stir.\u00a0 For example, in a previous post<\/a> I mentioned the phenomenon of \u8349\u98df\u7537\u5b50 (soushoku<\/em> danshi<\/em>), \u201cherbivorous men<\/a>\u201d who are cooperative, family-oriented and kind but not very aggressive when it comes to romance.\u00a0 This time around the trend is\u00a0 \u6c34\u7b52\u7537\u5b50 (suitou danshi)<\/em>, or men who carry around their own bottles.<\/p>\n

Manufacturers are coming up with a variety of masculine styles to appeal to this previously neglected market.\u00a0 One store in Tokyo revealed an almost doubling of its male bottle section since May, and it now offers 400 different types including stainless and transparent.\u00a0 The best sellers range from 1680 yen to 3444 yen, and the amount of male customers is said to have skyrocketed this summer.\u00a0 Perhaps this can be attributed to the shrinking or complete lack of traditional summer bonuses (As seen in the picture, in these tough economic times a suitou danshi<\/em> is very often a bento boy<\/em><\/a> as well).<\/p>\n

The top reasons for this bottle boom among men were varied, but top of the list was to save money.\u00a0 One suitou danshi <\/em>estimated that he saved anywhere from 6000-10,000 yen a month by switching to \u30de\u30a4\u6c34\u7b52 \uff08my suito) <\/em>or his own bottle, based on the fact that he had previously purchased two plastic water bottles per day.\u00a0 Another reason was that carrying your own bottle allows you to drink what you want when you want, not being a slave to the offerings at the local conbini<\/em> or your office kitchen (The fact that some offices are now charging 8 yen per paper cup to drink the communal coffee\/tea was cited as an additional factor).\u00a0 Finally, being a suitou danshi <\/em>give you some eco cache as you are doing something good for the environment.\"\"<\/p>\n

Incidentally, another trend among men these days is \u3068\u3093\u304c\u308a\u9774 (tongari gutsu)<\/em> or pointy-toed shoes.\u00a0 A shoe repair shop reported that while previously requests for heel and front sole work had been most common in the past, recently there has been a drastic increase in requests for work on the tip of the shoe.\u00a0 Though fashionable, evidently pointy-toed shoes tend to become easily scuffed when climbing stairs or by being stepped on by others in crowded trains.\u00a0 Although tongari gutsu<\/em> adherents claim it makes them look taller, the verdict is out on what women think.\u00a0 Several interviewed expressed that they would not want the guy they were dating to wear them.<\/p>\n

In more serious news, another story this morning featured the lack of awareness among Japanese women regarding breast cancer.\u00a0 Although mammograms do exist, there is a great lack of equipment as well as knowledge regarding the necessity of these exams.\u00a0 Insurance typically only provides coverage for those 40 and older, despite the fact that this type of cancer often strikes those in their 20s or 30s.\u00a0 Women commented that “even if I get a notice I don’t go” or that ” I think of it as something that happens to someone else.”\u00a0 In order to combat this, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has created a special headquarters for this issue and made a proclamation that by the end of 2011 they would like to improve the incredibly low current diagnostic rate of 20% to 50% (here in the States it is 80%).<\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Interpreter\/Translator\/Writer Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03).\u00a0 Recently she\u2019s been watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations. \u6691\u4e2d\u898b\u821e\u3044 (shochuu mimai) or mid-summer greetings to everyone!\u00a0 I apologize for my absence, but I was traveling across the country […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,30,18,1,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articlejournalism","category-japan-trends","category-translatinginterpreting","category-uncategorized","category-wit-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-1Vv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7409"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7423,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7409\/revisions\/7423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}