Category Archives: Japan (日本)

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) Written April 24, 2019 I noticed some holes in the woods behind my house and checked the video footage on the security cams I installed recently. I was surprised to find two different bamboo shoot thieves walking around less than 15 feet from my home searching for bamboo shoots on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The first one dug up whatever he could find including one growing behind my house. The times were very early with the Saturday thief showing up at 5:13 and the Sunday morning thief roaming around at 5:33. Both of them left the area before 6:00am. I don’t know what’s wrong with these people. They can buy bamboo shoots at the supermarket if they want them. タケノコ泥棒 家の裏の林に穴が掘られたことに気付き、最近設置した防犯ビデオ記録を調べた。 家の裏の5メート以内にタケノコ泥棒が写っているにはびっくりした。土曜日と日曜日の早朝両方に泥棒が歩き回って地面を調べていた。1人が家の裏のタケノコを掘っているのも写っていた。 時間は土曜日の5：13と日曜日の5：33からで、どちらも午前6：00まで去って逃げた。 このような人の頭はどうなっているかは分からない。立入禁止の林に侵入して固いタケノコを掘り、犯罪を犯している自覚はないだろう。スーパーに買えるなのに… By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) *********** English books published by AELS […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) April 8, 2019 Blog When I went to South Carolina in the spring some years back, I saw a few cherry blossom trees blooming quietly next to the parking lot of a diner we had breakfast at. The patrons of the restaurant and people parking their cars took no notice of them, yet they caught my attention immediately. It made me realize that cherry blossoms in bloom are a part of Japan’s unique culture. 桜 数年前の春にサウスカロライナ州を訪問した時、朝食をとったファミレスの駐車所の周囲に数本の桜が静かに満開になっていると気付いた。 しかし、ファミレス客や駐車する方は見もしなかった。 その時、『桜』はやはり日本の独特な文化の1部に悟った。 By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) ****************** English books published by AELS (AELS出版英語書籍リスト）   I. Majoh Gakuin and Hikari Juku – Japanese Witch Schools Trilogy 1. Majoh Gakuin & Hikari Juku – Japanese Witch Schools 2. Lost Witch (The second book) 3. Fate & Magic (The final book in the trilogy) II. Brindle – Scryer Extraordinaire Trilogy 1. […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) Early last year my electric water heater broke down and I got it fixed. It was more than 11 years old so I began looking for a replacement. I’d seen ads on TV about a gas fuel cell electric generator/water heater called “Ene-Farm” (as in energy farm) and started to read up on it. The initial cost would be high – about the price of a mini-car or about 1,650,000, but the government would subsidize 150,000 yen of it so the final price would be in the range of 1,500,000 yen (about 13,618 dollars at the current rate). The generator would come with an iron-clad 10-year maintenance warranty, so I figured if the savings eventually would exceed the purchase price within that period, that it would be a good investment. I started to think seriously […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) About a month after I started teaching at the English Conversation school, the school added a 19-year old blonde-haired woman teacher they’d invited to Japan from Wyoming. They’d set her up with a cultural visa to “study” flower arrangement, so she became one of the many teachers working part-time at the school.   It had been about a week since her arrival in Japan and we were talking between classes. She kept rubbing her lower back, so I asked her if she had injured it. She said, “No, but my tailbone hurts like Hell! These Japanese toilets are horrible!”   I thought for a second and then burst out laughing. I explained that they were “squat toilets” and that the hump wasn’t for sitting. I added that you needed to face the plumbing for them […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) I was thinking back about twenty-five years to when I first met the German sales manager of the company my company was planning to do business with.   I’d traveled to Tokyo to meet him at the Hotel Okura where he was staying. I was surprised to find that he was a few inches taller than me (I’m about 6′ tall) and extremely handsome with blonde hair and a physique that movie stars would envy. He was dressed in a sports jacket offset with an ascot, which made him appear quite suave.   I noticed women on the street pausing in their tracks to take a good look at him and felt their stares as they looked at us. We wandered around and finally found an okonomiyaki restaurant in Roppongi (I know. Okonomiyaki in Tokyo…but […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) While Japan is trying to rush towards becoming a cashless society, the trend in the US is moving in the opposite direction, since cashless businesses are thought to be discriminatory against those with low incomes and no bank accounts.   The mayor of Philadelphia signed a new law last week that will force most retail businesses to accept cash. The law is set to take effect on July 1st and carries fines of up to $2,000 for businesses that don’t comply.   At the moment, the only state that requires all stores to accept cash is Massachusetts, however, similar bans on cashless businesses have been proposed in New Jersey and New York states as well as in Chicago, San Francisco and Washington D.C. キャシュレス差別 日本が慌ててキャシュレス社会に走ろうとするところ、アメリカではキャシュレス会社は低所得者や金融口座を持っていない人に対して差別的だと断定する傾向がある。   先週、フィラデルフィア市の市長が現金受取を義務化する法律にサインをした。7月1日の発効後、現金を断る会社には2,000ドルまでの罰金が科せられる。   現時点では法律で現金を受け取る法律が成立している洲はマサチューセッツ州のみ。しかし、フィラデルフィア市が発効する法律と似た法案はニュージャージー州とニューヨーク州の議会には上がっているし、シカゴ市、サンフランシスコ市及びシントンDCにも法案が検討中だ。 By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) ************** […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) 1969. I was in high school working part-time at a local hotel in Hawaii in the Maintenance Department on weekends. There were many Japanese tour groups staying at the hotel every week. The hotel staff tried to keep them on the same floor because they liked to party and could get quite noisy.   It was early morning and I was watering the lawn on the ocean side of the hotel. Something made me look up and there was this elderly Japanese man standing on the balcony of his second floor room pulling it out to take a leak! I yelled at him in Japanese and he went back in his room looking a bit shocked…   Another problem we had with the Japanese tourists was with water damage. They’d splash water on themselves from […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) My best friend and I both had to work the day after our high school graduation, so we couldn’t attend any of the many graduation parties that our classmates held afterwards. The two of us decided that we’d celebrate on the two days I could get off from my part-time job. My friend worked on his dad’s farm and their peak harvest would be over by then.   We borrowed his dad’s 4WD truck and rented a cabin in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. We arrived there in the afternoon, grilled some steaks and killed the bottle of whiskey he’d swiped from his home.   Early the next morning we headed out to the slopes of Mauna Kea to play in the snow near the summit. We parked near the summit and got out and […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) Down here in Japan, most stores and businesses have parking spaces reserved for the handicapped. The 100-yen shops (dollar stores) also sell handicapped stickers to put on cars being used by the handicapped. Unfortunately, many able-bodied drivers buy the stickers and paste them on their cars in order to allow them to brazenly use the handicapped spaces. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen drivers with those stickers (and sometimes without them) pull into handicapped spaces and get out and head into the business with a brisk step and no signs of any disability at all. There should be restrictions on who can buy and use those decals together with checks by the police and hefty fines for their abuse. People who really need the spaces often can’t use them because they’re being […]

By Billy Hammond (Copyright AELS) When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s in Hawaii, movies underwent severe censorship and there wasn’t much nudity or violence. Look at some of the American films from the period and I’m pretty sure you’ll find them quite mild by today’s standards. The Hays Code created by the Motion Picture Association of America, which monitored the films was strictly observed from 1934 to the 1960s. It would be 1963 before an American actress would bare her breasts in a mainstream film (Promises! Promises!). All of this continued until the Code was abandoned in 1967.   On the other hand, films from Japan that were all in Japanese or loosely subtitled seemed to escape the censorship. There were nude public bath scenes, rapes, body parts realistically cut off in samurai films and other […]