I don’t get it. Have you seen this Japanese sticker before on a car in the US?
Or, maybe you’ve seen this sticker…
In Hawaii (and in SoCal I hear), it seems that “cool” young dudes in the import car hot-rod scene think these Japanese stickers are da bomb! Maybe I’m an old fut, cause I don’t get it and I’m seeing more and more of these Japanese stickers on cars all the time. I’ve tried to pull along side one of these guys to ask him why he has this sticker on his car…of course he couldn’t hear me over the loud exhaust and hip-hop music blaring from his car.
Or maybe they don’t know the true meaning behind these stickers from Japan… (I’ll bet Japanese visitors in Hawaii look and laugh at these guys.) So what are these stickers? Well the first sticker, the green and yellow one, is used in Japan to designate a young, new driver. This sticker is known as “Shoshinsha” 初心者マーク（しょしんしゃマーク）or sometimes by “Wakaba” 若葉マーク（わかばマーク）. In Japan, this is one of those things that you certainly DON’T WANT to have on your car. Think of it as the Japanese equivalent to driving around with a big “STUDENT DRIVER” sign plastered on your car. Very cool dude!
A badge of honor - Only the smokin’ hot cars in Japan have these “new driver” stickers on them!
The brown and yellow sticker has a different meaning. In Japan, if you’re a senior citizen, you put this “Koreisha” 高齢者マーク sticker on your car as a way of telling other drivers, “I’m old, don’t bother me!”
So if anyone can tell me where they are getting these Japanese stickers, and WHY they’re putting them on their souped up import cars, please explain it to this old fut. There MUST be a good reason why these stickers are cool. Hey, maybe I need one of these brown and yellow Koreisha stickers for my car!
Name the artist with Hawaii ties who:
1) released a single with Celine Dion on January 16, 2008.
2) was nominated for 3 MTV Video music awards in 2006 and 2007?
3) released a platinum selling album in 2006 under the Sony label?
4) is hosting a music TV show with a worldwide audience?
Jasmine Trias or Jordan Segundo of American Idol fame come to mind, but that would be incorrect. Keali’i Rachel, Jake Shimabukuro and Iz (r.i.p) are talented and well known beyond Hawaii, but they would also be incorrect.
Never heard of them? Join the club. The reason is that all have left Hawaii and have reached a level of fame, not in the US mainland, but in Japan. How good are they? Let me introduce a bunch of music vidoes and you can judge for yourself. Even if you don’t have time to watch the whole video, please take a moment to play at least a little of each one; you’re in for a real treat. When you’re done, please ask yourself, why don’t more people (in Hawaii at least) know who they are?
Yuna Ito
A 2001 graduate from McKinley High School in Honolulu, Yuna Ito is one of Japan’s hottest stars today. Her January 16, 2008 single with Celine Dion is climbing the Japanese music charts. But the proof is in the music. Please enjoy the following music videos.
Here’s another Yuna Ito video filmed in Hawaii called “Mahaloha.” The man appearing the video is Micro of the group Def Tech (read on about Def Tech).
Shen Brown of Def Tech
Shenan Brown out of Iolani School is part of group that is bringing Jawaiian music to Japan. Def Tech’s music marries English, Japanese, Hawaiian and Reggae together in a unique blend that deserves to be heard. Shen’s partner is Micro, who sang with Yuna Ito in the “Mahaloha” music video. The following video is live recording of Def Tech’s hit called “My Way.” Pay attention to the English lyrics and you’ll notice there’s a refreshingly positive message in Def Tech’s music.
Here’s a professionally produced music video of Def Tech’s single “Catch the Wave.” Hawaii visitor industry people: note the strong Hawaiian influence seen in living rooms all over Japan.
Angela Aki
Angela Aki is a singer/songwriter/piano player who was born in Japan but graduated from Iolani School (go Raiders!). Angela, who is happa (her father is Japanese and mother is American) has made forays into the US music scene but made it big in Japan in 2006 with the release of her platinum selling album “Home” which peaked at number 2 in the Japanese music charts. Here’s the music video of the album’s title track, “Home.”
Sadly, the following song has no music video, but it was included here because it was a great example of Angela Aki’s English voice. This song, “Surrender” is from her album entitled “Today,” which was released in September 2007.
melody.
Born and raised in Hawaii, Melody Ishikawa (aka ‘melody.’) has established herself as star in the J-pop music scene with a string of hits dating back to 2004. Here’s a music video of her breakthrough single titled “Realize.”
In April 2007, Melody was picked to host an NHK Japan produced, English language music TV show entitled “J-Melo” (seen on NGN in Hawaii). J-Melo is shown worldwide and is intended to share Japanese music with a world audience. Here’s a clip from the TV show where Melody interviews a Japanese/African-American singer, Crystal Kay (watch through the video to hear some Crystal Kay’s R&B J-pop music).
For more info about any of these Japan/Hawaii stars, check out these Wikipedia articles for Yuna Ito, Shen Brown (Def Tech), Angela Aki and Melody. Of course if you want to hear more of their music, YouTube.com has a wealth of content from each artist.
I would certainly love to hear your feedback about these artists with Hawaii ties. Do you think any of these performers could have popular commercial appeal outside of Japan? I’m taking a poll…so let me know what you think.
Think parking your car is a chore? Is your parking stall too small? Good thing you don’t live in Tokyo, where car ownership truly is a privilege. In fact, you can’t even buy a car in Tokyo unless you can prove that you have a place to park it. I normally don’t walk around Japan looking at parking spaces, but when I saw these two fine examples, I just had to take a picture.
Talk about parallel parking! Or maybe you use a forklift and lower your car in this space. Good thing this guy sold his F-150 extended cab!
Can you imagine parking here everyday?
Consider this is Japan, the steering wheel is on the RIGHT HAND SIDE of the car! This guy parks his car and has to climb out of the passenger side. I hope he’s skinny!
While it is true that most Japanese people own small cars, it’s also true that like in America, big cars make more of a statement. Americans like big trucks and SUVs, but Japanese people seem to like vans. If you think Toyota, you think of the Sienna van; Honda, the Odyssey, Nissan, the Quest. But in Japan, all the big automakers have a line up a vans that don’t get exported to the States. Here’s a couple of Nissan bad boys that would might even make American men want to drive a van.
Growing up in the 1960’s we used to have a thing called a record player. For you younger folks, a record player was the way we listened to music before CDs and MP3 players.
As a 5 year old child, the single most important record in my collection was Stuart (Stoo) Hample’s The Silly Record. I must have spent days, weeks and months listening to The Silly Record. Amazingly, nearly 40 years later, I am STILL ABLE TO RECITE MOST of it! My wife thinks I’m a freak!
If you don’t know about The Silly Record read no further as this will be of no interest to you. Only a Silly Record fan would care to know that when I was a teenager, in a moment of rare insightfulness, I made a cassette tape recording of The Silly Record. I don’t know what happened to the LP record. And now as an adult I have recently uncovered the tape of The Silly Record and have now ripped it to MP3 for all former fans. Do I dare play this for my 4 year old son? I’m sure he’ll love it, but will he turn out like me? Scary!
So to you 40 to 50 year old fellow freaks out there who actually remember The Silly Record, I present our pal Boodlehiemer in all his glory (Boodlehiemer is the thing with 12 toes standing on top of the record).
I hope Mr. Hample is okay with this post. As this record is currently no where to be found (to purchase) I assume I’m not stepping on any toes.
Right-click the following link and select “Save target as…” to download your copy of The Silly Record (21MB, Mp3 format, 23 mins)
A special thank you goes out to Satoauto.com and his unlimited bandwidth hosting account for hosting this file. I also want to acknowledge PopCereal for having the seemingly only image scans of The Silly Record front and back covers. Also, please visit PopCereal for really complete background info about The Silly Record and Stoo Hample. Groovy!
Japanese English? In America we speak a version of English called American English. In Japan they use Japanese English. What’s that? Actually, Japanese English, sometimes called Japlish, is not a real language. In Japan it seems that it’s pretty cool to use English words and phrases splashed into marketing messages. First time visiting English speakers are always surprised by the amount of English found in Japan… The “problem” is the interesting way English is used, or abused depending on how you look at it. Actually, it can be quite humorous.
I ran into this little message printed on the side of a car. In this case the grammar used is not too bad. But the content…well… Now, before you think this was just one person’s idea (the car owner) of poetry, let me assure you that this message was factory OEM stuff. You may need to click on this photo to clearly read it.
Can you hear them? Can you hear the carib screaming?
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