02.23.10
Posted in Culture/Language, Japanese, News, Site news at 11:14 pm by yuka
I can now happily announce the book translation I’ve been working on the last few months have finished and is now available in biggerbookstores in Japan and Amazon.jp.
It’s called 小さなチーム、大きな仕事―37シグナルズ成功の法則 in the translated Japanese version. Roughly translates to “Small Team, Big Work: 37signals’ Formula for Success”. According to our contact at the publisher, they figured it best to put a positive spin on the title as Japanese people are wary of things that have even the slightest negative connotations. Oh, and 37signals, although a well-known company in the US and amongst programmers, is not so in Japan… and well, this new title kind of helps to introduce them. (And yes, technically speaking “37signals” should be pronounced “37シグナルス”. I translated them as such but apparently they’re known as “37シグナルズ” amongst the Ruby community in Japan… and so they’ve decided to go with the popular flow as opposed to the ‘right version’.)
Personally speaking, the hardest part of this work was the damned colloquials! I get the authors wanted to come off less stiff upper lip, more casual and friendly. But the sheer amount of it… And as some of you would undoubtedly know, the Japanese language (especially in the written version) has no slang. So translating all that ‘kick-ass’ vocab was stressful.
37signals’ first book Getting Real, was in comparison easier for me to translate, I can say with some conviction! Which by the way, is only available online.
The original English version is due out in the US on 9th March under the title Rework, while the UK release is reportedly 23rd March. No idea when all other translations will be available, as of yet.
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02.09.10
Posted in Culture/Language, Japanese, News at 12:07 pm by yuka
Sorry, not gaming-related.
Those of you who are Japanophiles, who are into Sumo wrestling, who live over there… you guys’d have generally heard about this now. Asashyoryu (朝青龍), former Yokozuna (the highest rank of sumo wrestling), has been told to retire forcefully after ‘hitting’ a layman.
Because my mum’s a great fan of his, and maybe because his determination at overcoming the conservative views of his sumo peers inspires me (going overseas in your mid-teens and surviving, let alone succeeding, is a hard thing to do), I cannot but have a slightly biased view of this news.
Asashyoryu’s a Mongolian by birth, who around ‘95/’96 went to a Japanese high school in Shikoku and studied being a professional sumo-tori. He’s been a Yokozuna several times and at one point was touted as the man behind the enlivening of the stagnant sumo scene. And he’s only 29. Quite an accolade.
From what I can find on YahooNews (Google’s not much use when it comes to Japanese news) and Twitter feeds, he was drunk and as he got into a cab after a night of carousing, hit a layman. This has been blown out of all proportion by the Japanese media who had a field day. Sure, he hit a non-professional. But then again, he’s a pro. At a sport that hits other people on a regular basis. What I’m saying is, that as the very best that the Japanese pro sumo scene could produce, he probably knew how to hit someone without injuring them.
Although that possibility apparently never occurred to the said media. They hounded him mercilessly, along with the Sumo society, a conservative bunch of old men. I’m not suggesting Asashyoryu was infallible. But, as the proud Mongolian people (who consider him a hero) claim, it’s hard to understand the decisions made by the Japanese.
Those of you who have spent time with my countrymen would know that they are a nation which is amazingly polite to your face, but behind your back, would be unutterably false and rude. And because of the American complex they have (remember, Japan was ruled by the US between 1945 and 1951), they also have a racist attitude to anyone who’s not white, or who can speak a white-man’s language fluently without being white (as I discovered to my horror aged ten).
So, the Mongolian feel their hero has been hard done by the Japanese. Some even say it’s racism. I can’t help but agree. The Sumo society elders were afraid to admit that a Mongolian (in other words, a foreigner) could be better than the Japanese at a sport that’s considered Japanese (although there’s a Mongolian version as well).
And talk about jumping on the bandwagon! At the moment, the Japanese media’s all about being ‘nice’ to Asashyoryu, and publicly lamenting the future lack of his contribution to the national sport. I’m saddened by Asashyoryu’s untimely ‘retirement’ and disgusted by the falseness of my countrymen.
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02.02.10
Posted in News at 5:50 pm by yuka
A futuristic cat with a 4D-pouch. If Doraemon(ドラえもん) didn’t look so scary, I’d like to have his kind hanging out with me. He is a national treasure to most Japanese, not least because like Sazae-san(サザエさん), he’s lasted so many years in the turbulent world of animation. For the fans therefore, this news that there’s an iPhone app (or 16) is good news. It’s actually 5 entertainment apps (primarily for kids and otaku adults) and 11 comic episodes. They’re all free, and has a limited download time – until 10th May. With an added perk actually: if you download all 16, you can have the effect of a Doraemon page on your iPhone, as seen in top left screenshot.
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