Cell Phones in Japan

A flurry of posting!! Can you tell I am trying to avoid writing my Fulbright application . . .

Anyway, given the success of the garbage in Japan post, I thought I would do another "daily life" sort of thing. As most people know, cell phones are VERY widespread in Japan. People on are their phones constantly - checking email, writing email, playing games, surfing the internet. The cell phone networks here must be pretty strong - for example, I can read/send email and make calls when I am in the train underground. I read somewhere that personal computer sales have actually gone down in Japan because people do all that stuff on their cell phones. There is even a genre of novels written by people (usually young women) on their cell phones and then published. So the cell phone obsession runs deep . . . apparently so deep that I have seen ads on the train (in the same vein and style as the anti-smoking ads) warning people against texting while walking because it "creates a blind spot in front of you." This was accompanied by a hilarious picture of someone falling down.

One thing I find interesting about Japanese cell phone plans, however, is that the texting system is different. Rather than sending text messages to people's phone numbers, here you get an email address that is associated with your phone account and just send email to and from the phone. So people can contact your phone both from other phones and from the email at their computers, which is actually pretty convenient. What people don't seem to do much on their phones, however, is talk on them. The nature of the plans here seem to encourage email and not actually making calls. My plan, for example, gives me only 60 minutes of outgoing calls a month, but unlimited emails. Some other plans, like those on the Softbank network, make you pay for each time you email or phone, but email is considerably cheaper. Granted, since we are all students, I am talking about the cheapest plans, but it's an interesting change from the US where we tend to buy a larger number of minutes a month. I never call my friends here, but we email/text on a regular basis - my fingers are getting much more adept! My phone is set to be in English, but the phone is really designed for Japan. Since Japanese doesn't put spaces between the words there is no dedicated space key - you have to either use the arrows, or cycle through all the character keys until you find the space. It's a pain! You feel like you really belong, however, when as soon as you get on the train or the escalator, you whip out your phone and start sending emails :) Now I just have to get some of those little charms to hang on the phone (VERY popular here) and I will be nihonjin mitai (essentially, like a Japanese person).

Other news today . . . not much. I had a fun conversation with Aki and Nikki (my roomates) last night about funny Japanese words. Japanese has this whole slew of words that are essentially short words that you repeat twice. Some examples: mukamuka (when you are nauseous), pichipichi (when your clothes are too small), bukabuka (when clothes are too big - both of these are often used when shopping), and, my favorite, onakapanpan (when you eat too much, a condition I have been known to call Indian food baby, sushi baby and losh). I have to start using these words, as they are hilarious. Since I got my gaijin card yesterday, I opened a bank account which was surprisingly easy as the woman working at the bank spoke English. And I got to chose the color of my debit card from 34 different colors. Exciting! Now I just need actual money to put in the account. I also went in search of contact lens solution - they don't have my normal stuff here. I did find some stuff for hard lenses but the cleaning processes are a little different than they are in the US so we will see how that goes. Not the most thrilling of days, but I am enjoying very much that it is the weekend!!