You bring the soap and beer, I'll provide the room - the one and only, incredibly busy, Google Lively JapanSoc Room! :-P http://blog.japansoc.com/google-lively-japansoc-room/

These sound like a great idea because the products are everything from food to cosmetics from all sorts of companies. These kinds of parties in Australia are usually in a private home and from the one Amway-like companies, often either poor quality products which don't want to risk comparison to other products or sex toys. Your party host is usually out to make money from it and in full, obnoxious, POSITIVITY mode with all the charm of a religious convert but they are either a friend or friend of a friend so you feel guilty if you don't buy anything but conned when you do lol!

Thanksgiving has always struck me as a lovely celebration and it's one of the things that makes me wonder what growing up in the US, instead of leaving at age 2, would have been like. Like I'll never quite understand the depth of that Fourth of July patriotic emotion either. I have been surprised how many Americans I meet who don't realize Thanksgiving is an American celebration and the rest of us only know it from TV and movies. Several people here have asked if I'm ready for Thanksgiving or even if I'll miss my family for it, even though they know I'm Australian, lol! I've been to a couple of Thanksgivings at the homes of American friends and it is always an honour and a lovely time... except for the turkey, just can't acquire that taste.

If problems aren't identified and discussed, solutions will never be found. If you weren't offering alternatives/solutions then it would be a negative post but you are - it's called constructive criticism and it is essential for life. Pretending problems don't exist because someone might be precious about hearing the truth only leads to poor quality breeding more poor quality in any walk of life. In my experience as an editor, I find it's always those who react angrily or with most resistance to a critique that need to do the most work :)

Thanks for the feedback. Some co-workers had asked me not to post it because it seemed too negative. Instead, they wanted to see something very positive and upbeat ... but I don't play that way. Hopefully this will offer a few tips to anyone that is thinking about being an English Language Facilitator in a non-English-speaking nation :)

Great post. Thanks for writing this. It seems that, at least in the blogosphere, the people who share your values and point of view are in the minority. From an incoming English teacher like myself (March), I'm always so hungry to find articles like this. Thanks again.

Thanksgiving is November 27th. It is always the last Thursday in the month of November.

Fourth Thursday in November.

Suck on hard candy. Same effect as the expensive lozenges.

When is Thanksgiving?

...you can't think of anything to add to a list like this except the everyday stuff because living in Japan feels normal.

Ate my bird already. Defrosted too early. No freezer space. Had to cook it.

Excellent article. Anyone planning to teach English in Japan should read this, as should the ones who already are!

http://www.japansoc.com/Food-and-Drink/the-impact-of-japans-evolving-food-consumption-trend/

http://blog.japansoc.com/2008/11/19/i-think-i-gamed-the-system-and-soc-ed-th/

Toilet paper? Eggs?! Where does it end?! haha

I think I gamed the system and Soc-ed this twice by not waiting for the first click to register as a Soc and then Soc-ing it again. Nick, is that a repeatable thing do you know?

Haha. Perhaps that is the case. When I had them they didn't taste like that at all. They had the crunch of kawaebi tempura and then sweetness of something dipped in a soy sauce and sugar type sauce. They weren't so bad.

I have been to this place several times. It is always a lot of fun. Wait a minute I remember posting a video about this place a while back. Oh well, the lock-up is a cool place to eat and drink.

You know you can have a valid opinion on Japan when others put a lot of time and effort telling you and anyone who will listen that you do not have a valid opinion.

Wow! They actually did it. I never thought that you can actually polish a turd.

Is that the best you all can come up with? Come on. Tell us what you think and why we should listen. The list is about insights, a good laugh, an 'aha' not about who should be included/excluded and why. How about this one - You know you can have an opinion on Japan when you have spent a night in the morgue haggling with a funeral director on the price for a good name to live eternally with.

いなご tastes...like...チキン...

sir, thou art mad! Unless the licorice taste is evidence of some rot in my batch...

Christ, man.. They aren't that bad. Inago no tsukudani isn't that bad folks. This man is a LIAR! Ha. Maybe you just got bad stuff, buddy.