Engrish

I stumbled across an interesting TV show in Japan the other day (yes, an interesting Japanese TV show. I was just as surprised as you) and it really opened my eyes about the English language. This show, Eigo de shabera naito, is an educational and entertaining show that tests the English ability of non native speakers. It is co-hosted by a goofy looking goober Patrick Harlan who actually seems like a decent guy. He's a gaijin talent from the US.

Native English speakers, particularly Americans, are very quick to laugh or poke fun at incorrect English but if you do the math, the ratio of native English speakers to non-native is about 1:4 ( have seen the numbers vary from about 1:3 to 1:5). This is a pretty humbling statistic. Not only does it make my own 'version' of English seem insignificant, but just knowing that such a large group of people are at least bilingual makes me feel a bit stupid and want to study Japanese harder.

So what is English really? English to me is just communication. If the listener/reader understands, isn't that enough? Isn't that the point?

Here is a youtube clip of the TV show:

Mary Kate and Ashley in Japan

hafu

Believe it or not, Japan has an ugly side, and I mean ugly in the literal sense. Hafu (half Japanese, half something else, usually white) receive a lot of undeserved attention and stardom in Japan. Look at these links to judge for yourself, but the majority of hafu are gross (the ones that are famous anyways, I personally know some hafu that are real lookers) in my opinion. Go ahead, click some of the links.
Anna Ohura
Kimura Kaela
Becky

...Gross, right?? I think that horse faced Becky tart is probably the worst of them. Becky, if you are reading this I think you're a 6 at best and how you became famous is beyond me... （　´∀｀）

Most of them enjoy celebrity status because they are too untalented or unattractive to be a celebrity anywhere else or they are parents of other Japanese celebrities. This started as an informative post and ended up pretty hateful...my bad.

Not ALL celebrity hafu are gross, but it would be safe to say the majority are. And I hear the word 'hafu' kind of has a negative connotation to it, so use it sparingly.