Cool Word – キャッシュオン
I have an article online today over at CNNGo Tokyo. I give a brief introduction to 和製英語 (わせいえいご) and list a few of my favorites. One of these is キャッシュオン, which is a shortened form of キャッシュオンデリバリー. I learned the phrase at Dry Dock, but Ushitora also has キャッシュオン events. I love the way the word sounds, and it’s a lot of fun to overpronounce it. Although, whenever I say it now, I say it with a Cajun accent, a la Cajun Man.
While I’m here, I should go ahead and do a mini-rinkage post.
“Big (only) in Japan? Oshibori”
I’ve had a bit of reverse culture shock since I’ve been home. The most notable shock has been shoes in the house. Hate it. After that, I guess it’s a toss up between cash-less shopping, the frigid temperatures people in New Orleans keep their ACs set at, and eating food with hands. For the first few weeks I felt a weird sensation of never having enough money on me. In Japan, not having enough cash can have serious consequences – like having to walk home a really long ways or go hungry/thirsty for longer than is pleasant. I’ve gotten over it thanks to my debit card, which can be used just about everywhere in the U.S. I’ve also realized why people bring sweaters to the library – the library is super cold! Come on, people, 68F is not a normal inside temperature. The other weird sensation I have is that my hands are constantly dirty. Part of this is due to the lack of chopsticks, part of this is do to the prevalence of hand feedin’, and part of it is due to the lack of oshibori. I seriously miss oshibori.
September 6th, 2010 at 9:09 am
Nice article! I love the Cash on Delivery thing here in Japan. Was really worried at first because it’s so difficult to get a credit card and I might not be able to shop online. But then I found out about the wonder of 代金引換 and the world was saved. Still feels weird to hand over huge sums of money on the doorstep though o.O;
November 9th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
Shoes in the house totally freak me out too. Back in California I already always went shoeless in my own place (who wants to keep your feet bound up when they can be free?), but now that it’s a cultural habit I really just feel wrong wearing shoes in the house. I have some acquaintances who are living in Japan for just a year and not picking up Japanese habits and they always try to make me feel comfortable (they’re totally sweet) by insisting that I don’t have to take my shoes off when I come over to their place. I don’t have the heart to tell them that walking around in their house with shoes on feels almost as strange as if I were wearing dead chickens on my feet.