mokudekiru

So apparently Japan has an award for popular phrases of the past year. Pink Tentacle has translated them all and explained the references, in case anyone was interested. Many of them I did come across in my time there, and currently keep hearing. One of them, 干物女 (himono onna: dried fish woman) came from Hotaru no Hikari, a drama I watched this summer. And, I was only vaguely aware that this had to do with some comedians, but a few times people did shout, 欧米か？！ (oubei ka) at me, which is #24 on the list, and basically means, “Are you a westerner?!?!” But the phrase really refers to the stereotype of completely clueless, stupid westerners. Anyway, just browsing through the list gives you a pretty good sense of what was/is going on in Japan.