Tag Archives: Japanese

Sunday, 17 May, 2009

GameDesign Hanafuda

I find the GameDesign's Hanafuda game from JayIsGames.

Hanafuda is a card game. There are twelve suits, representing months. Each is designated a flower, and each suit has four cards.

In this flash card game, each player is dealt 8 cards, and 8 cards are placed face up between the players. The player can match one of his card with one of the faced up card of the same suit or discard his card as a faced up card if there is no matching card. Either way, the top stock card from the deck is then turned face up, and if there is a matching suit, the player takes the 2 matching cards as well, otherwise the top stock card is added to the faced up cards. Each player will take turn to collect matching cards in order to gather points (minimum of 1 point) to win the round.

Refer to this Koi-Koi page for the list of captured hands that will give the player points. For example, 10 Dregs cards are worth 1 point and any additional dregs are +1 point each. (The flash game does not give point for Moon Viewing and Flower Viewing)

When the player forms a captured hand they have to make a choice whether or not to continue in an attempt to get a higher score. They announce 'Koi!' (Japanese for 'come on!') to continue or 'Game' to win the round. 'Koi!' is a way for a player to bet that he can form a new captured hand (or improve the existing hand) before his opponent can form his first hand. If, however, his opponent successfully forms a hand first, his opponent can win the round instead! (the opponent's score for the round is not doubled in the flash game) Also, in the flash game, instead of a draw when the players run out of cards, the game awards 6 points to the player who has more matching cards.

To play the flash game, click on one of your cards to automatically capture the matching card from the board, or to discard it if there are no matching cards. The 'Game' button is on the right and the 'Koi!' is on the left of the Koi Koi dialog.

You begin the game with 10 points. If you win the game by reaching 50 points, you can play the next game in its alternate "face-up" mode whereby you can see both yours and your opponents cards and also the top stock card.

Hanafuda is an easy and fun card game. Click on GameDesign Hanafuda to play.

Tags: Game, Flash, card, strategy, Japanese


Posted in Game , Diversion


Sunday, 13 January, 2008

Japanese Children Cellphone Obsession

From Google news.

Young Japanese people are evolving a new lifestyle for the 21st century based on the cellphones that few are now able to live without.

They are using their phones to read books, listen to music, chat with friends and surf the Internet -- an average of 124 minutes a day for high school girls and 92 minutes for boys.

While the wired world they now inhabit holds enormous advantages for learning and communicating, it also brings a downside, say experts who point to a rise in cyberbullying and a growing inability among teenagers to deal with other people face to face.

"Kids say what's most important to them, next to their own lives, is their cellphone," said Masashi Yasukawa, head of the private National Web Counselling Council.

"They are moving their thumbs while eating or watching television," he said.

The passion in 20-year-old Ayumi Chiba's voice backs up this assertion.

"My life is impossible without it," she says of her cellphone. "I used to pretend I was sick and leave school early when I forgot to take it with me."

As the multi-faceted cellphone takes centre stage in teen life, it plays a number of roles -- including a weapon that children can wield against each other with no thought for the consequences.

Yasukawa recalls the case of a 15-year-old girl who regularly received messages telling her: "Die," "You're a nuisance" and "You smell".

They turned out to have been sent by a friend in whom she had confided and who told her not to take the messages too seriously.

"The girl who was doing the bullying confessed it made her feel good to see the unease spreading on her friend's face," Yasukawa said.

Most middle school cellphone users rarely used their phone to talk, the survey found. Saito, of Kawamura Gakuen Women's University near Tokyo, said children seemed to want the security of communicating with someone, without the bother of dealing with a real person.

"Communication ability is bound to decline as cellphones and other devices are now getting between people," he said.

Saito's survey found that students can also use their cellphones as an emotional crutch, and the more problems they have at home, the more dependent they seem to become on their phones.

More than 60 percent of students who said they do not enjoy being with their families send 20 or more emails a day, compared with 35 percent of those happy with their families.

Related:

South Korea Opens Boot Camp to Confront Internet Addiction.

Tags: communication, cyberbullying, relationships, children, Japanese, behavior, addiction


Posted in Mobile , Psychology


Saturday, 3 November, 2007

Appreciative Relationships Help Resolve Conflict

Original article at Seishindo by Charlie Badenhop.

I witnessed a beautiful scene the other day that epitomizes the way many Japanese approach conflict and relationships. I share this story with you now, hoping it will help you better deal with conflict in your own life.

A rather old man who lives in my Tokyo neighborhood came shuffling along on his way to go shopping. He stopped and talked with a girl of around 5, who was playing by herself in the parking lot of my apartment complex. It was obvious by the animated nature of their conversation that the man and the girl knew each other well. After talking for a few minutes, the old man reached in his pocket and pulled out a candy bar which he offered to the girl. She bowed and accepted the candy with little hesitation. The old man smiled, bowed back to the girl, and continued on down the street.

The interaction between the two led me to understand the girl's mom must have OK'ed receiving a gift from the man in the past. Otherwise the child would have likely said "No thank you" as Japanese people are usually quite hesitant to accept a gift, even from a good friend.

Just as the girl began to eagerly tear off the candy wrapper her older brother and his friend came along.

Upon seeing the candy, the brother quickly decided all three of them should share in the girl's bounty, so he took the candy bar away from his sister and began to think out loud about how to split it up. He and his friend quickly started arguing over who should get what, as the girl stood there and began to cry. I was tempted to somehow intervene, but I thought it might not be wise to do so. Chances are a big foreigner like me might only scare the children, even though I had said hello to them many times in the past.

The noise of the arguing boys and the crying girl drew the mother's attention, and she soon came out of her apartment to see what was going on. It didn't take her but a second to size up the situation, and she took the candy bar from her son and gave it back to her daughter.

The mother gently but sternly scolded her son. She said, "Not only were you treating your sister badly, but you were teaching your friend bad manners as well." The son bowed to his mother, offered his apologies, and then bowed and apologized to his sister as well. The other boy was quite embarrassed and stood there staring down at the ground.

The mother squatted down and drew her daughter to her side. She asked if everything was OK now, and the girl said "Yes."

Next, the mother said, "Even though your brother has been quite naughty, it's still better to share what you have with others, rather than keeping everything all to yourself."

Still a bit teary eyed, the girl slowly nodded her head "yes" as she stood there with the candy bar in her hand. She asked her mom if she should give some candy to both her brother and his friend, and her mom said, "As an act of kindness it would be a very nice thing to do."

The girl divided the candy equally between herself and the two boys, even as the boys once again apologized for their bad behavior.

Such is life in Japan!

To me it was a beautiful example of how to resolve conflict by building relationship.

Related:

Hoops and Harmony: How PeacePlayers is Changing the Middle East.

Tags: Japanese, communication, conflict, Seishindo, story, relationships


Posted in Psychology