Can A Chinese Person Be Spotted Out In Japan

Since Japanese use Chinese characters, can they read Chinese writing?

Many Japanese words are derived from Chinese (as are English words from Latin and Greek, etc.). Most of those words are written with Chinese characters (and, originally, all were). Many of those words, although pronounced somewhat differently in Japanese than in Chinese, have very similar meanings to the original Chinese. When those appear in Japanese written documents, people literate in Chinese often can derive the gist of the Japanese meaning.On the other hand, many Chinese-derived Japanese words have meanings quite different from what the same kanji mean to Chinese. For example 手紙 in Japanese means “letter” (as in missive) whereas in Chinese it means “toilet paper”, and “汽車” in Japanese means “train” (pulled by a steam locomotive); in Chinese it means “automobile”. Maybe a good analogy would be an English speaker reading a Spanish document. Because of the similarities in derivation between English and Spanish words—even though pronunciations can be quite different—the English speaker looking at the Spanish document could understand the meaning of many of its words. Similarly, a Japanese looking at a Chinese newspaper, for example, or a Chinese looking at a Japanese newspaper, would be able to understand the meaning of many of the words (in fact, just this morning, at breakfast in a Japanese hotel where most of the guests are Chinese, I saw a Chinese gentleman reading a Japanese newspaper in just this manner.)Where kanji being something of a written lingua franca in some Asian nations is concerned, many years ago I found myself stranded in a Taiwanese city, unable to speak a word of Chinese. So I took out a pad of paper and began asking questions by writing kanji in English word order and, showing these to Taiwanese, was able to communicate fairly well. (I had learned, however, that Chinese sentence structure is similar to that of English.)

Do Japanese and Chinese understand each other and can they read each other's alphabet?

Disclaimer: I don’t speak Japanese. But I have friends who do, and Korean is considered “similar” to Japanese.Japanese has many loanwords from Chinese. However, the problem is that the actual Japanese words (not borrowed from Chinese) outnumber the Chinese words 7:1 and plus they have different grammar and syntax. In addition, most of the loanwords are nouns. If you were a Chinese speaker listening to Japanese, then it would sound a bit like this:blah blah blah town blah blah blah blah blah blah airport blah blah blah blah blah blah (something that sounds like “fruitcake”) blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah compass blah blah blah blah blah blah hikingIf you’re talking about alphabets (in particular, kanji) [hanja in Korea], then yes, Chinese people can read it, but the characters look old-fashioned. And plus, some of the characters are native Japanese, so while they “look” Chinese, they aren’t really.But in terms of language, it’s like Latin vs. English. English developed from Germanic languages while borrowing a lot of Latin words, but the grammar is the same. While we can understand some words in Latin, those words are usually loanwords, and we probably don’t have any idea what they say beyond a few words.Hope this helped!

How do Japanese people look at Western people with traditional Japanese tattoos (irezumi)?

Japanese tattoos are beautiful.Although, tattoos are a big taboo in Japanese society, because of the Yakuza. That been said, today’s Yakuza do not use tattoos anymore (since its very easy to be spotted out) and the huge majority of the tattooed Japanese are actually doing it for the love of the art.The tattoo taboo in Japan though, is so strict, that last year, a wife of New Zealand diplomat (who happened to be Maori, hence sporting a beautiful tribal tattoo on her face, as is her culture and status in her society) was refused entry in Japanese hot spring and been referred to as criminal (which is the reason tattooed people are not allowed to hot springs in Japan) and that became diplomatic scandal, resulting in prime minister Abe himself addressing the issue and requesting operators to recognize the cultural difference and the need for Japanese to understand, that in some cultures, tattoos show higher status.All of this came in the middle of the campaign, targeting to attract more tourists and helping the local economy…The Tokyo Olympics indeed are going to provide some serious material for a good laugh…

Is there a fake Rolex that is so perfectly made that it can't be spotted?

Actually, the answer is yes. There are Rolex copies that cannot be spotted. Rolex uses 904L steel. For the longest time, the copies used 316L steel and you can feel the difference in the wristband. However, the NOOB factory is now making one of their Rolex copies with 904L. That same copy also uses sapphire glass, which is the same as that used by Rolex. NOOB makes many versions, and the 904L steel model is the NOOB version 8 Rolex. Sometimes referred to as Noob v8. Anyway, this particular copy also has a magnified dated cyclops. At this point, I am not sure if the anti-glare sapphire is used on the cyclops. (If not, there will be a glare when trying to read the date through the cyclops.)I am writing this because I read other reviews stating that the copies do not use 904L steel. For 95% of the copies, that is true. But for the NOOB version 8, it is actually 904L steel. These copies are very expensive compared to the 316L copies. For example, 316L copies with sapphire glass can run $150+. The Noob v8 copies are $650–850 as of this writing. In fact, finding one for $650 is difficult. For the most part they are purchased from China through DH gate website. You also have to confirm with the seller that you are purchasing 904L steel model because a lot of sellers claim they have the latest Noob model when in fact they don’t.I have to mention that there are many different versions of automatic movements inside of these copies. The most expensive will use a copy of the Rolex movement 3135. This movement looks a lot like the Rolex movement but obviously it’s Chinese and much cheaper. Some of the copies will use the Swiss ETA 2824, or 2826. These Swiss movements are obviously good quality and are not Chinese made. Any jeweler in the US worth his salt will be able to remove the caseback and see that you have a copy and not a real Rolex. But if you show up with a Noob v8, they won’t be able to tell unless they remove the case back. Even then, the Chinese version of the 3135 movement may still fool some jewelers.