Convenience Stores

There are a lot of words used in Japan that have been borrowed from English and modified. For example, people might say of their friend "He is mypace," meaning "He likes to move at his own pace," or in other words, he is slow.

I was at a dinner party last night and thankfully it was with people who have figured out they can talk to me about topics other than the English language. Y'know, things like the weather, movies, world news. Can't tell you how many hours I've spent at dinner parties having people keep telling me over and over nothing but how hard English is and how Japanese people can't speak it. But I digress.

But once last night a word came up. Someone said (in Japanese) "I bought these snacks at the conbini." Conbini is Japanese shorthand for "convenience store."

Then she asked me "Is 'conbini' Japanese English? Do you say 'conbini' in America?"

I said "No, we say 'convenience store'"

and her friend said "They don't say 'conbini'? Ah that's right --They don't have them over there. Only in Japan."

Here we have, in one brief statement, an unholy tripartite alliance: Japanese English, instant cultural theorization, and the "Only in Japan" phenomenon.

(Just an historical note: the first if not the biggest 'conbini' in Japan is the 7-eleven chain from the States. Not that it makes me proud or anything, but c'mon, duh.)