E-pen pals

[deepbluevibes]

lol

[Henjin]

Young Japanese guys say 'Ore' and 'ja mata' and all that stuff... I figure "she's" either a man leading you on, or just a girl leading you on... If you're having fun, talk, but don't send her money, and don't fly out to meet 'her.' Heh.

[Sector]

LOL I hope mine wont be bad. Azrael hook me up with his student, Moeko and I just recently sent the letter over to Japan.

Well..if you're curious if she's a fraud or not, you can try writing some questions in Japanese and if she can read that stuff...then it can take a little of your worries away, but never fly over there and meet her.
________
Best Low Cost Vaporizer (http://vaporizers.net)

[Varia]

I have met a lot of people from that site. Some I am really, really good friends with, and others, well, one thing led to another and we just don't talk anymore.

The majority of ads I see there are in English. Some are really, really good. The ones that are really good, they tend to live in really urban areas where there are a lot of gaijin. Some schools focus heavily on English, or they may have English speaking relatives or something. But some girls are English whores. The girls that will do ANYTHING to learn English. I don't think there are very many of those, but remember, she is in Yokohama. There is a base or two there and no scarcity of English speakers.
________
Dodge M80 (http://www.dodge-wiki.com/wiki/Dodge_M80)

[deepbluevibes]

Varia, that is true. Two of the pictures sent to me from her had american guys in them, military lookin dudes so...

also, henjin, she was telling *me* to say that, not her. =P (ore, ja mata etc.)

[Henjin]

also, henjin, she was telling *me* to say that, not her. =P (ore, ja mata etc.)

I understand that. I answered your question on whether those were legit words in use, then commented that she might be a man, though not because of that... Should've made two paragraphs, I guess. Heh.

And don't let the fact that it's a Japanese 'penpal' site fool you... Treat it w/ the same caution you'd treat one of those online dating sites. Same rules apply. Be careful.

[Varia]

If it were me, I wouldn't talk to her. Too Westernized for my tastes. She sounds pretty Americanized. Aren't you trying to make a Japanese friend?

Personally, in my 2 years of japanese study, I have never used ore once, besides in jokes or something.most of the time in Japanese, I actually refer to myself with my own name. I like that better.

My advice is to just look through a lot of people at that site. When you find the right one, you'll know. The first person I know from that site, we are still great friends after more than a year and a half. I've learned to pick out the people that will just use me for English, or have no real intent of creating lasting friendships. You just have to put some extra time into it.
________
Hotbox Vaporizer (http://www.vaporshop.com/hotbox-vaporizer.html)

[Henjin]

I only use 「オレ」 when I talk to myself.

[deepbluevibes]

well.. i never really treated online dating sites with any caution because i can kinda tell when someone american is lying. i mean, i found six girls on those sites, dated them all, so.. its not as bad as people think.

and i'm not trying to make a "japanese" friend; i'm trying to make a friend who is japanese and lives near tokyo/in it to hang out with.

i'm american but culturally i identify more with europe or canada far more than i do america.

[Henjin]

i mean, i found six girls on those sites, dated them all, so.. its not as bad as people think.

and i'm not trying to make a "japanese" friend; i'm trying to make a friend who is japanese and lives near tokyo/in it to hang out with.

Uh-huh... Yeah...

[PopCulturePooka]

Actually dating sites don't seem as socially dismal in Japan as they are in the west.

Especially cell phone internet based ones. Eg docomo has hello worldz and asoboo. Met a few nice girls and a cool drinking buddy via those sites while over in Japan.

Whoever said stop talking to that girl because she is 'westernised' is a twit. You wanna talk to Japanese people to get a feeel for their culture? Well one cultural example of a Japanese youngster is the westernised one. They are generally quite cool and the easiest of friends to relate.

Also, the fact that she is very good with english is a GOOD thing as its likely she isn't using you for free english lessons.

You also mentioned that many people just outright stop mailing? Could be a umber of reasons for that, no biggy. But one thing I noticed in Japan is that some people cut friendships like that a lot. Just stop contacting you for no real reason. Even break ups. A girl doesn't like her bf? Just stop calling him, answering his calls and emails and change her phones email addy. Nothing more. Its a weird feeling but it happens.

[Henjin]

I just mean can you really call it 'dating' if you never met them? I could give you an email address and a picture of Uchiyama Rina... :p

[Antinomia]

Okay, this is really my kind of subject. In the past i also used that japan penfriend site. First, i met a girl, she actually send me 2 interesting emails back. But than i never heard from her again. After that (1 year ago) i tried another 3 penfriends at the same time, assuming they will ignore me very fast anyway, heh. And i wasn't looking for a girlfriend from the other side of the world, i only wanted to talk with someone from Japan so he/she could help me out with my japanese study, and somehow, i like woman more than man, so i choose 3 girls out of the list. Well, i received email from all the 3 of them :eek: That came as a surprise. But as i figured, 1 of the 3 girls stopped writing emails very soon, English was probably too difficult for her, as she explained in her email.

Let me explain how i made contact with them, because i think the first step is the most important one. Whatever you do, be honest! In your first email, better write a lot about yourself, about your interests (avoid sexual interests, especially in the first email) and try to explain why you made contact with her. It might also be usefull to say 1 of your hobbies is MSN (or Yahoo seems also be popular in Japan). Maybe she also like this and want to make contact with you through that way. Now i know, these girls who joined this penfriend site get a lot of email, but most of them are really hentai emails. Half of the email only contain 1 sentence, something like this: "Hey, wanna fuck?"... Well, this is NOT the way to get her attention, so if you send a nice big email, which actually cost you some time, she will appreciate it and write a nice big email back.

--- At this moment, you don't know if she is playing with you, or that she is actually a serious real girl and not some big fat guy faking he is a nice sweet girl. ---

So after you received her first email, write another one. This time, you can attach a nice picture of yourself. Show some goodwill ;) If you ask her on a nice way, she might also want to show a picture to you the next time. If she send you a picture where you see some topmodel, than you know she is probably fake. And as long as she doesn't want to send a picture at all, she is probably fake, or very ugly. But if she is ugly should not be a problem, unless you want to show off with her to your friends? You can also figure out a lot if she is fake or not by reading her interests. Girls mostly have different interests. It could be usefull if you can recognize girltalk from boytalk :)

The only ways to find out she isn't fake is to ask a picture where you ask her to wear something (a red shawl?) or do something (point out 3 fingers?), or, which happened in my case, see her online on webcam. But this last situation happened because in my very first email, i said 1 of my hobbies was MSN (which is true). She asked me if i could add her on my MSN, and soon we were chatting every weekend (time difference sucks) And after a while we started to use Webcam, and after a couple of months we liked eachother so much, we are now a couple and went on vacation together (long story) But because i am always honest, i also told i met a girlfriend to my other penfriend. She was happy for me, and said she would root for me, but that was actually her last email.

--- by the way, i still send email to my girlfriend every day (a whole page every day) and once in a while we see eachother on webcam (and microphone), if we get the chance. This winter i will visit Japan for the first time (she wanted to see Europe, so she came to visit me first, hehe) and we discussed this a long time, but she really want to move to my country next year, so i am the luckiest guy i have ever seen :D ---

This does not mean you can also find a girl through the internet, but take the good advice from me, it really helps a lot. And remember, if you are serious, this penfriend stuff really takes a lot of your free time. 1 Hour a day probably.

[Varia]

Whoever said stop talking to that girl because she is 'westernised' is a twit. You wanna talk to Japanese people to get a feeel for their culture? Well one cultural example of a Japanese youngster is the westernised one. They are generally quite cool and the easiest of friends to relate.

Also, the fact that she is very good with english is a GOOD thing as its likely she isn't using you for free english lessons.

Yes it is a cultural example, but not a very good one. Not too many kids are Westernized to that point. That is nothing near normal. Of coursethey are easy to relate to because they are westernized. If you wanted to talk to Americans, why not just get a friend in America?

It all really depends on the motives, and his motives are to hang out with somebody while he is there. There's probably not going to be a lasting relationship or anything, so it works out fine for them.
________
DAIHATSU CHARMANT HISTORY (http://www.toyota-wiki.com/wiki/Daihatsu_Charmant)

[General_Admission]

Made a few Japanese e-pals. Males tended to be more interesting. English was horrible. They cut me off after a while. Made e-pals with a Korean girl. Now I have pics of her and her family, full name, her home address, and we exchange letters through the mail rather than e-mail. It's nice.

[hanacker]

Yes it is a cultural example, but not a very good one. Not too many kids are Westernized to that point. That is nothing near normal. Of coursethey are easy to relate to because they are westernized. If you wanted to talk to Americans, why not just get a friend in America?

It all really depends on the motives, and his motives are to hang out with somebody while he is there. There's probably not going to be a lasting relationship or anything, so it works out fine for them.

What? Did I miss something from the original post or are you saying that a Japanese girl who can speak good English is somehow no longer really Japanese?

[Varia]

No.

Of course she is Japanese, but she has just been super americanized. As far as I know, Japanese are pretty Eastern.
________
SEQUOIA (http://www.toyota-wiki.com/wiki/Toyota_Sequoia)

[charrick]

Just 2 things...

1) Imagine that your dad got transferred to Japan for business and you spent your high school (or junior high school) years in Japan. You got to know the Japanese language pretty well. You miss the Japanese and want to communicate with Japanese people, so you turn to the internet. Then some Japanese person, seeing that you're not a "real" American (who should suck at Japanese, of course), cuts contact with you. Not so cool, huh?

2) "Ore" is pretty normal for men to use. I had a conversation partner and we weren't even well acquainted but he still used "ore" to refer to himself. And he wasn't a punk or anything. Just a sort of reserved normal Japanese guy. "Ore" isn't polite or formal, but it's used quite often. I don't think you could ever call it a "no-no". I mean, this is a bit different but if you were talking to your teacher or boss or somebody you just met and you called him "dude", that might be bad but it's pretty normal for informal relations.

[charrick]

And I wrote that before Deepbluevibes just used "dude" in his post. Case in point, I guess.

[charrick]

Hmm...I don't know if sharing emails on forums is cool. It wouldn't be cool with me. But anyway, those emails seem completely legit. There's no evidence to persuade me that she isn't a Japanese girl living in Yokohama.

By the way, if you are going to Tokyo...did you know that Yokohama is just a 30-minute train ride from Tokyo (Shibuya, at least)? Also, Yokohama is well worth a visit. Check out the Minato Mirai 21 area.

[charrick]

I think you're completely over-reacting. I was trying to be serious, but I guess I shouldn't have spent the time on this if it's a joke. Anyway, if you're gonna meet up in a seedy, dark place with anyone, then that's pretty stupid of you (and it tells me why you decided to get a female penpal in the first place). If, though, you keep the friendship completely online and never meet up, or if you meet up in daylight in a crowded place, you should be able to find out if the person is a 50 year old man or a Japanese girl without getting raped in the process.

I didn't say it before, but I think the whole "asking others to see if your 'female' penpal is being honest or not" is pretty stupid to begin with. Either believe the person or switch to using telephones and video conferencing...or don't get a penpal in the first place. Like I said, I'm 95% sure "she" is for real but none of us can make you completely certain so just deal with it.

[thomear]

Yeh a bit strange... I've gone through about 8 penpals in a month or so. Only 3 or so actually sent an email back in the first place. Now I only have 1, and it's a letter every other day. I send in Japanese and English, pretty much the same thing written in both languages. I guess I should ask her about MSN (I tried for boys and girls in their teens, around my age), hopefully get something a bit more regular and useful for me learning Japanese

[Moccona]

I have been using Japan-Guide for about 5 years now and just like everyone else, I've had the whole 'disappearing act' sprung on me by what I thought was going to be decent friends. To this day I can only really say I have kept two friends from the site, and I currently email one of them (the other I occasionally talk to on MSN Messenger). The MSN friend I met up with twice in Japan at a cafe, and it was a lot of fun because we really 'knew' each other, yet somewhat didn't.

I would recommend keeping friends to a maximum of 2 or 3.. depending on what kind of people they are. In saying that, I mean, if you have a friend who emails you EVERY day, then maybe just limit yourself to that person, or maybe one more. Remember, people on the other side of the world are also most likely wondering whether you are going to keep emailing them or randomly disappear too.

[Antinomia]

I totally agree with Moccona. And somehow, if they are willing to chat with you on MSN or something, the chance it becomes a good friendship and a meeting in the future is much bigger than when you only send email. MSN is a bit more personal than emails where you have to send 20 questions and wait a couple of days before you get an answer.