Here is a tip about adding Japanese language and its short cut key in Mac.I bought my Mac book pro at U.S, but I'm Japanese so I definitely need Japanese font to send a email between Japanese friend. It does not make sense to use English between Japanese, although it does when it comes to get used to English. So here is a step to add Japanese font to your Mac and enabling a short cut key for those who like to use Japanese font easily. For your information my Mac is OS X.
I`m sorry that I`m not sure how to do that other versions.
First of all, let`s add Japanese font. Open "system preference", then you will see a window with many icons. As far as I remember, there are two ways to add it, going to "language & text" or "Keybord". With either ways, you will go to same place finally.
In my case, let`s go to "Keyboard" becasue it will be used to enable a cut key. If you can see a window below, then go to "input source".
You will see a lot of check boxes, then check a box named "kotoeri". Many peoples would wonder why Japanese font is called so, and I checked it on line. It seemed to be a ancient world meaning choosing words. That`s it. It`s very easy, isn`t it ?
Next is to enable short cut key. In my case, it was not enabled at the default, so I needed to enable it manually. So let's go to "keyboard" in system preference and change a tab from "keyboard " to "keyboard shortcut", then you will see a window shown below. Select "Keyboard & Text" at the left and check a box right of "Select the previous input" which is actually a shortcut key to change your languages.
The short cut seems to be "command&space" but let me correct this a little bit. Hold "command" first, then push or hold "space". Opposite way does not work actually.
On my way back to Japan, I stopped by two Hawaii islands, Big island and Oahu island. After enjoying Big island, I flew to Waikiki at Oahu island. Big island is humid totally, especially at Hilo, but it is less humid at Waikiki. When I was in Big island, I felt as if I was in Japan because Hilo town looks like a Japanese local town. Even at Waikiki, I felt as is I was in Japan either but with a different reason. It's because there were a lot of Japanse people anywhere. I was told so by my colleagues before I came there, but it was more than I thought actually. If you look at Waikiki main street and go inside shopping stores and mole, more than 30% peoples were Japanese. Due to the fact, Waikiki itself is very friendly to Japanese, because restaurant menues in Japanese are prepared, and there are many shop clarks who are either Japanese or can speak Japanese.
I'm not sure whether many Japanese people are there all the time in entire year or not, but I have two ideas abut why it is so this season. First, this season is a spring vacation for university students before new semester. Unlike U.S, graduating season is March and new semester stars from April in Japan. I guess that this is why I saw many young Japanese people. Second idea is elder peoples who have already retired. This generation have lived in high growth period of Japanese economics after the world war II, so they have plenty of money and spend money for trips all over the world. I'm not saying that all elder peoples are so, but generally speaking they have plenty of money actually.
Hilo is very similar to Japan actually except people. That`s what I felt honestly at first when I arrived there.
When I came back to Japan last week, I stopped by two Hawaii islands for my vacation, the big island (Hawaii island) and the Oahu island because Hwaii is on my way to Japan, although it`s not on the straight line. I decided to visit the big island first and the Oahu island after that because there is a flight from San jose to the big island, and there is a flight from the Oahu to Tokyo Narita of Japan. The main purpose of visiting the big island is that I wanted to have seen the volcano.
In the big island, there are two major airports, Kona and Hilo, but the flight from San jose is olnly to Kona, so I planned the trip based on this fact. My plan was to rent a car at the Kona airport and go around the island clockwise to Hilo through the Waipio valley and stay at Hilo at first day. When I was driving the rent car from the valley down to Hilo, I came to have strange feeling. At first I did not know what it was until I saw gravestones along a road and a pedestrian crossing bridge. When I saw them, something came to my mind that it was as if I was driving a car at local area in Japan because the gravestones and the pedestrian crossing bridge are very similar with what I see in Japan. In addition to that, I was driving the car in the town of Hilo, and what saw is almost Japan actually in terms of everything except that driving is right side. I`m showing the picture of Hilo which I have taken from the car when I was stopping at red light. If you have been to local town in Japan once, then you might feel the picture looks like what you saw there.
This is very strange feeling for me so I have been curious about why it is so, and I checked it on line, especially at Wikipedia. According to that, about 200 years ago, Japanese peoples got lost at the sea due to storm, and they survived somehow to eat fish and drink rain water. A few months later, they were rescued at the place close to Hawaii by US ship captain, and brought there. This was time when Hawaii and Japan started its relationship. Since this time, Japanese peoples immigrated to Hawaii to work at sugar and pineapple plantations. At 1920s, the population of Japanese American seemed to be around 40%, and even now the population is around 15%.
Now I can understand the reason why I got suck kind of feeling there.
