A happy new year, 2016. How was your 2015? This is my first blog post of 2016. It’s been a while since I updated the last blog post. The first blog post is “Japanese vogue words of 2015” which is an award of new words and vogue words of the year by U-CAN(a Japanese education support company). This vogue words award represents the year.

To tell you the truth, last year 2015’s many of awarded Japanese vogue words were not very popular in Japan. I hadn’t heard many of them.

Top 10 Japanese vogue words of 2015

Grand prize

 This year, there are two grand prizes. 

 爆買い (bakugai)

source: www.iza.ne.jp

爆買い(bakugai) means “Lit., explosive buying”. In 2015, number of visitors from China massively increased in  2015 correlating to China’s economic growth as shown in the graph below. Almost doubled from 2014.

data: Japan National Tourism Organisation

 According to Japan Tourism Agency’s (Ministry Land, Infrastructure, Transportation, and Tourism) research on tourism-related consumption, average shopping consumption of Chinese travellers are the highest in 2015, average  152,991 yen. Comparing to the other countries, Chinese travellers spend money for shopping more than third the average 53,417 yen.

What Japanese products attract Chinese travellers?

1. Camera, video camera, and watch.
2. Electrics
3. Clothes, bags, and shoes
4. Cosmetics and perfumes
5. Medicines, supplements, health products, and toiletries.

I felt this tide of Chinese travellers to Japan in 2015. In large Electronics stores such as Bic Camera and Yodobashi, Uniqlo, and fashion outlet malls were awash with Chinese travellers. A Chinese women in front of me at the casher in Bic Camera, she spent 2,000,000 yen (nearly $20000) buying 65inch TVs, bunch of skin care electronics, and so on.

トリプル３ (triple 3)

source: http://baseballking.jp/

This word is coming from Japan pro baseballs. Two players, namely

Yuki Yanagida（Fukuoka Softbank Hawks）

Tetsuto Yamada（Tokyo Yakult Swallows）

accomplished

1) batting average greater than .3

2) Hitting more than 30 homeruns

3) Stealing more than 30 bases.

This great achievement was for the first time in 13 years.

Others

アベ政治を許さない (Forbid Abe administration)

A non-fiction writer Hisae Sawachi addressed crowd to put up the poster above at 1:00 p.m on July 18th, 2015. This demonstration is against Abe administration’s ” a national security bill“.

  安心してくだい、はいてますよ。(Don’t worry, I am wearing)

This Japanese vogue word is the only award that is from a comedian (usually 2 or 3 words are from comedians every year). A Japanese comedian, Tonikaku akarui Yasumura (Lit., Yasumura cheerful anyhow). His joke was very popular in 2015.

一億総活躍社会 (Minister in Charge of Promoting Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens)

Announced under Abe administration.

エンブレム (An emblem)

Japan’s Olympic committee decided to drop the logo by designer Kenjiro Sano for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. The logo and Sano was accused of plagiarism. The logo on the right is a theater in the Belgian city of Liege. The emblem was invited public and there are 14,599 designs were collected.

五郎丸（ポーズ）(Goromaru (posing))

A Japanese national  team rugby player, “Ayumu Goromaru” who made the big impact in the rugby world cup (Japan v.s South Africa). Japan is ranked 13th and South Africa 3rd in world ranking and Japan beat South Africa in the world cup 2015.

These Japanese vogue words of 2015 were very controversial in the media and internet. I can’t agree 100%, but Bakugai was very interesting trend in Japan. I hope more travellers are coming to Japan and experience the beauty of Japan, high quality products, and culture. I am hoping my blog posts somehow help you when you travel to Japan.

明けましておめでとうございます。