Month: July 2010

No matter how long a person lives in Japan, there are always things that can bring on what expats call ...

Sumo wrestling is the official sport of Japan, enjoying special status and support by the Japanese government. It's more than ...

Normally when I come to the U.S. the last thing I want to do is eat Japanese food, since there ...

Unfortunately I'm not able to attend Otakon, the awesome East-Coast anime convention, this year. But that doesn't mean you can't ...

When you learn a foreign language, you definitely need to develop a sense of humor. Like the other day when ...

One of the coolest things an obsessive anime fan in Japan can do is seichi junrei, e.g. making a "pilgrimage ...

"If there's a bright center to Britain, Number Four Privet Drive is the street that it's farthest from." I recently ...

Well, the San Diego Comic-con is over, and the J-List staff is tired, but still exhilarated. As usual, it was ...

The other day I went out to a seafood restaurant with my wife and daughter, who are visiting from Japan. ...

Suki desu ka? One of the first useful words a student of Japanese learns is how to say "like" (suki), ...

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Japan's invasion of the Korean peninsula, which started a 35 year period during ...

We're enjoying our time at the San Diego Comicon, which is a a fantastic celebration of worldwide popular nerd culture. ...

Just as Americans are accustomed to thinking of our country as a union of semi-soverign states, each with its own ...

I'm convinced that people can do anything they decide they can do. For example, I'm not good at math, and ...

One interesting aspect of living in Japan is getting used to the, ah, unique pronunciations of English words the Japanese ...

We're getting ready for the San Diego Comicon, which is going to be a blast. We hope you'll come see ...

One of the challenges in learning Japanese is tackling kanji, which is not easy for Westerners, as it's a very ...

Although I try to avoid going to Wal-Mart, sometimes I find myself needing something that's convenient to buy there. Last ...

If you walk around San Diego and happen to see some Japanese yen coins on the ground, I might have ...

When going to the U.S. from Japan, there are little things you notice. First, being able to pay for something ...

In the tradition of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Japanese are keen on organizing famous places into convenient ...

So far this has been a heck of a year for losing awesome people, including Gary Coleman, Dennis Hopper, J.D. ...

Before I came to Japan in 1991, I took four years of Japanese at my alma mater, SDSU, so compared ...

The Japanese election was last Sunday, and as expected, the ruling Democratic Party of Japan lost ground, giving up a ...