Tag: culture

Hello from Japan, where the pound key on a phone (#) is called "sharp" (as in a musical note) and ...

Well, I'm back in Japan, having journeyed halfway around the world for the nth time. Even while still at the ...

Osaka is Japan's second largest city, with 17 million people living in the greater metropolitan Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe area. The city is ...

In my American kitchen right now I've got no less than seven boxes of cereal sitting on top of the ...

Humor is a very cultural thing, and it's fun to analyze the things people from different countries consider amusing -- ...

There are three kinds of employees in Japan: full time, part time, and arubaito (ah-roo-BAI-toh). The last type, the name ...

We're here at Anime Expo, the most excellent anime-themed annual event there is, with something like 40,000 other fans who ...

Well, I've made the big hop from Japan to San Diego, in preparation for the upcoming Anime Expo, which is ...

I wrote before about how, in the complex world of obsessive otaku culture in Japan, there are (for example) fans ...

Doujinshi are the fan-created comic-books which have become a huge sub-culture here in Japan. The word literally means "same-person-magazine" and ...

Last time I talked about the Ainu, the original inhabitants of the Japanese islands going back to the stone age. ...

Japan is a country that likes to think of itself as coming from more or less the same genetic stock, ...

I know I write about toilets in Japan quite often. For some reason, there's a lot of interesting culture to ...

Today is Inventory Day here at J-List, when we have to count the many thousands of excellent products we stock. ...

Manga is the name given to Japanese comic books, although most people over the age of 35 or so will ...

It's time for another installment of Wacky Japanese You Already Know, featuring Japanese words that happen to be homophones with ...

One of my favorite anime/manga series is Genshiken, an exploration of the deeper aspects of anime, manga and related culture ...

Living in Japan, it's always interesting to observe the various "when worlds collide" moments that come along every once in ...

At the anime convention in New York last December, I got to meet Peter Fernandez, the voice behind the legendary ...

You probably don't think of soybeans as being vital to culture, but in Japan, the lowly soybean is the most ...

Akihabara is the area of Tokyo famous for its electronics shops, and you can find whatever you're looking for there, ...

Japan is a great place, and I like it a lot. The people are kind and honest, and every day ...

The subject of religion in Japan is a complex one. The two main religious traditions here are Buddhism, which was ...

Japan's defeat in World War II was a huge emotional blow to the country which is still felt today. Although ...