Tag: family

One of the fun things about living in Japan is enjoying the TV commercials here, like a popular commercial for ...

Sometimes I think my family would make the basis for an interesting 4-koma manga series along the lines of Darling ...

There's a category of four-syllable (or four kana) words used here that are so loaded with meaning they boggle the ...

Do the Japanese say "I love you"? It's an interesting question that touches on cultural issues as well as linguistic. ...

Last time I talked about how 謙遜 (ken-sohn, with a long vowel on the end), meaning humility, is considered an ...

Since I've got another couple weeks before I get busy with the anime conventions, I decided to throw a suitcase ...

One day I took my son out for a bowl of gyudon, steamed beef over rice, the most popular form ...

Even before my wife and I became parents, we knew we wanted to give our children the gift of bilingualism. ...

It's fun to delve into history and see what interesting people you can find, like Nakahama "John" Manjiro, the first ...

This may not exactly come as a surprise, but I love anime fandom. It's a warm and comfortable place filled ...

Yesterday I took a trip to Takasaki to visit the local branch of the Tokyo Immigration Office. I was there ...

In a world where so many anime series follow the adventures of yet another high school club trying to assemble ...

One subject I write about a lot is the great interest the Japanese seem to take in what foreigners visiting ...

One question I'm asked sometimes is, how do Japanese feel about otaku? Originally a semi-formal way to say "you" or ...

Over the years I've read several novels by James Clavell, which were loosely based on history and set in Hong ...

I saw that yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the release of My Neighbor Totoro, one of my all-time favorite ...

A few days ago the father of a friend of ours passed away, so we had to go into "Japanese ...

One thing you learn when living as an expat in Japan is how global the world can be. Recently my ...

Names in Japan, of course, are pronounced family name first, so if you meet someone named Yamada Hanako you'll know ...

While some may mark the arrival of spring through the traditional appearance of a groundhog or other mythical creature, in ...

One part of Peter's Unified Theory of Japan™ is that the country follows behind the West socially, taking its cues ...

One of the joys of watching anime is, of course, the incredible high quality of the seiyu, the voice actors ...

The other day I went with my wife to eat at our favorite soba noodle restaurant. After a strapping young ...

One thing about Japanese women which amuses my wife no end is their pre-conceived notions about what it's like when ...