Tag: gaijin

Dialects are part of the wonderfully complex world of human language, and Japanese has many distinct dialects in use, although ...

Last time I talked about the international coverage of the impending "extinction" of the Japanese people, which will happen a ...

It's funny the way language can influence our perceptions of the seasons. Yesterday there was an annoying fly buzzing around ...

There's no way around it: alcohol is often an important part of social life in Japan, and there's even a ...

With any language, there are certain words that are guaranteed to cause problems for foreigners -- our brains excel at ...

I happened to see a news article that said the president of Nippon Sheet Glass, an American, was leaving the ...

It's funny, the things about Japan that delight foreigners who come here. The unique sound of a Japanese train crossing, ...

One of the first impressions foreigners living in Japan may get is that everything is "about death." This is likely ...

In a language as different from English as Japanese is, naturally there are situations where vocabulary words from one language ...

I really enjoyed the Haruka arc of Amagami SS+, especially all the jokes related to foreigners, which were hilarious and ...

Everyone knows that adding 'y' to the end of a noun can turn it into an adjective, like silky, messy, ...

One thing the Japanese love very much is making long speeches at official ceremonies, and when I went to my ...

My son and I had a blast up in northern Japan. Our first stop was the city of Sapporo, the ...

I saw a news report that Donald Keene had been granted Japanese citizenship, and thought I'd write a bit on ...

There are certain eternal questions that foreigners have about Japan. For example, the word ao (AH-oh) means "blue" yet is ...

One of my favorite Japanese words is matsuri meaning festival, which in Japan is an excuse to wear traditional yukata, ...

Back in the early days of the web and Usenet, foreigners living in Japan started a list called "You've been ...

Every once in a while I feel like I'm living inside an anime. One weekend I might find myself at ...

There's some interesting psychology going on when it comes to ex-pats living in Japan, like the Three Stages of Eye ...

Stereotypes are a part of all of us, for better of for worse, and when we hear that a person ...

Back when I was single, I did a fair bit of traveling around Japan, hitchhiking or riding trains on "Youth ...

No country is without problems, and the list of challenges Japan faces in the 21st century is certainly not short. ...

One of the more enjoyable aspects of getting used to life in Japan, at least coming from California, is the ...

I hope everyone in the States enjoyed the Superbowl. Unfortunately Sunday in the U.S. is Monday morning here in Japan ...