Tag: history

All languages change and evolve over time, and Japanese is certainly no different. There was no written language in Japan ...

Clang clang! Clang clang! Right outside my window right there's a fire truck driving by slowly, ringing a bell and ...

I write often about how the Japanese love it when foreigners take an interest in their culture, and nothing is ...

In many ways it's been a blessing for Japan to have very little in the way of natural resources compared ...

It's got to be a challenge for anime creators to come up with fresh and interesting characters for fans to ...

One thing about being an American is visiting our national shrines in Washington D.C., which include dignified memorials to the ...

The Japanese have a unique relationship with the United States, and many are fascinated with our culture, from Hollywood to ...

Well, my little trip to the U.S. has come to an end, and it's time to head back to Japan. ...

The currency used in Japan is yen, called en in Japanese, a word which literally means "circle," which was probably ...

Japanese TV never fails to entertain, or to provide me with good neta, a word which means the fish part ...

I get a lot of requests from people planning trips to Japan asking for places they should visit. For visits ...

Japan is a very different place from the West for several reasons. It's an island nation with a strong culture ...

It's a glorious time for me as an anime fan, thanks to the new Space Battleship Yamato series that started ...

One interesting word of Japanese is gaishi-kei, a word that means "foreign capital company" and which describes firms from America ...

There's an interesting Japanese news-and-discussion program on Saturdays called Yasuhiro Tase's Weekly News Report, where the important news stories of ...

Hello again, this time from Boston. My son and I have completed our East Coast tour and are heading back ...

I like living in Japan a lot, but one aspect of my adopted country I'm not a fan of is ...

It's fun to study the history of the memes that pop up in anime. Every time you watch an onsen ...

The U.S. presidential election is going strong, with candidates trading barbs in the news media about their various policies. Elections ...

Back when I was an English teacher. I had some interesting discussions with my students about why they wanted to ...

It seems that a Japanese city can't be complete until it has a big tower for tourists to visit and ...

One thing I love about Japan are convenience stores, which are a great place to find hundreds of products when ...

The word otaku has come to represent fans of anime, manga and 2D gaming culture, but the word is a ...

Do you know the story of Japan's most famous dog? His name was Hachi, an Akita dog owned by a ...