Tag: Japan

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

You've been in Japan too long when you pay over $70 for a Captain Santa T-shirt and realize a few ...

One of my favorite movies is Pleasantville, a fun film about two modern-day teenagers who get transported inside a 1950s-era ...

As an American living in Japan, I know how surprised Japanese can get when foreigners internalize the society around them ...

The terrible rise in suicides in Japan (more than 33,000 last year) has everyone talking about what can be done ...

It's still drizzling in Japan, as rainy season continues dumping an extra helping of precipitation on the Japanese islands. This ...

One of the most important concepts in daily life in Japan is shinyo (SHIN-yo), which means "trust," and when Japanese ...

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

The other day I reached for some saltine crackers and found myself smirking at the name on the package: Mornin' ...

You probably know that the Japanese have an extensive custom of bowing as a greeting or to show thanks or ...

You never know what's going to get popular in Japan next: maybe horn-rimmed glasses will suddenly come back into vogue, ...

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. ...

History has been made in the Sumo Wrestling world with the victory of Bulgarian wrestler Kotooshu (koh-toh-OH-shu), the first time ...

In Japan, there are often concepts that are difficult for Westerners to grasp. One measurement of beauty here is related ...

I write often about how harmonious Japan appears to foreigners living here. Seen from our special position as outsiders (which ...

An interesting aspect of Japanese polite grammar is the honorific "o" that goes in front of some words to give ...

There was a bizarre Japanese TV show that was on a few years back called OH! Mikey, in which an ...

Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world, a fact that I was reminded of on Thursday ...

Wherever you're from in the world. there's a good chance that your blood contains contributions from different national groups -- ...

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

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

Although it'd be a stretch to call a homogeneous country like Japan a "melting pot," modern Japanese society does represent ...

Who's your daddy? While Japan as a society is very much a meritocracy, with success largely going to those who ...