Jet Lagging in the USA, ways that Japanese reflect total social harmony, and would you save your baby’s umbilical cord?
Well, once again I've made the hop from Japan to San Diego, which takes about 24 hours from door to ...
Tag: kids
Japan, education and conformity, thoughts on memorizing various stuff, and the enigma of barley tea in the summer
Japan is a country that's very focused on education, and I've always observed that parents seem to put more energy ...
Shared experiences through anime and manga, on raising kids who are “half,” and understanding an aspect of Japan through Newsweek
Anime and comic books -- which are collectively referred with the term "manga" in Japanese -- are an inseparable part ...
Living in Japan and changes in your native language, of Golden Week and flying carp, and a “Gaijin Battle” on Japanese TV
Living in Japan means adapting to many things, not the least of which is modifying your native language. When I ...
Japan and its interesting top-down society, a trip to the park, and all about Japan and conveyor-belt sushi
One of the more interesting aspects of Japan is the top-down nature of its society, how it's ostensibly structured in ...
American brands in Japan, video games for girls, and
One of the more amazing aspects of the Japanese is how aware they are of popular American brands. When my ...
Japan’s latest “boom,” the custom of giving sake to your political candidate, and driving in Japan
Japan is the land of the "boom," and you never know when some new thing is going to come out ...
Chinese New Year and Japan, what Japanese drivers’ put on their cars, and our faithful dog
Chinese New Year is going on right now, and throughout Asia people are celebrating the cultural holiday. Although Japan switched ...
Being fixated on Japanese, bittersweet themes in anime, and my recent culture shock
When you spend many hours focusing on something, whether it's building a model train set or learning a foreign language, ...
Buying a new car in Japan, roundup of new 2006 features, and an anime fan’s first trip to Tokyo
We've been in "buy a car" mode for the past few weeks, driving around to various dealers to see their ...
Funny English in Japan, teaching about America through Easter Eggs, and confusing Japanese company names explained
Japan can be such a funny place. You could be going along, minding your own business when suddenly, bam, the ...
Funny things you may see in Japan, strategies for taking tests, and an important difference between Japanese and American schools
Hello again from Japan where getting your hair colored is known as a "hair manicure."For some reason, one of the ...
Thoughts on television in Japan, April and “newly harvested rice,” and that cultural question, what color is the sun?
Television (which turns 80 today) in Japan can be quite entertaining, and sometimes its fun to sit back on the ...
What we can learn about culture and Star Wars from Japanese comedians, some reverse sexual discrimination, and all about “What is your Hobby?”
"What is your hobby?" This is one of the first phrases of English conversation that Japanese students learn, along with ...
How to sub-divide Japanese groups into “zoku” (tribes), all about Japanese rice, and what’s that blue spot on Taro’s butt?
Words always reflect the people that use them, and vice-versa. In American English our notions about individualism and not going ...
The needless tragedy of ‘ijime,’ what’s easy and hard about learning Japanese, and the Japanese as the most expressive people on the planet
The other day I went to my son's school to watch the various end-of-year performances the students had prepared for ...
All about trains and fuzzy blue rabbits from London, linguistic quirks of the Japanese language, and finding someone’s “secret talent”
One thing I like about living in Japan is the rail culture here, so very different from the freeway- and ...
The origins of Japan’s cult of “studying,” more warm weather for Tokyo, and the latest in Otaku Culture from Japan
Japan is a very seasonal place, with specific things done only during the appropriate times of year. August is when ...
Japan as the land of safety, small conveniences of living in Japan, and the reason for that wacky “Engrish”
I've written before about how Japan is a very safe place -- so safe it might just kill you with ...
A new appreciation for American medicine, all about the word ‘baka’ and a really annoying girl in a yellow dress who I can’t stop listening to…
It was Thomas Paine -- a possible ancestor of mine, although I somehow doubt it -- who uttered the words, ...
How the iTunes Japan store reflect Japan’s oddities, my mother-in-law and our old sofa, and understanding Japan through Big Macs
Slate.com ran an article yesterday on Apple's Japanese iTunes Music Store and how frustrating it was that fans of J-POP ...
Going to ge a haircut and learning about Japanese culture instead, when Japanese people must become bold, and using songs to master Japanese
People talk about convergence all the time, of things coming together in a more convenient form. Living in Japan, one ...
Learning about the brain through Madagascar, how names work in kanji in Japan, and a bizarre murder in Tokyo
We have a rule at our house: in order to help our kids become bilingual, we only watch DVDs from ...
Peter’s Unified Theory of Japan meets Great Britain, going to the beach in January, and understanding Japan through its bicycles
Part of Peter's Unified Theory of Japan is that the Land of the Rising Sun has a lot in common ...
