Understanding how perceptions of foreigners affects us, learning culture through anime, and time to study some Japanese!
All countries are affected to a certain extent by the views of foreigners. I've read that the Chinese never really ...
Tag: otaku
Understanding Japan through job resumes, reflections on the word “otaku” and Obi-Wan on our “point of view”
One way to compare Japan's more structured society with the U.S. and Europe is to look at the standardized Japanese ...
Benefits from Japan’s homogeneous culture, drawbacks to living in Japan, and the Japanese futon defined
Japan is, by and large, quite a homogeneous place. I've travelled from Sapporo to Hiroshima and have seen much of ...
The subject of international marriage in Japan, how foreigners live in Japan, and fully perceptions of other countries
One subject of interest in Japan is kokusai kekkon, or international marriage involving a Japanese and a person from another ...
Golden Week in Japan, “indoctronating” my bilingual kids, and all about the otaku
We're right in the middle of Golden Week, a cluster of Japanese holidays that usually fall near each other. One ...
A great day for Japanese baseball, all about the Cherry Blossom, and March construction season
Japan is ecstatic over its 10-6 win over Cuba, which allowed the country to clench the first-ever World Baseball Classic ...
Signs of spring and “Haru Ichiban,” different rules of economics in Japan, and surprising information on naughty words in Japanese
More signs of spring all around us in Japan, with warmer weather and lots of windy days, which are known ...
Building blocks of words in Japanese, on Japanese modesty, and
Studying a foreign language is fun because it helps you learn about your own language, too. I've always been interested ...
Thoughts on Tokyo, the truth behind internationalization, and the triumph of inefficiency
I went into Tokyo on business yesterday, and as is often the case, I was amazed that the city is ...
All about the busy month of December, Japanese dialectology, and the new color of money
We've entered that hectic time near the end of the year that the Japanese call shiwasu, which was originally the ...
A new way of thinking about Japanese animation, and this year’s Japanese slang words
Japanese animation has been a huge influence on the West over the years, and there are many ways that American ...
Japan as the land of contradictions, the benefits of teaching ESL, and our Mona Neko T-shirts
Japan is nothing if not a land of contradictions, where you can connect to the Internet via a high speed ...
On stereotypes, how and why words jump from one language to another, and trying to recall the term “gynecologist”
Stereotypes are really not good, since they cause us to make assumptions about people from other countries before we've gotten ...
Japan’s latest boom: Akiba-kei, Otaku Culture and “Densha Otoko”
Japan is the land of the "boom" and every year something new seems to come out of left field and ...
The Fall season in Japan, touching Japanese TV commercials, and a cosmic rule about pickles
Hello again from Japan. We're very sorry with the problems with the site after the last update -- we had ...
Humility in Japan, the many faces of apologies, and Japanese calendars
Hello again from J-List. We're a day late with the update because of some database related problems, but the update ...
Lexus is coming to Japan, the concept of Idioms in Japanese, and more about OH! Mikey
A new car company is coming to Japan, but Japanese consumers are already quite familiar with their products. After years ...
The Otaku Standardized Test and origin of the word, Japan’s hot summer, and aloe flavored yogurt
Hello again from Japan, and a special weekend update to J-List!I've written before about how the Japanese like to take ...
On different regions of Tokyo, sources of Japanese drama, and funny Japanese English usage
I've written before about how different regions of Japan go out of their way to establish meibutsu (famous local speciality), ...
All about guns in Japan, tatami mats, and the tyranny of the majority
One of the preconceptions I had before coming to Japan was that there were no guns here at all, so ...
The Season of the Sakura in Japan, and all about motorcycling across Japan
It's sakura time in Japan right now, as cherry blossoms around the country explode in beautiful fireworks of pink. This ...
White Day in Japan, and the many ways to learn Japanese
Today is White Day, the day that Japanese confectioners and retailers have decreed that men give a return gift (o-kaeshi) ...
What the month of March means to the Japanese
The month of March means different things to different people. In Japan it's a time of partings (wakare no kisetsu), ...
Various ways to say “Menstruation” in Japanese
Hello all. Kind of tired today, as it's Friday and a rough one at that. But the weekend is near, ...
