Some recent email correspondence netted me an interesting new find in the multicultural Japan online space. Dirk Schwieger, a German comic artist living in Japan, has been combining exploration of Japan with his art. He takes assignments from readers...
This semester, I am teaching my Japanese Popular Culture class, and my students are bringing in things that they find as "show-and-tell" reports. This is the first of several installments on chanpon-themed items that my students are cluing me...
Sometimes our wishes are fulfilled - When I lived in Japan, I spent so much time riding the trains. Nearly every day started and ended with a train ride, with train rides in between. And Tokyo is a fabulous place...
私は今、久しぶりに自分と全く縁もゆかりもない国に住んでいる。 語学習得を目的とした韓国滞在は2度目。今回はもう少し腰をすえて韓国語習得に力を入れようと6ヶ月はここにいるつもりでやって来た。今回も滞在先はソウル。なぜソウルかと言えば、私が都会大好き人間で、しかもソウルの熱気あふれるパワーと人々に対して、自分の故郷である日本の東京にも感じない居心地よさを感じるからだ。 ニューヨークのマンハッタンで過ごしたような大学時代の楽しさに加わり、(大学院生でいるよりは)楽な、遊ぶことが仕事とも思える語学学校のカリキュラム、外国に大学や学校の夏休みよりは長い時間をかけて外国語を習いに来ようと言う、どこか変わったことをしている人たちに囲まれて、私の経験は韓国語を習うことだけに飽き足りない。...
Sofia Coppola's dreamy, gorgeous new film is a lovely postcard from Tokyo. It moves with gentle wonder through a softly glowing city and its frenetic, incomprehensible inhabitants to detail a character sketch of a place, all faint outlines and...
Introducing a new bilingual after school program, Global Kids Academy (GKA). Located in Azabu, in the heart of Tokyo, GKA will start the summer program in June. この夏より東京都麻布に新しいバイリンガルなアフタースクールプログラム、グローバルキッズアカデミーが始まります。...
Anyone who's walked down a street in almost any town in Japan has heard them: the cheerful chimes and jingles of the pachinko parlor. They are such a feature of Japanese urban life that I cannot think of Tokyo without...
Last year in Japan I saw some light-hearted TV news footage of a seal frolicking in a local concrete channel. Passers-by were happy to see him, the presence of Tama Chan was cause for community celebration. A few schoolchildren petitioned...
A wide range of informed and knee-jerk, provocative and forgettable views on Japan from foreigners appears in this thread on sprawling culture weblog MetaFilter, in response to a long list of You've been in Japan Too Long when... statements. Found...
Author Alex Kerr is a remarkable foreigner in Japan. He's won a non-fiction book prize for a book written in Japanese. He's worked to teach himself and then promote and preserve traditional arts. And in his latest book "Dogs and...
"So I called Jane over, because I couldn't follow what he was saying, and it turns out he's the downstairs neighbor, and he wants us to walk more quietly. She understands and assents. He continues, 'the last neighbors were also...
In the course of my undergraduate thesis research I came across this marvelous book, Bridge to the Sun, by Gwen Terasaki. Her story is dramatic, romantic, and moving, and she writes in a very simple, understated style that only enhances...
From a Washington Post article about small web sites, a link to Chofu.org - "a site dedicated to helping alumni of Chofu High School reconnect with classmates from their defunct American school, which operated on a military base in Japan...
Caroline Pover: Being a Broad in Japan...
There is a lawsuit pending to force some Hokkaido onsen to allow foreigners to steep in their hot waters. Currently some onsen in the town of Otaru post signs banning non-Japanese bathers. The plantiffs contend this is illegal according to...
