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Category Archives: Uncategorized
On Being Illiterate in Japan | 馬鹿外人
There are incomprehensible signs, everywhere, and every sign is made of smaller signs I can’t read. I can’t read a map or follow directions. I am educated and illiterate, wealthy and incapable of communicating anything to anyone. But, I have … Continue reading
Posted in Culture Shock, Kanji, Uncategorized
7 Comments
On Watching “Mad Men” in Japan | セクハラ
Every guy in Japan wears a suit and smokes. They take trains from the suburbs into an office with a formal dress code and work until 10 p.m. every day. On their breaks, they’re going to convenience stores in suits … Continue reading
Posted in Culture Shock, Uncategorized
17 Comments
On Abandoned Ski Resorts in Japan | 逃散
I spent Halloween on top of a mountain in Oita Prefecture at a 3-star resort hotel in an otherwise abandoned resort complex surrounded by rice paddies, a ski slope overrun by weeds, two empty minimalls, a locked-up bowling alley and … Continue reading
Posted in Fun, Photography, Travel, Uncategorized, Weird
10 Comments
On Eating French Fries in Japan | フライドポテトがたべマス
Sometime during the three months I have been in Japan, my pants got too big. The legend of the Japanese diet is so widespread that no one doubted that I would lose weight. There were a number of theories as … Continue reading
Posted in Food, Uncategorized
19 Comments
On Dining Out in Japan | 外食と義理
When it came time to ask for the bill, I couldn’t do it. I sat, and I waited. And then, 10 minutes into waiting, it hit me: I will never stop being American. “Sumimasen.” In the United States, courtesy means … Continue reading
Posted in Culture Shock, Food, Uncategorized
11 Comments
On Teaching English as an Out of Body Experience | 英語は儚いです.
Language exists inside of our skulls and escapes through the tongue: What Nabokov called “A fat sleek seal flopping so happily among the familiar rocks.” It’s a chunk of flesh that helps us push ideas out from our squishy insides … Continue reading
Posted in Culture Shock, Teaching, Thinking, Uncategorized
3 Comments
This Japanese Life. 