A few weeks ago, the fellows at Nihongoup, the online Japanese-language community, invited me to do a guest post. I went to my default Japanese conversation tactic: I started spewing out the names of foods I like.
So I’ve got 9 below the jump; you can find the other half of that list over on their website (here).
“In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates.”
- Michel Foucault, Of Other Spaces
If there was a ship to escape Japanese culture in, the paint on the starboard front would spell karaoke and it would sail over a sea of alcohol.
There are only so many things I know how to say in Japanese. I’ve learned that none of them can stop a 15-year-old Japanese girl from crying.
Continue reading
I never really had a normal idea of what punk was. Neither does Japan. Continue reading
In Japan, many ATMs work from 9 to 5 and get weekends and holidays off. That’s better than most humans get. And the reason, I suspect, has more to do with ghosts than any bank is willing to admit.
“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”
- The Great Gatsby
There’s a central body in Japan that declares the coming and going of rain. That means that there is a weather bureaucracy, and someone stamps a piece of paper confirming a season is going according to plan: Spring continued as expected.
The Japanese Meteorological Agency lets everyone know what day the rainy season will end. If you think that’s silly, my country uses a groundhog.
