Buy the book!
You can buy This Japanese Life as a paperback or as a Kindle eBook.Follow us on Facebook:
Subscribe to this site
-
Join 1,297 other subscribers
-
Most Popular
Category Archives: Thinking
Singing Karaoke with Foucault
“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 … Continue reading
On Demonic Umbrellas and Japanese Banking
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.
On Seasons, or: On Poets Taking Over the Japanese Meteorological Service
“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 … Continue reading
On Lenin’s Feet and the Taxi-Driving Buddha
If you visit Kyoto, you may stumble into a small home next door to a shrine and, as you’re looking for the shrine entrance, a woman may ask you for 500 yen and assure you that there is English being … Continue reading
Posted in language, Shrines, Temples and Ruins, Thinking, Uncategorized, Zen
Tagged buddhism, japan, Kyoto, Lenin
2 Comments
On Nature in Japan, or: On Getting Killed By a Wild Goat in America
Signs were erected to warn hikers about aggressive mountain goats in Olympic National Park. Imagine, if you can, the mountain goats of the Pacific Northwest. They look like messed-up dogs or disappointing unicorns; they eat lichen in the wild and … Continue reading
On Like Totally Living in the Now in Japan, You Know?
Japan probably has more temples, shrines and gardens per capita than garbage cans or benches.
Posted in Homesickness, Shrines, Thinking, Uncategorized, Zen
Tagged expatriates, japan, mindfulness, zen
7 Comments
This Japanese Life. 