The last time I’d seen it, it was 4:59 a.m. I stood in the streets in a robe watching 50 men haul a one-ton shrine through the city on sticks. I sleepwalked home with empty pockets. Continue reading
Here, Autumn starts in August, rather than the September Equinox. It’s September now, but the temperatures still hover in the 80s, thunderstorms still threaten my daily sushi pickup, and cicadas still squawk through the trees like tortured squirrels. Continue reading
The creepiness of men in Japan (homegrown and imported) has become something of a standing joke. The male expats are creepy, and it’s a joke. Japanese men leer on the subway, and it’s a joke. Dance floors in Japan are jokes, because women will inevitably end up grinded on or groped by someone too sketchy to “read the air.”
The whole thing is a big joke, really, until it isn’t. Then, people stop laughing about it, because that would mean talking about it, and nobody wants to do that. You’d upset the wa. Continue reading
The happiest expats in Japan often seem to be, if not the dumbest, then at least the most blithely unaffected by their surroundings. Continue reading
Japan would like to be known for its temples, shrines, natural beauty, onsen, kimonos, and amazing food. Instead, it’s mostly known abroad for inscrutable anime and game shows where people are flung naked out of toilets without warning or screaming girls’ heads are placed into cages with lizards.
Japan seems to have something of a “wacky” problem. Continue reading
The size of the roaches in Chiang Mai actually makes them less intimidating. Continue reading
This Japanese Life. 