As I was leaving the train station, I heard the Japanese national anthem. People were waving flags. Some guy was shouting about “gaikokujin” (“foreigners”) through a loud-speaker. I stopped and stared until a young flag-waving woman raised her bullhorn, looked directly at us and shouted, “GET OUT OF JAPAN!”
Her English was really good. Continue reading
About 300,000 people a year climb Mt. Fuji. A handful of them die. Very few of them get panic attacks from standing on porches.
I’m acrophobic: Seven feet high and I’m nervous. Higher up I get dizzy; at 30 feet my heart races and beyond that I get sparks in my eyes. My body spikes with adrenalin and I can’t stand or speak coherently. If I go higher, I might black out.
It’s like being drunk, if you replace easy laughter with vertigo. Reasonably speaking, I had no business climbing the side of a 12,400-foot mountain. Continue reading
Not every kid in Japan cares about learning English, and so they use class time to work toward other life goals: Homework from other classes, arm wrestling contests or listening to their talking dictionaries pronounce various euphemisms for sex.
Recently, one of the kids shouted to another, “You are fat pig.” The accused pig proudly shouted, “Yes we can!” then stuck his nose up like a snout and made oinking sounds. Continue reading
Anyone who has ever watched me “talk” to Japanese people may find this shocking, but I’m honored to have a guest post over at Zonjineko, one of the best Japanese-language-learning sites on the web.
Because I haven’t starved to death in Japan, I wrote a post on ordering food in a Japanese restaurant aimed at total newbies to lower-mid-level Japanese speakers who enjoy eating.
If you are starting out in Japanese, check it out. And if you want to read more about restaurants in Japan, you can check out my old posts on dining out in Japan or on Japanese food culture.
いただきます！
Everywhere you look, people say Japan is dying. The Economist says Japan is dying. Curators say Japan is dying. The numbers say Japan is dying.
There is no dispute that the Japanese get older as the children get scarcer: Ten people die for every 7 babies born.
And Japan is dying in a particularly heartbreaking way: A nation that has done everything right and yet seems to be dying of loneliness.
Continue reading
This Japanese Life. 