Japanese get jabbed while Chinese go shopping - Japan Times
“Chinese like gaudy things,” says the female guide escorting one early-morning group. “For that reason alone, cherry blossoms are popular. And Japan is the only place where they bloom in such profusion. Around this season, it’s a popular tour package.”
Stranger in a Strange Land: Japanese […]

From engrish.com
One thing that is hard for many people is making conversation. It’s even harder when doing it in a foreign language–you want to be able to tell jokes or get your opinions across in a completely different culture by using different words and in some cases, completely different ways of expressing yourself.
In this […]

Source: Japan Times
Things are starting to look up with new Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s plans to increase career opportunities for women.
The government is pledging with the program to increase women’s social participation in areas where they have yet to play significant roles, including medical services, public services and science.
Gender equality minister Yoko Kamikawa plans to […]

There’s an interesting opinion article in the New York times regarding the world’s food crisis. Different than the financial crisis and harder to find a solution to, author Paul Krugman offers several reasons as to why this food shortage is happening.
One major reason he states is China: When you take a country as large and […]

There’s a lot of noise regarding Hideki Matsui’s marriage, which is very atypical of most sports marriages in Japan. Normally a sports celebrity marries someone in the entertainment or news industry to increase PR–in other words, make them look good. The woman, an attractive TV personality, normally quits her job after she gets […]

Taken in Kobe
There is a super-informative article at About.com on using bilingual dictionaries. The article is aimed towards those learning French, but the same concepts apply to any language.
Here are some tips from the article that will apply to any language-lookups:
- look up unmodified words (also known as root words, stem words, un-conjugated or […]

Came across this piece in the Japan Times. It is an interview with Hiroko Mito, who is celebrating the 10th anniversary of her bar in Shibuya. It’s an interesting summation of what life is like for a working woman in Japan raising children with a less-than-ideal husband. One point she makes is something that hits […]