I have a luncheon friend who has been deep in the dumps all week. He sits slumped over, picks at his food and won’t speak. The only way to bring him to life is to stick him with the tab. The reason for his ...

“I’d open up a bar.” That’s the answer. Here’s the question. What’s your dream scheme? Your pie-in-the-sky plan to stay in Japan without the grind of having to teach, translate, and otherwise scratch out a living off your English skills? For English has always ...

I don’t feel old and don’t look old either, although my wife and bathroom mirror both disagree. Yet, I am approaching the age where I would not mind a grandchild. You know . . . an impish little girl with curly hair and non-stop ...

Life as a foreign resident has its trials. Some problems are giant-size, such as issues with communication, while others are more mundane, like how to deal with bugs. Which in Japan can also be giant-size. And then these matters can cross, like the time ...

Call me, “Stupid.” My father did. Rather often in fact. But only in the fatherly fashion of educating me as to the tough truths of everyday life. In which every potential pitfall earned a pithy maxim. None of which I can remember. Except for ...

One struggle in learning Japanese is getting a grip on all the various loan words that have slipped into the vernacular from abroad. Lots of these are high-tech creations that have more or less formed a new-world pidgin. I bet “Google,” for example, now ...

“Hey . . . Get that!” A simple husband-to-wife request in what had been the hush of a peaceful morning. “Get what?” she said. “What do you mean, ‘Get what!?’ “ Because at that moment our tea kettle was foaming at its metal mouth ...

Have you ever given serious thought about what might have happened if Rudyard Kipling had lived in Japan instead of India? Neither have I. In fact, I haven’t had a serious thought in years. But no matter where Kipling lived, I feel I can ...

Draw a big breath and admit it. Japan smells. And what place doesn’t? Take my hometown, for example, located close to Nowheresville, Illinois. The local aroma is a mix of clean living and hog manure, a tricky blend at that, one which my wife ...

Sumo is a sport of big men . . . and big problems. Take, for example, the scandals with drugs and violence that have dogged the sumo world over the last few years. Or the occasional whispers of thrown matches — that have been ...