As international marriages rose in Japan in recent years, the number of bicultural families increased, and many children of such families are being raised to speak the languages of both parents. American Mary Nobuoka, director of the Bilingual Special Interest Group (B-SIG) and parent of a bicultural son, devotes much ...
Tamagotchi, the electronic pets that were first released by Bandai in Japan in 1996, have returned. But this time in ...
I’d lost my keys. Which is unsettling enough. For you do not begin to truly ransack your brain — where ...
Akiko Kuno, 72, believes her destiny is tied with a red string to the United States. So she says as she speaks of her and her family’s life at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo, where as a child she first tasted ...
Next to my house lies a carpet of land not flat enough to resist puddles and not sandy enough to attract cats. It just sits there. Empty. “Symbolic,” says a friend, “of the hole in your life.” He means the car I do not ...
What is the next logical toilet model for Toto? After one has invented a toilet that welcomes you by lifting it’s lid automatically when you walk into the bathroom, cuddles you with a heated toilet seat, washes and dries your bum after you’ve done ...
It was a single visit to Kenya in 1972 that completely changed Michio Hiraiwa’s philosophy on life. He fell in love with the country, and visited there 150 times over the past 40 years. Once a workaholic, Hiraiwa says he now leads a stress-free ...
Setsubun is over and it is officially springtime in Japan. So what if it’s still cold — happy spring! And spring means cherry blossoms, a new school year and, of course, pilgrimaging! This spring, many people will set out on the pilgrimage of a ...
Uchujin, aka Adrian Storey, a British photographer and filmmaker based in Tokyo, drolly explains his rather unusual business moniker: "I'd rather be an alien than an outsider."
I’ll never forget my first winter in Japan when I heard that some Japanese people sleep under the kotatsu.
Patrick Newell, 47, founder of Tokyo International School, calls himself a “learning activist,” a zealot on the frontlines of learning.
Writer, teacher and sports fan Trevor Kew, 32, pedals and kicks his way through culture shock. He uses sports to help him adapt to unfamiliar cultures or new places when traveling, trusting his bike or a soccer ball to bridge the gap with locals. ...
I can’t wait to see NHK-G’s special program to air Feb. 23. They are finally going to address a topic I have harbored secret thoughts about since I came to Japan in 1994. NHK is going to broach the topic in a no-holds-barred documentary. ...
I lay in bed with a woman with a mask on her face. So I roll her way and coo in her unmasked ear . . . “You can hide your face but not your passion.” To which she sighs and coos back . ...
Ken Hartmann, 71, still opens doors for ladies, and still speaks with a brusque, no-nonsense New York accent even after 27 years in Japan.
