Matthew Chozick writes widely about culture both in Japanese and English. He also appears regularly on Japanese television, holds a research fellowship at Kokugakuin University, dabbles in performance art and is the co-founder of a publishing start-up. You can keep up with his work on Twitter or at http://matthewchozick.com/
For Matthew Chozick's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Between two sips of coffee, Waseda University professor James M. Vardaman comes clean to me about his decades of addiction. "I'm hooked on that rush," he says. "The adrenaline high I get when selling a publishing idea." Hailing from America, the acclaimed author has published five ...
Perhaps there comes a day in many a man's life when he squints and says to himself something like this: 「まずいなぁ、もう少し度の強いメガネがあったら良かった。この距離だと、あの方が女装している北野武さんなのか、ミス・インターナショナルなのか、分からないや」("Mazui nā, mō sukoshi do no tsuyoi megane ga attara yokatta. Kono kyori da to, ano kata ga jyosō shiteiru Kitano Takeshi-san nanoka, Misu ...
We are flying what seems like dangerously low over Boston Harbor. From my window seat, I see waves crash into rocks, spraying foam, and colorful boats with flapping sails. After touching down safely in the city, the pilot wishes us all a happy Thanksgiving. Unlike ...
Perhaps it was the jisaboke (時差ぼけ, jetlag) or a lasagna-induced food coma, but it took time for my mind to register the scene before my eyes — a cosplaying gladiator speaking Japanese in front of the Coliseum in Rome. The Italian sentry — garbed ...
"Little Black Sambo, Sambo, Sambo/His face and hands are completely black/Even his butt is completely black." Word of nursery-schoolers in Saitama Prefecture chanting a "Little Black Sambo" song — "akin to what might be taught by a white supremacist group" — spread online recently, prompting ...
If you scoot around Japan's capital on Tokyo Metro, chances are you can call to your mind's eye Bunpei Yorifuji's manner posters. You've probably snickered at Yorifuji's innuendo-laden slogan "Please do it at home" and, like me, look forward to seeing his silly etiquette ...
When Shinchosha decided not to run a pre-marketing campaign for Haruki Murakami's new and highly anticipated two-volume novel, the publishing house must have banked on the book creating its own hype. It worked. The void soon filled with publicity and media speculation about the ...
