Just thought some of you may be interested in this article by Debito Arudou I read on The Japan Times Online last night whilst wasting time at work, heh. It's not exactly a new topic or a new concept, but still worth reading IMO.

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The blame gameWe live in interesting times. With the shortage and high cost of domestic labor, the Japanese ( Read more... )

What's been easier for you to find in Japan ?

• bizarre sex acts
• decent conversation
• tapes or other media of bizarre sex acts

At 18 months in, I'm no longer alarmed at the lack of coffeehouses, local clubs, or other relatively communal spaces where you can meet people bound either by geographic locale or specific interest, but I am getting tired of ( Read more... )

1. Your grandmother encourages you to go out to lunch and take “Abe” with you, and you think, “Prime Minister Abe ( Read more... )

How many Japanese people does it take to screw in a lightbulb ( Read more... )

Earlier in my apartment I felt something brush against my ear, and thinking that it was my hair, reached up to brush it away, and found this (not huge, but uncomfortably large) insect crawling in my hair.. I subsequently tracked it down and stuff but I want to know what it was? It's not like anything I have come across in my home country (England ( Read more... )

I'm a tattoo addict. I tend to think about them for quite some time before actually going under the "needle". I have a giant geisha on my back, "satoru" with maple leaves and cherry blossoms on my arm and others too ( Read more... )

Yes, I have one ( Read more... )

So there was this page-long exposé on Japan and whaling in the Japan Times ( Read more... )

Yo ho, y’all! I’ve got a question and am hoping the expats here have some answers. You see, I’m currently holed-up in a "guest"... or rather, "gaijin"... house, to those more comfortably familiar with local, xenophobic epithets. Basically, that means I rent my own room, but share bath and kitchen quarters with a constantly changing cadre of ( Read more... )

Everybody, at some stage, feels down in Japan ( Read more... )