When I worked as a journalist in Japan, I retold a lot of collected wisdom from my circles. In technology writing of the early 2000s, it was common knowledge that Japanese schoolgirls had pioneered texting on mobile phones. I never...
Imagine a ragtag group of long-bearded scrawny old men leaping up rocky, misty mountains in wooden clogs, pausing in their ascent to scrawl a few observations on a nearby rock. The life of the mind in the 13th century. They...
During my latest trip to Japan, an advertisement for a book ダーリンの頭の中(Inside my Darling's Head) caught my eye. It seemed to be an English language book, but in manga form, and written by a Japanese woman about her Western...
This semester, I am teaching my Japanese Popular Culture class, and my students are bringing in things that they find as "show-and-tell" reports. This is the first of several installments on chanpon-themed items that my students are cluing me...
The Sunday New York Times Book Review last week had a ">review of Peter Carey's new book, Wrong About Japan, and though I haven't read it, I think I can safely say, boy, are you ever. (More reviews and commentary...
I'm reading The Global Me by G. Pascal Zachary. Its about chanponism. He seems to like the word "mongrel"."Mongrel" must take on a new meaning that conveys the idea of positive, purposeful mixing -- a mixing that expands freedom while...
Bob Dylan is arguably the most famous living English language bard. For decades he has drawn from the Bible, myth and literature to fill his songs with memorable characters and striking situations. Now it looks like he might have lifted...
It is quite a rare thing for a Canadian children's publisher to publish a book written by a Japanese author. This spring, Toronto publisher Annick Press has published "Kiki's Delivery Service" (Japanese title: Majyo no Takkyu-bin) written by well-known Children's...
I've become increasingly wary of foreigners who tell Japan what to do - the recent economic decline in Japan has been a fantastic chance for too many armchair technocrats to prognosticate sagely on the state of affairs in a country...
Shonen Jump, the most popular comic magazine in Japan, is now available in English and was released last November in the US and Canada. shonenjump.com...
Zen Buddhism is an aspect of Japanese culture foreigners frequently romanticize and seldom understand. There are the ideals of Zen - consciousness, compassion, detachment - epitomized by the likes of Ikkyu, translated by D.T. Suzuki, evangelized by Kerouac and the...
In the course of my undergraduate thesis research I came across this marvelous book, Bridge to the Sun, by Gwen Terasaki. Her story is dramatic, romantic, and moving, and she writes in a very simple, understated style that only enhances...
A new subscription comic book series called Raijiin Comics will be launched in the US in November by Gustoon! Entertainment. raijincomics.com...
Edited by Claudine C. O'Hearn A collection of essays by 18 writers from various backgrounds....
Douglas Coupland, the Canadian author and visual artist most famous for coining the term "Generation X", published a richly illustrated book last December in Japanese, available only in Japan....
The Search for Madame Butterfly, and the Evolution of Early Mixed-Culture Myths...
Caroline Pover: Being a Broad in Japan...
On Jan. 6 The Japan Times reviewed a new book on cross-cultural marriage from the opposite prespective as Karen Ma's book, foreign women marrying Japanese men. The book is called Looking Beyond the Mask....
The story of one of the first gaijin entrepreneurs in Japan and also at the heart of strange connections between the Japanese gangsters, the LDP and the US government....
WuDunn describes an old saying: A man is in heaven when he has an American house, a British salary, a Chinese cook and a Japanese wife. My mother, a Japanese wife herself, often joked that she wanted a Japanese...
