I rarely make Shinjuku my final destination because I don't particularly care for the vibe of the area. But if I must go there and Shinjuku Station pops up on Google Maps as the closest station, I look to see what the second closest station is. Since I'm going to be walking 15 minutes inside
If you’re ever in Tokyo, you should be very careful to not ever end up at “Shinjuku” station.
I don’t mean “Shinjuku Sanchome” or “Shinjuku Gyoenmae” or "Shinjuku Nishiguchi" or "Nishi Shinjuku” or "Nishi Shinjuku Gochome" or "Higashi Shinjuku" or "Minami Shinjuku" or "Seibu Shinjuku" or any other station that
It’s quite unlike me, but this year I’d like to talk a bit about my work.
My current job involves working to persuade the Japanese public sector to adopt the use of cloud services. Governments tend to be beholden to past practices, and Japan is no different. It takes a lot of
If you're reading this, the odds are extraordinarily high that you don't walk around carrying business cards. That's because they're a lost art where English is the primary language.
On the other hand, the tradition is alive and well in Japan.
Then there's the difference in the months of the year that the Japanese and Americans go watch film.
Summer, to be sure, is the period for blockbuster movies in Japan as it is in America, but the definition of "summer" differs quite a bit between the two markets. In
The United States is undoubtedly the king of the film market, but it turns out Japan is no slouch. Until being passed by India recently, Japan was the third largest film market in the world in terms of revenue.
Considering that Japan trails only the United States (of Hollywood), China (of 1.3 billion people) and
Despite my affliction with Airplane Incidents Obsession Syndrome, I enjoy traveling by air. I've flown domestically and internationally, in business and in economy, and on U.S. and foreign airlines. What I've discovered through all that flying is that U.S. airlines are unbearably, unbelievably awful.
In fact, I'd rather fly 14 hours on economy class from New
It is 17th century Japan, a bad time and place to be a Christian. The feudal government is committed to eradicating Christianity through the torture and killing of believers, convinced that the religion is unfit for the Japanese people.
In the Portuguese colony of Macau, the Jesuits receive news that Father Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam Neeson), who is living in Nagasaki, Japan, renounced his faith after being tortured.
Japanese and American people are truly remarkable people, although they amaze in entirely different ways.
The Japanese excel in order and discipline.
My favorite example to illustrate this is the shugaku ryokou, which is like a field trip for an entire grade over a couple nights at some exotic location like the historical city of Kyoto or Tokyo
It is hard to believe, but this past September marked three years since I transferred to Tokyo. I am entering my seventh year with my current employer, meaning that I have now worked in the Tokyo office longer than I did in New York.
How time flies.
Life is interesting in that you remember important milestones in your
The last attempt by Hollywood to adapt Godzilla into a film of its own was the equally clueless and disastrous “Godzilla” (1998), a big-budget flick that had Matthew Broderick running around New York City trying to destroy 200 eggs that a hideous-looking Godzilla laid in Madison Square Garden. With the point of comparison being so
There are so many things that make winter the best of the four seasons, and what would make it even better is more of everything.
When I lived in the United States, winter always began on Thanksgiving week, just when the temperature outside starts to get comfortably cold in the Northeast. Thanksgiving means a lot of
For me, the fall will always mark the beginning of a new year. For nearly two decades, September is when I progressed one year in the educational ladder. Now that I'm working, fall is when I tack on another year in my experience as a working professional. I've always loved this season because it's when
There is only one good thing about the summer, and it's that it is followed by the most pleasant season of the year.
I was born in August, right in the smack of the summer, no doubt on a hot, humid and miserable day. My mom always wonders why I hate so much the season in
Of the four seasons, I hate spring the most. I try to live by the words, "Never hate, sometimes dislike," so I have reserved a very special place in my heart for the season we are currently in.
There are many reasons to hate spring, but topping the list is the fact that it is a
John was a couple years behind me at Boston College. I don't exactly recall how we initially met, but we quickly became close friends because I was Japanese and he was interested in Japan.
John had a great laugh. He and I come from a different political mold, he of the moderate left and I of
My life consists of obsessions and it's no different with music. When I buy new music, I listen to it over and over (and over and over) again until it is playing in my head and driving me insane. I then find the next music to obsess about. Because of this, many of the songs
I think I was in sixth grade when I first engaged in a debate. It was at my weekly Saturday Japanese school and for reasons unclear, the topic de jour was which is better: coins or bills. For reasons even more unclear, I took the side of vigorously defending the existence of coins while my
The food is great in Tokyo. By that I mean the taste, not the portions.
Compared to America--where they feed you like a horse--the portions at Japanese restaurants are ridiculously small. It's pretty much assured that whatever dishes the restaurant trots out as a full-course meal is insufficient to satisfy your hunger. That's why I
"Antoki no Inochi" (2011) is what you get when the producers, the screenwriters and the director think the audience is too shallow to appreciate the original material and conspire to dumb down the material to the point the film loses any meaning.
The rail system in Tokyo is so reliable you wonder how New Yorkers ever function with the disaster that's the MTA. I've never had to wait more than 10 minutes for a subway, regardless of the time of day or day of the week. There's certainty because a display tells you when the next train
I am starting my new life in Tokyo, where new challenges await. I'm really excited, but the move still feels quite surreal. I don't think reality has quite sunk in.
Twenty-one years, 3 months and 10 days passed between my residency in Japan. That's a long time. I haven't felt nostalgic yet, but I've started to
I grew up in a quintessential, middle class New Jersey suburb. My parents, who went to college in America, were not typical Japanese expatriates. They cared little for socializing with Japanese people or Japanese pop culture and thus, I grew up with very little Japanese around me. Except for insisting that I attend Japanese school
The pictures and videos are all you need to understand that Japan has a long and painful road ahead even before the recovery can begin. But for now, I am thankful that family, friends, and everyone I know in Japan are safe.
When something like this happens to a place and people you know very well,
In Japan, lawyers rank right below doctors in the list of most respected professions. In the United States, they rank with politicians as one of the most reviled. The difference is striking.
Part of the problem in this country is oversaturation. Compared to Japan, where the passage rate under the old bar exam was around 3%,
In 2003, conservative commentator Billy Krystol spoke at Boston College and foretold the rough road ahead for the Republicans by astutely observing, "There's nothing more difficult than being in power."
The flip side is equally true: there's nothing easier--and more irresponsible--than not being in power. This is a lesson the just-resigned Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama
My parents are typical Asian parents. They are controlling and overbearing. That I was their oldest--and only--son probably didn't help much.
I think it's psychologically healthy for every child to go through a rebellious period against his or her parents (within means, of course), but I fear I missed out on that experience when I had
I have a great story that explains how societal norms greatly differs between Asians and Westerners.
The summer after I graduated from college, I went to China on a two week trip composed of college students mostly studying or interested in government. The student composition was geographically diverse, with students from colleges all over the United
A two and a half week absence from my blog has left me with mixed feelings: the gratification in knowing people follow my blog but resignation in knowing they're only interested in my politics. For those who kindly encouraged me to break my silence as Ted Kennedy died and Japan went through an Obama-esque "change,"
Today is my birthday, or rather, yesterday was my birthday. Some may say it's sad to be spending the beginning of the anniversary day of your birth at the office and still be at the office when the day ends, but those are people who likely weren't born in August.
I like history, but not necessarily social science. I don't particularly care for Geography and predictably I'm not particularly good at it.
I find it appalling that 1/3 of Americans can't identify China on an unmarked world map, but then, I'm in no position to critique. I took a mini Japanese Geography quiz at juku, my
The church I attended on Sunday was very nice. Of all the churches I've been to, I think I felt most comfortable there.
The pastor who gave the service on Sunday at Saint Frances de Sales Parish on the corner of 96th and Lexington was a man of a booming voice whom God did not bless with
My sister, that bored nincompoop, created Note in Facebook with a list of 25 random facts about herself and then created a "rule" under which an unfortunate soul who was tagged will have to do the same thing. Presumably this is the most modern rendition of the cursed chain letter so the failure to respond
While I was in Japan, I read a story along these lines about Australian sailors' efforts to stop Japanese whaling practices and an editorial in a newspaper by an European objecting to how Japan is raping their seas.
I can think of no issue that pisses me off more than the Western objection to Japanese whaling,
