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Sambo Revisited
A few months ago, I wrote a post about the republishing of Little Black Sambo by a Japanese publisher, and my mom left this in the comments: You used to…
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All your base is belong to… Gaijin?
Whoa. Check out the latest comment on my Black Bus post from last year: You are not understand nothing yet… gaijin The commenter, Ryoma, is either a big fan or…
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NHK Fee Collectors
NHK is the national public broadcasting station in Japan. They send subscription fee collectors to seemingly every front door in the nation on a semi-regular basis, and in my experience,…
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There is no love in your violence…
This sounds like a scene straight from Ishi the Killer: …Nagasawa then punched the victim in the face, saying he did not answer politely enough… …Nagasawa then allegedly followed the…
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On Inspiration and Foreign Language Study
Uninspiring story #1: The Japanese girl who really went to Los Angeles in pursuit of life ala Beverly Hills 90210. (seriously.) Uninspiring story #2: Her best friend, who followed two…
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Medical Tourism in Mosonmagyarovar
So it has finally come to this: The incidental tourist An American woman opts to pay $4,300 for a ten day vacation/medical trip to Hungary where she gets dental work…
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Asbestos
Check out this article in the Guardian: Japan’s asbestos time bomb This is a HUGE problem on my island. Before they built the longest, tallest, and most expensive suspension bridge…
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Matsuda Yusaku
I totally scored an out-of-print DVD box set of the entire Tantei Monogatari (Detective Story) series on Yahoo Auctions last night! This was a very famous TV series in Japan…
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DHL – Localization Expertise
This new box size from DHL isn’t half as funny in English as it is in Japanese (junior = penis). I’ve always wondered if the reason Carl’s Jr. went out…
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1.5 Million Tons of Umami
This is a question I have asked myself many times over the years spent here in Japan: If MSG is so bad for you, why doesn’t everyone in Asia have…
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The Golden Three
These long, dreary trips out to factories way out in the country – I will not miss them. When you leave the concrete landscapes of urban sprawl and start seeing…
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Unintentional Harakiri
This is a pretty amusing video someone sent me. You should look at the tiny on-screen details the second time around in order to appreciate it fully. And now, in…
