Cheese tastes great in a wide variety of foods. But did you know it also works with immigration policies? Well, it does, thanks to that modern Japanese preparation known as “cheese-in” (チーズイン). You might think it is...
Author - Tim Odagiri
Tim Odagiri
Japanese Private Bureaucracies: A Case Study
Japan’s government is famously bureaucratic, to the point where some commentators claim that the bureaucrats, and not the legislators, control everything. The system generates a lot of paperwork, and yet these endless...
Has Japan Forgotten About Hiroshima?
A few weeks ago, I had a chance to visit Hiroshima, my first trip to that sprawling port city in Western Japan. As I gazed at a cloudbank descending over Mount Fuji from my bullet train seat on the ride down, my...
Three Ways to Improve Your Japanese Reading Ability
Someone asked me a few days ago what my secret is for learning Japanese. Obviously, this conversation took place in English. If we had been communicating in Japanese, he would have known the futility in asking such a...
The Trouble with English in Japan
This week, the entertainment behemoth Johnny and Associates will change its name to “Smile-Up.” If you haven’t been following the news, the talent agency founded back in the 1960s has been mired in scandal, stemming...
Ordering Decaf Coffee in Japan
I don’t know about you, but I like sleeping at night. That’s why I try to avoid caffeine in the afternoons or evenings. This was relatively easy to do back in the United States, where every diner had a fresh orange...
Into Japan Book Now Available!
When you move to Japan, one of the first things you realize is how woefully unprepared you are for the experience. Naturally, there’s the language to deal with, its never-ending foreign words and phrases coming at you...
Japan is the Adult in the Room
The nations of the world recently have been behaving like a bunch of cranky kids, refusing to play well together despite having ample toys. Consider the United States, scribbling on everyone else’s coloring books with...
Does Japan Have Too Many People?
Anyone who cares about Japan and its people knows that it is going through some demographic turbulence right now. A large baby-boom population entering its twilight years is clashing with those in their twenties and...
Do Foreign Residents in Japan Have an Obligation to Fit In?
I participate in a variety of online groups where foreigners living in Japan mingle to discuss their experiences. Recently, in one such group, a foreign resident posted an anecdote about his work environment. His boss...
