If you have been studying Japanese for more than a year or two, it is likely that you, like me, have your very own Japanese Language Learning Shelf of Shame. Mine is large, so large I could hide behind it. But the time...
Author - Tim Patrick
Tim Patrick
The Growing Influence of News in Asia
An interesting notice appeared in this Monday’s edition of The Japan Times, the largest English-language newspaper in Japan. Under the headline, “A message to our readers,” the publisher announced a small but meaningful...
A Japanese Actor Shares His Love of Shakespeare
William Shakespeare has long been recognized as one of the most important—perhaps the most important—contributor to English literature. But in America’s current “cancel culture” that has set its sights on influencers...
Have a Bright, Sunny Vernal Equinox Day
Japan has a lot of holidays, thirteen official ones to be exact—going up to fourteen next year! Four of them already took place earlier this year, including the Emperor’s Birthday and Coming of Age Day. There are also...
Remembering the Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami
Ten years ago, on March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the northeast coast of Japan triggered a tsunami that devastated a large swath of the country’s Tōhoku region. As people were still trying to grapple with...
How Japan Survived the Coronavirus Pandemic
It was just over one year ago that the coronavirus pandemic became the top story on the nightly news—every single night. Japan got a head start on most of the world with the arrival of the Diamond Princess cruise ship...
How Powerful Was That Earthquake?
My very first earthquake happened in Los Angeles back in the late 1980s, a rather frightening affair. I mean, the while house was moving, despite it being attached to California and the rest of the contiguous forty...
Today is the Emperor’s Birthday
February 23 is the emperor’s birthday, a national holiday in Japan. Well, at least that’s the case this time around. As a holiday, it keeps jumping all over the calendar. Something to do with the 126 Japanese emperors...
The Weather Cities of Japan
The essayist Charles Dudley Warner famously quipped, “Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” That changes today. While I can’t fix your crazy weather, I can at least help you identify...
The Yayoi and the Origins of Modern Japan
The Jōmon, the hunter-gatherer civilization that populated parts of the main Japanese islands for most of its prehistory, had by 300BC almost completely disappeared from the archipelago. Life was always difficult in the...
