Surely you've heard this one: the Chinese word for "crisis" (危機, weiji in Chinese, kiki in Japanese) is composed of the two characters for "danger" and "opportunity". This reveals the wise Oriental insight that a crisis is an oportunity for progress, an impressive outlook we'd all do well to emulate. Or so we've been told for decades by management gurus, New Age philosphers, generic pundits, and even world leaders.  read more »

I'll dip again into my bag of old newspaper clippings. This one is from the October 10, 1994 issue of The Japan Times, in the Nihongo and I column: "Language change inevitable", a discussion with Professor Kikuo Nomoto, former director of the National Language Research Institute.  read more »

What's the most difficult language to learn?

It's a good question, and an extremely difficult one to field.

What's the most uninformed response you could give to the above question?

That one's not so difficult; I've got the answer right here!  read more »

The latest JIN Newsletter discusses the high-tech toilets made by Japanese companies like TOTO. All fine and good, except for one comment stumbling into culturology:

It is ironic that Japan, that imported the very concept of sit-down toilets from the West, is now at the center of cutting edge lavatory technology.  read more »

Sorting through more old newspaper clippings, I find an interview ("Helping creative talent to bloom", Japan Times, November 03, 1991) with an art exhibition organizer, Kazuko Koike, who speaks about the 1991 Umbrellas environmental art project by Christo that placed hundreds of huge umbrellas throughout valleys in California and Japan.  read more »

I have an old clipping from Letters to the Editor (Japan Times, February 04, 1995), in which reader Kazuya Izaku of Saitama Pref. displays an all-too-rare sensibility on the matter of "Japanese" actions in the wake of the terrible Kobe earthquake. Here's an excerpt:

From the terrible tragedy of the Kobe earthquake, at least one piece of good news has emerged: Individualism in Japan is alive and well.  read more »

I don't often check The Japan Times online or off, but happened to load it up today on the screen. (Actually, I was curious about news of the iPhone's appearance in Japan.)  read more »

As in last time's Commenting on "10 Reasons Japan Is Better Than America", here I comment on a post on the Hunter Nuttall website: 10 Reasons America Is Better Than Japan.  read more »

Once again, a big "cultural differences" article out there on the Internet calls for a little commentary and reality checking. From 10 Reasons Japan Is Better Than America (a title nicely crafted to bring in the hits) on the Hunter Nuttall website, here are some excerpts from the list, followed by my comments:  read more »

I ran across an article 10 Japanese Customs You Must Know Before a Trip to Japan. I found the article too late to catch the wave of comments, but I had to add one anyway. Here it is; anyone agree or disagree with its take?  read more »