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The Melon Princess and The Heavenly Demon
I’ve got quite a few subscribers to my blog who aren’t following me on other social media thingies, so I wanted to post a little update. Aside from my podcast (Uncanny Japan), I have this other side hustle I’m very passionate about. That is, digging up obscure Japanese folktales, translating, retelling/reimagining them, and then recording…
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2018-Happy New Year-Tumultuous Dragons and Affectionate Minnows
Well, hello there, 2018! You really snuck up on me. I just sat down and re-read last year’s New Year’s blog post and had a hearty chuckle. I might have grimaced and winced a couple times, probably wiped away a few tears. There I was sure that the previous year (2016) was so insanely tumultuous…
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November’s Been Good — Goro Awase
My November Uncanny Japan podcast was about goro awase (語呂合わせ), a kind of Japanese, number word play. I give a few examples there and thought I was done with the topic when yesterday during every single one of my classes I heard the elementary school students ask kids from other schools if they had been…
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What I’ve Been Up To With Bullet Points
Ever since I got back from the States in early September, it seems like I’ve refashioned myself into a kind of plate spinner, albeit a somewhat neurotic plate spinner. So as a reminder to myself and a heads up to anyone interested in what’s going on in my life, here is a bullet point list…
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That Time I Thought I Could Converse with the Crows
It’s kind of true. I go for an early morning walk roughly the same time every day. For a month or so now when I get to a certain point on that walk, I come across this crow sitting on top of a huge mound of dirt. Since I have nothing better to do, I…
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A Watershed and an Existential Crisis
One year ago this month my son, Julyan, started his second year of university and moved out of the house. At the time I thought I was being clever by planning ahead, applying for a scholarship and a prestigious workshop, also picking up a few more part time jobs. Keeping busy would stave off empty…
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Not Cookie Cutters
These are not cookie cutters. Well, I guess they could be cookie cutters. But they’re not really. You can find them in all sorts of Japanese stores. They’re usually sold in sets of four, like this. So what they are, actually, are vegetable cutters. You use them to cut carrots or daikon radishes or, heck,…
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Monkeys on a Stick!
I’ve been wanting to write about this for awhile, and now I’m finally getting around to it. This is what I love about Japan. Monkeys on a stick. Before I went into the hospital to get my gall bladder out – um, ages ago (last spring?) – a good friend gave me this little thing…
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Skipping Town–Yonige （夜逃げ）
Japanese Word-of-the-Day: Yonige (夜逃げ)–skipping town; literally running away at night. I was really trying to sleep past three am last night, and I was almost there. That is until sometime around 2:55 when I started dreaming about explosions. Time to wake up. It turned out I wasn’t actually in a war zone. Instead, someone was…
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Three-Thirty AM Ramen
Here’s a twist on what to do when life gives you lemons. If you’re woken up at three am by a husband being noisy downstairs and you can’t go back to sleep, you go grab some ramen. There’s this super popular ramen shop one town over that is only open from 3:15 am until 5:30…
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Okuribi–Send Off Fire
August 16th is the last day of obon — a summer festival that honors the spirits of the dead. It’s the day everyone has to send back all those ancestors who have being hanging out at the family altar, feasting on fruit, sticky rice cakes, and sake’. Because, really, you don’t want them hoards of ghosties hanging…
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Summer Desserts
In Japan sweets are sublime. Let me give you an example. The other day I was picking up some sticky rice cakes for my mother-in-law and I came across this. It’s a gelatin dessert, but there’s a goldfish floating there. And little red and white bean “rocks”. Seaweed even! And there, minus one gelatin bite.…