"Three, two, one, yoi shoot!" With a swing of our arms, the children and I launched our tops from our hands, careful to hold on to the thread. "Shippai!" or "I failed," a student said her top toppled over. But not me. Not … [Read more...]
In this article, “half” refers to a person of mixed race who is half Japanese and half something else. Although for the past 20 years it has been suggested to use “mixed-race” instead of “half”, the word “half” is still … [Read more...]
1985. What a year. The Nintendo Entertainment System debuted in the U.S. to near immediate success. What American video game makers had abandoned as a dead market, Japanese video game companies picked up and revitalized. … [Read more...]
It’s finally happening. You pushed through the rigorous application process, sweated through the interviews, and finally have your acceptance letter. Your dream of teaching English in Japan has become a reality! What you … [Read more...]
Koichi recently wrote an article entitled “Why Japanese Education Succeeds: Amae, Stress and Perseverence - this article is meant to be a rejoinder exploring not really the successes of Japanese education (which there are … [Read more...]
This article first appeared in a truncated version at on the Komaba Times Website, the blog for the Journalistic Writing class at the University of Tokyo -- Anyone living in Japan can tell you that the words … [Read more...]