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Eating Fried Eel And Melon Together Will Result In DEATH (And Other Japanese Superstitions)

If you have been around Japanese natives for a decent amount of time, you’ll start noticing some of their unique quirks. Quirks, such as their behavioral differences, habits, and body language. There is one other idiosyncrasy that I’ve found to be interesting: superstitions. Superstitions are strongly integrated in Japanese society. If anything, I would say Japanese superstitions [...]

Japanese Body Language Guide

Ahhh, today’s blog post isn’t so much of a post, but an announcement of a new addition to our Guide library. It could easily be its own post, but we felt it is more appropriate to segregate it into a guide. About a month ago, we announced our intentions in developing How-To guides to help aid you, our [...]

The Basics of Career Life In Japan

Last week I talked briefly about 過労死 (かろうし, karoshi) and the effects it has on the Japanese society. Branching off of the article and continuing the Japanese business series of articles, we’ll take a succinct look into the institution that fosters the karoshi problem and also helped fueled Japan towards becoming a global economic identity: the Japanese career system. [...]

Japan’s Resilient Native People, the Ainu

Continuing with our series of articles on minority groups in Japan (previous posts include the Burakumin and the Brazilian-Japanese), we’ll take brief look into the (now officially recognized with hanko-stamp of approval by the Japanese Government as of 2008) indigenous group, the Ainu. The Ainu population is concentrated in the northern islands of modern Japan, specifically Hokkaido and Honshu. They [...]

The Burakumin: Japan’s Invisible Race

One of the things Western visitors notice on their visit to Japan is the homogenous population. As an urban-living American, walking through the streets of the U.S. and seeing a wide, diverse range of ethnicities is an everyday occurrence that doesn’t cause more than a blink of an eye. Not so much in Japan. To the [...]