Right before the whole Tofugu team left for Japan, we decided to try a nearby Japanese restaurant right here in the US. Even though we were a little apprehensive about eating there, we decided to give it a try anyway. What was the harm? It turned out we should have listened to our instincts. This [...]
In the early 2000s, 4chan became the site of increasingly heated exchanges between those who were anime and manga fans, and those who, er, weren’t. Or perhaps they were just trolls. Well, trolls or not, their slur of choice was “Wapanese” – short for “Wannabe Japanese.” But why am I telling you all this? By [...]
As an American, it’s sometimes kind of strange to me that other countries have Ministries of Culture. The US, being the melting pot that it is, doesn’t really have the same sort of shared cultural heritage that other countries value so highly. But for countries like Japan that aren’t quite as diverse as the US, [...]
Ikebana (生け花), literally “live flowers,” is the traditional Japanese art of flower arrangement. Its deceptively simple name hides years of history and cultural upheaval that began during the Meiji Restoration. I won’t go into all the details, but suffice to say that ikebana today is quite different from what it used to be! There are [...]
Kawaii (かわいい), most commonly translated as “cute,” is practically everywhere in Japan – and I do mean everywhere. To paraphrase author Mary Roach, the Japanese save money with cute, pray with cute, and even have sex with cute (yes, there is indeed a Hello Kitty vibrator). Image sources: 1, 2, 3 Pre-teen and teen idols [...]
Rajio taiso (ラジオ体操), or “radio exercises” is an integral (if slightly dorky) part of Japanese culture. You’ve probably come across it even if you don’t live in Japan – it pops up all the time in anime and movies (I myself first stumbled upon it in Studio Ghibli’s Omoide poro poro (おもいでぽろぽろ) or “Only Yesterday”). [...]
When I write for Tofugu, I ask myself a lot of questions to make sure I’m writing a good post. Is this topic interesting to me? Will this be interesting to other people? Is the post too short? Too long? Is the title right? Etc., etc.. Most of these considerations are things that all writers [...]
