Japanese has a word: shimaguni. It means ‘island nation‘. Unremarkable, you might think. Yet bottled in four syllables is a distillation of a supposed national
Category: culture and society
My Desert Island: Japanese Films
When I lived in Japan, I didn’t watch many films. My Japanese never developed to the extent that I could really understand films without subtitles,
On Bauhaus, the Squirtle Squad and the Gothmother of Black: How Japanese Culture Shapes Your Life
Like many people born in 1991, I first became aware of Japan when someone handed me a Vulpix trading card. Back then, I didn’t know
Good Morning, Verulamium (Here and There)
It was a slow burner, that realization of change. A friend of a friend told me that it took her five months to readjust to
Hell or Hot Water
The steam rises, gently caressing the edges of the bamboo-pattern tiles. A pipe (real bamboo this time) brings bubbling, warm water from a hot spring.
I Do Not Yet Understand
Let me set the scene. A Shinto priest waves his1 haraegushi, a staff topped with thin strips of paper that somewhat resembles a mop, in the
