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The New Year is here already. If you were one of the three-or-so JETs or other foreign residents that stayed in Oita as the globe invested in new calendars, perhaps you took a little time to celebrate shogatsu in style and play the traditional Japanese game of Karuta.
Karuta (typically written in katana as カルタ, […]
According to The Traveler’s Notebook, Japan comes in at number six in the top ten places to teach English abroad.
I would have expected Japan to come in a little higher, but with the sorry state of non-JET teaching jobs, particularly the recent debacle at NOVA, it’s not that surprising.
There are some interesting locations on […]
The Holy Trinity of Japanese culture in the eyes of outsiders may be sushi, sumo and samurai, but one unforgettable aspect of culture often unknown outside the country immediately springs to the minds of those who live here: Love Hotels, or as they are far too appropriately katakana-ized, Rub Hotels.
Any garish, neon-plated building entirely […]
Urasawa Naoki’s Monster
A man on the run, framed for murders he didn’t commit, hounded by police wherever he goes. The only way to clear his name is to uncover the real murderer and the truth by himself. Sounds familiar? Monster is not The Fugitive, nor does it strive to be. It […]
Oita was called Bungo, if you didn’t know.
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In spring it is the dawn that is most beautiful. As the light creeps over the hills, their outlines are dyed a faint red and wisps of purplish cloud trail over them.
In summer the nights…
In autumn the evenings…
In winter the early mornings…
Thus begins The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon (枕草子), a prose collection written […]
The following essay was written by Kim Austin and won an honorable mention for the 2004 JET Program Essay Competition. It also appeared in the September 2004 edition of The Tombo Times.
Before I begin this essay I would like to make a brief disclaimer. The topic of my essay is ‘foreign language education,’ but […]
Ōtomo Sōrin. He was a daimyo in what is today Oita. He was a Christian. He was Oita’s “Christian Daimyo.” Did I mention he was Christian? Such is the extent of most of our knowledge of the name which pops up most frequently when discussing the history of Oita. […]
Have you ever taken a look at the old (1984 - 2004) thousand yen bill and thought one of two things: Who is this strangely charming figure with those piercing eyes? Or, how in the world did a Japanese man grow a mustache like that? I don’t know the answer to the second […]
Written by Kelly Franquemont of Kitsuki.
It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for, I’m going to talk about boobs….
Among the long list of inappropriate questions Asia will routinely expect foreigners to answer, one of the most common inquiries at school is some nearly-English variant of, ‘What size bra do you wear?’
In fact, breasts seem to […]