Category: SoraNews24

This week for my RocketNews24 W.T.F. Japan article, I wrote about top five strangest ways to be polite in Japan.

One of my favorite differences to examine between cultures is what is considered polite and rude. It’s always fascinating to discover that something you’ve been raised to do is considered rude in another culture, or how something that seems common sense polite to another culture seems bizarre to you.

For someone raised in the West, Japan abounds with these kinds of cultural differences. It was a lot of fun to think up the list of top five things, and there was a lot of shuffling and cutting that had to be done, though the number one item stayed firmly locked in its place the entire time.

What is it? Well there’s only one way to find out!

Read the article here.

This week for my RocketNews24 W.T.F. Japan article, I wrote about top five most insane kanji place names in Japan.

I wrote an article a few months ago about the top five myths of learning Japanese, and (spoiler alert!) learning how to read Japanese kanji was number one on that list. In my opinion learning how to read Japanese isn’t too much harder than learning how to read English.

English spelling has tons of exceptions and irregularities that sometimes make it seem more like a hieroglyphic writing system itself than an alphabetic one (I’m looking at you “colonel,” “indict,” and “mnemonic”).

But then there’s place name kanji. All bets are out the window when it comes to kanji used to spell place names (and people’s names too for that matter, but that’s for a different time). You could know every single reading a kanji has, and there’s a good chance you’ll still be completely wrong when it comes to pronouncing it correctly when used in a place name.

So that’s why this week I picked out some of the most insane kanji place names all over Japan that I could find. Even if you don’t know how to read Japanese at all, I think I wrote it in a way that will at least show how ridiculous some of these are. Enjoy!

Read the article here.

 

This week for my RocketNews24 W.T.F. Japan article, I wrote about top five crazy awesome features of Japanese restaurants.

I think I’m different than a lot of people in that I really, really don’t like going out to eat. In fact it’s something that I really don’t understand about other people. Let me explain with a list of the reasons why, in my opinion, going out to eat is usually miserable:

1. It costs more (usually way more) than if you made it yourself.
2. You may not be full afterward (can’t just go to the fridge and get more).
3. It may not be prepared the way you like it (under/overcooked, something nasty mixed in).

Yes, I understand that there are some benefits of going out to eat (no cleanup, you can eat food you couldn’t prepare yourself, etc.), but in my personal opinion those pale in comparison to the three items on the list. Why would I want to go somewhere I have to pay more, may not leave full, and may not even like what I get? For atmosphere? Please. If I need atmosphere, I’ll go skydiving.

But all that changes in Japan. I really don’t mind going out to eat in Japan because most restaurants address those three issues like this:

1. There’s no tips, so the meal is at least 20% cheaper.
2. Most places offer some free food refill (rice, bread, cabbage) so you’ll leave full.
3. Realistic 3-D plastic food samples so you know exactly what you’re getting.

It’s remarkable how much of a difference those three small changes make. And it’s not just those either. The whole dining experience from start to finish is always just less awkward, more relaxed, and overall more pleasant in Japan.

Why? Well go ahead and read the article to find out!

Read the article here.

This week for my RocketNews24 W.T.F. Japan article, I wrote about top five steps to immigrate to Japan.

So originally I had a completely different W.T.F. article all set and ready to go for this week. But then, due to certain recent events, I decided that there was something much more important that needed to be written about – how to leave your country for Japan.

Of course, this is all a bit tongue-in-cheek. I doubt many people will actually be leaving the U.S. because of the election, but it’s still a fun fantasy for some. And hey, if someone really does want to leave, then my article might just provide them with some helpful information.

I actually didn’t know a ton about immigrating to Japan before I wrote this, and I feel like I learned a lot by doing the research and compiling it all together. Immigrating to Japan is certainly not easy, but it’s not impossible either. If you’re really determined to do it, there’s not much stopping you.

So whether you want to leave the U.S. and head to Japan, or if you want to stick it out and see what happens, either way hopefully it will be a fun read.

Read the article here.

This week for my RocketNews24 W.T.F. Japan article, I wrote about top five Japanese pet kabutomushi beetles.

A few months ago I looked at the top five creepiest Japanese insects, and one notable bug missing from the list was Japanese beetles. The way they fly up and attack people, you might think they’d be a prime candidate.

Except for the fact that Japanese beetles are often kept as pets. I couldn’t possibly bring myself to include pets on a “creepy” list, but I knew I’d want to talk about them one day so here we are!

Keeping beetles are pets may seem crazy to those outside of Japan, but it’s basically the equivalent of keeping goldfish here. They’re popular with kids and don’t live very long, but at least with beetles you can get some of that creepy-crawly affection if you so desire.

Whether you love beetles or think they look like poops with legs, you’ll probably enjoy reading this one.

Read the article here.

This week for my RocketNews24 W.T.F. Japan article, I wrote about top five most confusing Japanese counter words.

Japanese is a hard language to learn, but not for the reasons most people think it is. I did a previous W.T.F. Japan about the top five myths about learning Japanese, and I stand by that kanji is definitely not the hardest part of Japanese.

Maybe someday I’ll do a W.T.F. on the top five reasons Japanese is actually hard, but for now I just wanted to focus on one of the harder aspects of the language: counter words.

In English we say a “head” of lettuce and a “loaf” of bread, but in Japanese they have counter words for everything. No matter what you’re counting – people, computers, books, sheep – there’s a counter word that must be used. You can’t just say “three sheep” and be understood, you have to say the equivalent of “three heads of sheep.”

In this W.T.F. I go over some of the more ridiculous counter words, which have tripped me and my students up for years. Even if you’ve never studied Japanese before, I think it will be a fun read just to see how linguistically different (and crazy) Japanese can be sometimes.

Read the article here.

This week for my RocketNews24 W.T.F. Japan article, I wrote about the top budget Japanese Halloween costumes.

Halloween is becoming bigger in Japan every year. Even though trick-or-treating still isn’t really a thing, dressing up very much is, and there are some Japanese monsters that make for great costumes.

Unfortunately Japanese costumes can be a little hard to come by outside of Japan, so this week I worked together with my wife to show off how you can make your own for extremely cheap. Every costume is about $6 or less to make, and pretty much guaranteed to be unique.

So if you need a costume and you’re short on cash… I think you know what to do.

Read the article here.

This week for my RocketNews24 W.T.F. Japan article, I wrote about the top five craziest Japanese certification exams.

When I worked as a Japanese tutor, I would often tell my students that Japan has a test for everything. They didn’t believe me when I told them about the “housewife certification exam,” so now was my chance to finally show them the hilarious truth!

Honestly, I’m not a fan of tests. A lot of my students expressed a desire to take the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Exam), but I advised against it. That may sound strange, hut here’s the truth: there’s nothing really to be gained from taking the test. Let’s say you pass Level 1… great! You’re exactly the same person with the same knowledge you were before you passed it! Let’s say you fail it instead… great! You’re still the same person!

I suppose the argument can be made that in studying for the exam you learned more about the subject, but most teachers agree that “teaching to the test” is horrible. I would have much preferred by students study manga, anime, books, or anything intended for native Japanese speakers, rather than the artificial Japanese created for the exam.

But hey, that’s just me. If you love tests, more power to you! Maybe you’ll find some great ones to take on this list.

Read the article here.

This week for my RocketNews24 W.T.F. Japan article, I wrote about the top five Japanese autumn foods. I’ve been wanting to do a few articles　about food here in Japan, but none of them really felt “weird” enough to be part of the “Weird Top Five” series.

My editor suggested I just change the “W” to stand for something else for a singe article, so after a lot of soul-searching and Google-searching, I came up with “Well-Fed” instead.

The article is still similar in tone to my previous articles, but it’s a little bit different, so we’ll see how it goes. Maybe there will be more Well-Fed Top Fives in the future, maybe there will be none – it all depends on those sweet, sweet clicks.

So if you want to know what autumn is all about in Japan, check it out!

Read the article here.

This week for my RocketNews24 W.T.F. Japan article, I wrote about the top five strangest kanji ever. A few months ago I did the top five most difficult kanji ever, which resulted in an explosion of comments demanding more articles counting down the top [insert theme here] kanji.

I wanted to start writing more immediately, but unfortunately the resource that I’d used (the Morohashi kanji dictionary) was at UMass Amherst – not exactly nearby. But now that I’m back in Japan, my local library has a copy of the 10+ volume behemoth of a dictionary, so I was able to go back and do some kanji research!

My last article was all about the most difficult kanji, but I think this one might be more fun because it’s all about the strangest-looking ones. It was fun to look through the index of Morohashi and see which ones caught my eye. Whenever a kanji made me go “whoa!” I wrote it down as a possibility. After collecting several dozen “whoa!” kanji, I sorted them by craziness and the top five are what made this list.

There were so many ridiculous kanji that I found that I think there’s still plenty left over for another few more kanji articles. So long as people enjoy reading them, I’ll keep writing them!

Whether or not you know anything about Japanese or kanji, I think you might like this article. Enjoy!

Read the article here.