My father was born in Antigua, Guatemala, and grew up in the country’s capital. He and his friends made balls by wrapping pantyhose around a wadded-up newspaper core and played futbol for hours in their courtyards. They watched the garbage man collect the city’s refuse in a mule-drawn cart. They swiped candies from the corner […]
Japan
- Food Culture
- ...
Conbini Lunch
Sometimes, when you’re rooting around for the day’s lunch in the conbini next to school, the choice is immediately clear: Note the Southeast Asia on a Shoestring guidebook in my lunch tableau. Plans are a-stirring.
I Am Bob
Our Visas say we’re English teachers but we’re not; not really. He’s an engineer. She’s a photographer. Him over there? He’s having a little adventure before he starts med school. Yet we’re parsing the sentences. We’re highlighting the difference between “l” and “r.” We’re wearing the suits, cracking the textbooks, bribing children into behaving by […]
Your 105-Word Mini Japanese Culture Lesson
The Japanese use thousands of Chinese characters called kanji in their writing. Kanji are used to denote nouns, adjectives, and even verb stems. They range from the ultra simple character for one (—) to characters that have so many strokes they look like smudges on the page. Proper stroke order is essential to achieve the correct balance when […]
- Japan
- ...
Fully Furnished
Traditionally, Japanese realtors are wary of renting apartments to foreigners. For one, foreigners don’t tend to stick around too long. Secondly, foreigners will rarely know a local (Japanese) person well enough to secure them as a guarantor. Thirdly, foreigners sometimes don’t speak Japanese well enough to handle the transaction. Fourthly, many foreigners are appalled by […]
Your 183-Word Mini Japanese Culture Lesson
Britain isn’t the only nation to enjoy flavors of the month; Japanese chain restaurants, too, are extremely fond of offering “limited time only” menu selections in honor of the new month or the new season. Colorful posters bearing the images of the offering will be splashed across the restaurant’s windows from the first of the […]
Hostess Cupcake
The two year-olds have been ganging up on me lately, ever since Kazuya had the brilliant idea of asking me if class was over when it was only halfway through. Because I feigned hurt feelings, Kazuya decided this was to be our inside joke and now asks me if class is finished every 30 […]
Light
The uploading cord to my digital camera is still lost, hidden in all the layers of moving nonsense, and I only just remembered that I have a Mac Baby. My glorious, sundrenched bedroom, with the futon rolled up and put away. The wayward sheet on the gleaming wooden floor is the instruction manual for the […]
なごり 雨
For the second straight day in a row, the rain continues to beat against my bay window, soaking everything outside. Happily, the new apartment is so close to the Supa Tamade discount supermarket that if I were to slip out for a half-price bento, I wouldn’t even need to take an umbrella. It’s not often […]
Movin’ Right Along
… and we’re moved. As it will be another week before I have my Yahoo BB! internet account set up in this apartment, I am cautiously “borrowing” a neighbor’s signal. I’ve passed some of them in the hall; they seem nice and I’m sure they wouldn’t mind. So I’m buying next month’s book club selection […]