When I set off on my Russian trip in the spring of 2003 I had zero expectations, and was totally unprepared. I knew more about some tiny ancestral village in the Ukraine, my final destination, than the thousands of miles of railway journey between there and Vladivostok. I did zero research on the language, people, […]
Quite a few years ago, before I set foot in the Japans, there was a policy shift in the Japanese school system. They stopped holding Saturday classes and cut back on some coursework. It seemed a step in the right direction. It was supposed to help invigorate the youth, help them to more independently discover […]
It came and then it went. The snow began falling pretty heavily last weekend. It looked like an early start to snowshoeing season. I planned out my winter routes, prepared my Tubbs Wilderness snowshoes, got my gaiters ready – very exciting! But just as it has been in the past, this snowfall was a short […]
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. The 17th annual Sapporo Munich Christmas Market. It’s has a selection of vendors from Russia, Poland, Germany, Japan, and other far flung nations. They’ve got roasted nuts, matryoshka dolls, Christmas ornaments, and novelty foods galore. Multiple varieties of hot wine, cider, and beer are available. Want a […]
This year, Japanese Labor Day fell on Friday the 23rd of November. This coincided nicely with American Thanksgiving (Thursday, November 22nd). So we took advantage of this synchronization by assembling our own massive meal. (Well, my expert chef wife did all the cooking.) Most of these ingredients were purchased at Costco, or found at local […]
Stickers, stuffed animals, Disney pen cases, a furry mascot. What do all these things hold in common? They are all objects held in high regard for the Japanese young adult. Is that a problem? Well, I sit on two sides of the fence on this one. Every day I see 12-15 year old junior high […]
With an aging society (as discussed earlier), you would expects there to be a huge surge in available home to purchase. But you would be terribly wrong. In fact, because of a variety of cultural-economic issues, purchasing a used home is anathema to the Japanese way of life. This saddens me because every day I […]
Everyone knows Japan has a demographic problem. It’s society is aging rapidly, and this is constantly referenced in economic projections for the coming decades. But what does that mean on the ground, away from the statistics? I’m no spring chicken. I’m approaching forty at the time of this post. But on my daily commute and […]
It’s the elephant in the room. Observers of Japan will complain about the school system, the testing, the monolithic nature of it all. Sometimes they talk about the textbooks. All of these are valid issues, and all hinder students’ ability to learn the language well. My favorite is when they scapegoat the ALT (Assistant Language […]
February 2003 – After a year of teaching English in South Korea I embark on a two week jaunt through Japan, then a full Trans-Siberia Railway journey from Vladivostok, Russia to Kiev, Ukraine. From there I planned to visit my paternal great grandmother’s hometown outside Lviv near the Polish border. This wasn’t the most comfortable […]