Culture & Mindset– category –

Walk up to any major temple or shrine in Japan, and you’ll likely see it. Someone, often a young woman but just as easily a middle-aged man or a visiting couple, stands patiently at a small windowed office. They hand over a beautiful, br...

Someone asks you about Japan, and your mind likely conjures a highlight reel of hyper-efficiency. You see the Shinkansen, a white bullet slicing through the countryside at impossible speeds. You picture the Shibuya Scramble Crossing, a m...

There’s a particular kind of silence you find only in a place that was once deafeningly loud. Stand in the middle of a colossal, abandoned factory in provincial Japan, and you’ll feel it. It’s a silence thick with the ghosts of sound—the...

Walk into a typical Tokyo cafe today and you’ll be met with a familiar scene: pale wood, white walls, gleaming steel, and the hiss of a La Marzocco espresso machine. It’s a globalized aesthetic of clean lines and minimalist efficiency, a...

Come to any major Japanese city in the early spring, and you will see them. A silent army flooding the train stations and sidewalks, moving with a synchronized, nervous energy. They are unmistakable: thousands of young men and women, alm...

Walk through any Japanese city for ten minutes, and you'll see it more times than you can count. The clerk at the convenience store, handing you your change. The two businesspeople exchanging cards, their bodies hinged at the waist. The ...

You asked what it is about sitting in a steaming hot spring while it snows that makes it the definitive “Japow” experience. It’s a great question, because the image itself has become a kind of cultural shorthand for winter in Japan. You ...

I still remember the meeting with painful clarity. It was early in my career in Tokyo, and I was proud of a proposal I’d spent weeks developing. I presented it to my boss, a kindly, silver-haired man named Tanaka-san. He listened patient...

Imagine this. You’ve just spent a day out in the fabled Japanese powder, the snow so light and dry it feels like descending through clouds. Your muscles ache with a satisfying burn, your face is numb from the cold, and the sun is dipping...

I remember the first time a friend in Tokyo told me she was going “forest bathing” for the weekend. My Australian brain immediately pictured something slightly eccentric, perhaps involving a secluded hot spring and a lot of leaves. I pic...

Imagine this. You’re on a third date, and it’s going impossibly well. The conversation flows, effortless and engaging. The person across the table isn’t just attractive; they’re witty, they’re kind, they get your obscure references. A wa...

If you’ve spent any time looking at modern Japanese pop culture, you’ve probably seen the signs. Maybe it was a person on the train whose handbag was so completely covered in keychains of a single anime character that you couldn’t see th...