Culture & Mindset– category –

You asked me what the deal is with those immersive digital art museums you keep seeing pop up from Tokyo. You know the ones—videos of people wandering through shimmering crystal forests, wading knee-deep in projections of koi fish, or st...

Someone asked me the other day what the most “Japanese” thing they could do in Tokyo was. They were expecting, I think, a temple, a museum, or some elaborate tea ceremony. My answer surprised them. I told them to find a small, old coffee...

You've probably seen the pictures: steam rising from a stone-lined pool, snow-dusted pines in the background, perhaps a macaque or two looking blissfully relaxed. This is the postcard image of the Japanese onsen, or hot spring. It’s an i...

I get this question a lot, usually after someone’s just watched a Studio Ghibli film for the first time. They’ll ask, “Are there really places in Japan like the ones in Spirited Away or My Neighbor Totoro? Places that feel… well, other?”...

Walk down almost any street in Japan, from the hyper-caffeinated arteries of Shinjuku to a sleepy alley in a remote fishing village, and you will eventually see it: a soft, rectangular glow humming quietly in the dark. It’s the light of ...

Ever found yourself scrolling through a Japanese website and feeling an immediate, almost subconscious sense of calm? Or perhaps you’ve walked into a Muji store and felt your shoulders relax, surrounded by objects that don't scream for y...

You’re in a business meeting in Tokyo. The proposal is laid out, the numbers make sense, and you’ve made your case with what feels like crisp, American-style logic. You look to your Japanese counterpart, Mr. Tanaka, for a decision. He sm...

You asked me why Japanese people still go to public baths, the sento, when almost everyone has a perfectly good shower at home. It’s a great question, because on the surface, it seems redundant, almost archaic. But to think of a sento as...

So you’ve heard about the snow in Japan. Of course you have. The word 'Japow' has become a kind of holy grail for skiers and snowboarders around the world, whispered in chairlift lines from Whistler to Chamonix. It describes a meteorolog...

Whenever I'm deep in the electric canyons of Shinjuku or navigating the human tides at Shibuya Crossing, there's an undeniable thrill. It's the pulse of modern Japan, a place of immense energy and ambition. But after a while, another fee...

You pour a glass of Japanese single malt. The liquid is a deep, burnished amber, clinging to the side of the glass with a slow, deliberate viscosity. You raise it to your nose, and before the scent of alcohol even registers, there are ot...

I remember my first summer in Kyoto. It wasn't the temples or the sublime gardens that struck me first. It was the sound. A relentless, high-pitched, electric hum that seemed to vibrate in the very air, pressing down with the weight of t...