Excellent Japanese whiskies were easy to come by, until suddenly they weren’t. What happened? And why can’t one whisky aficionado let go?
Japan
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, History, Nonfiction, Story
The Corpse Rider
“I could see the ghosts,” recalled Lafcadio Hearn about his early childhood. Late in life, he became a celebrated chronicler of Japan’s folk tales: stories of strange demons and lingering visitations.
Posted inStory
Notes on Citizenship
Nina Li Coomes reckons with the quandary of citizenship and the meaning of home.
Posted inNonfiction, Story
After the Tsunami
After the 2011 disaster, which killed his grandmother and laid waste to his ancestral home, an American journeys to Japan to search for what the tsunami left in its wake.
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Story
Army of Me
A woman who doesn’t feel like going to work today stays in bed and looks at the internet instead. She finds a blog by a fed-up call center employee who complains about the customers.
Posted inFood, Highlight, Quotes, Travel
The Life-Changing Magic of Getting In Line at 5AM
Japan is committed to waiting: its language includes the phrase gyouretsu no dekiru mise: “restaurants that have very long lines.”
Posted inBooks, History, Science & Nature, Story, Unapologetic Women
A British Seaweed Scientist Is Revered in Japan as ‘The Mother of the Sea’
Kathleen Drew-Baker died never having set foot in Japan, and never knowing what an impact her research would make. Plus, how to build a lazy bed, how to cook Irish blancmange, and other surprising seaweed stories.
Posted inArts & Culture, Culture, Essays & Criticism, Highlight, Quotes
On the Origins of the Word ハーフ, or Hafu (Half): Belonging and Not Belonging at Once
Nina Coomes unpacks the origins and legacies of the Japanese word hafu, or half.
Posted inBusiness, Culture, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quotes
How Japan Deals with the Remains of Your Days
In Japan, business is booming for those who clean out apartments after people die.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Japan’s Vegetable-Eating Men
Recent cultural and policy shifts in Japan have made a previously hard-to-find species far more common: the stay-at-home dad.