I couldn’t quite figure out why Japanese listeners had come to appreciate and savor the blues in the way that they seemed to—lavishly, devotedly. Blues is still an outlier genre in Japan, but it’s revered, topical, present. I’d spent my first couple of days in Tokyo hungrily trawling the city’s many excellent record stores, marveling […]
Japan
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Lost in Japan
Sarah Miller travels to Japan to learn more about sochu, and ends up learning more about her own limitations as a traveler.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
In Bed With the Enemy: The Untold Stories of Japanese War Brides
Kathryn Tolbert reports on Japanese war brides — including her mother — who struggled to fit in in post-war America.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Guatemalan Chef Who Became a Hiroshima Comfort Food Star
Matt Goulding follows the origin story of okonomiyaki, the harmoniously messy pancake that has become a staple of post-war Hiroshima cuisine.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Shopping for Forbidden Fruit
Rafil Kroll-Zaidi writes about proxy services which help Western shoppers navigate the Japanese online marketplace and buy the goods retailers refuse to sell outside Japan.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
What Goes into Japan’s Famous Powdered Green Tea
Matcha ─ you’ve read about its health benefits, you’ve seen it in chic cafes sold as bright green lattes and iridescent bubble teas. Consumed in Japan since the 12th century, it’s suddenly trending in America. So what is it and where does it come from? In Serious Eats, food writer Matthew Amster-Burton provides a rare look […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
How the Emperor Became Human (and MacArthur Became Divine)
The end of divine rule in postwar Japan, and the absolute power of General MacArthur.
Posted inNonfiction
How the Emperor Became Human (and MacArthur Became Divine)
The end of divine rule in postwar Japan, and the absolute power of General MacArthur.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Starring in Japanese Reality TV
Nagging questions and doubts remain. Have we somehow prostituted ourselves for the vicarious entertainment of television viewers? Has the private language, the intimate currency of our happy household, been debased by making it public? I had thought it would be ‘fun.’ I was wrong. But somehow it has felt like an education of sorts — […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Gaijin Who Makes Great Ramen
As a ramen maniakku or enthusiast myself, I reread Lucky Peach‘s debut Ramen Issue once a year. The issue has an essay by chef Ivan Orkin, where he tells what it was like operating a ramen restaurant in Japan, as a gaijin, or outsider. Lucky Peach is a food quarterly started by chef David Chang and writer Peter Meehan in 2011. The […]