The otsukaresama group bow is a Japanese workplace farewell ritual performed, for reasons known only to God and middle management, directly in front of the only ticket gate. Hundreds of people, one human dam of gratitude.
The nihongo jouzu compliment lands the second any foreigner produces a single Japanese sound. Here is what thirteen years of being told your Japanese is very good after saying 'konnichiwa' actually does to a person.
You're having a perfectly decent conversation with a Japanese woman on a night out, and then he appears. The Japanese cockblock is real, it is systematic, and it deserves a proper autopsy.
Ten years of living here and I've made my peace with a lot. The queuing theatre. The plastic bags. The fax machines. But the indicator — the humble, legally mandated, two-second flick of the wrist — apparently remains optional.
Japanese office air conditioning runs on a calendar, not a thermostat. It is 34 degrees in May, the salarymen are dissolving in their suits, and the cooling season doesn't start until a date some committee invented in 1974.
The English version of Japanese websites is a barebones, 1990s-looking apology built to make sure foreigners learn less and pay more. Welcome to the cheaper, worse internet you were never supposed to find.
Japanese rubbish sorting is a part-time job you never applied for, complete with a fourteen-page laminated manual and an obaasan stationed to judge your every yoghurt pot. Welcome to the gomi station, where guessing wrong gets you publicly shamed.
Creating an account on a Japanese website is a documented hostage situation. Why does every Japanese sign-up form reject you, demand your name four times, and forbid a strong password? Sit down.
Half gaijin, half samurai, all out of patience. The fury is the bill the love has run up. Send us your worst day at the ward office. Read the Manifesto →