Unique Japan

One of the many favorite pastimes for Japanese guys is drinking. Even with a long rich culture of Sake and Shochu, the most consumed alcoholic beverage in Japan is, you guessed it, beer. Many businessmen work hard so that they can enjoy a nice cold beer at the end of the day. So what are some popular Japanese beers?

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June has arrived. The air is warming up in front of our eyes. You can definitely feel summer is on its way. Some of you are already mapping your entire summer vacation now that the final semester has ended. Others might be picking out the perfect bride’s dress for a beautiful June wedding. Yes, there is a lot happening in June. But let’s not forget Father’s Day.

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This past Friday, one of my closest friends from high school had a wedding. Even though western style weddings (Meaning wearing the white wedding gown and having a ceremony at a cute chapel or hotel, etc. It has nothing to do with the Wild West.) is extremely popular among our generation, my friend decided to wear a kimono and a wig at her Japanese style wedding. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of the ceremony, but for those of you who are not familiar with Japanese style weddings, the following is how a typical ceremony proceeds.

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For many women, finding Mr. Right and living happily ever after is a life-long dream. Japanese ladies are no exception. However, thanks to increasing opportunities for women to enjoy success in their chosen careers, many have been focusing solely on their professions rather than on their love lives. This has led some of them to put their private lives on hold. In fact, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the average age of marriage for women is now 29.4 years old, which is 4.2 years older than 30 years ago.

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Socrates said, “The more I learn, the more I learn how little I know”. This is how I feel when it comes to learning Kanji. Though I’m Japanese and have been using Kanji for the past few decades, every now and then I make new discoveries and fascinating finds in the world of Kanji. We’ve been talking about children on this blog, so I thought it would be appropriate to share what I found recently.

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What sort of traits come to your mind when you think of Japanese people? Polite, reserved, detail-oriented, serious, perfectionist, nerd? How about hard working? Well, let me rephrase it: workaholics? Yes, Japanese people are known as workaholics. Subways at seven in the evening are filled, not with people going home, but with those heading back to their offices. Workers become restless around midnight when trains stop running for the night. Fortunately, some large corporations offer cab coupons for employees who miss the last train. So what do these workaholics do when they’re not working for 16 days?

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Typically on Children’s day (Kodomo No Hi) we display carp fish banners called koinobori and we sing a song for this fish family. Here is the song and its translation:

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Every year, my husband and I spend quite a bit of time trying to decide what to give our mothers for Mother’s Day. Unfortunately, we usually use our best gift ideas on their birthdays, and our mothers both have particular tastes that we don’t always understand. We don’t live close enough to know what they might immediately desire as a gift, and they have everything they need; literally, everything. The only thing left for us to do is to look for some gift ideas online. So presented here are the top three Mother’s day gift ideas in Japan.

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We would like to thank everyone who stopped by our booth at the British School and Yokota events this weekend. Saturday was a very wet day and we were glad to see everyone who braved the rain to join us. We plan to participate in more events in Japan this year, so we’ll keep you updated where we will be next.

Hope to see you soon.

It’s pretty exciting to think that this is the first Mother’s Day that I can celebrate as a mother. What a life changing moment it is to go through the long excruciating pain and seeing your child for the first time. Without mothers none of us would be here. It’s one of the most rewarding and exciting things we can do as humans. That’s why I would like to share what it was like for me to become a mother in Japan.

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