Jean Snow [.net]

Category: Society

  • What's a Cassette?

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    This week marks the start of the school year in Japan, and so in the English classes I teach we’ve been giving the kids their new books. For the first time, the books come with a CD, so that they can do some listening exercises at home. For those that a repeating a year, and…

  • We’re #1

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    Can you spare some change? Tokyo remains the most expensive city in the world in terms of cost of living, a report released Tuesday by the Economist Intelligence Unit revealed. (Kyodo News)

  • Jenkins Biography

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    If you live in Japan, you definitely know who Charles Jenkins is, as he’s been a constant presence on the news in recent years because of the North Korean kidnapping situation. TIME’s Tokyo bureau chief and senior editor Jim Frederick will be working with Jenkins on a book of his life, which I’m sure will…

  • The Hunt for Japanese Innovators

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    Magazine journalist Douglas McGray needs your help: I’m helping a big US-Japan institute out with some legwork on a project, which aims to identify next generation innovators in Japanese culture. They’re going to be defining culture in an appealingly broad way — contemporary artists and designers, chefs, filmmakers, authors, architects, anime directors, manga artists, philosophers,…

  • More Maid Cafe News

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    Patrick recently wrote about his visit to a maid cafe in Nakano (in the Broadway shopping center), and THE JAPAN TIMES joins in with a short article on the phenomenon. They actually start off with a description of the economic power that the “otaku” audience now commands, with a “total market size of the major…

  • Observation Bath

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    In Japan, the bath is quite sacred. One of the things I most look forward to at the end of each day is to soak in a very hot bath. We all know that Momus has taken quite a liking to it also. Now comes news that the soon-to-open Chubu International Airport in Nagoya is…

  • Christmas Madness

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    The outside wall of the Akasaka Prince Hotel in Tokyo is lit up for the Christmas season. (Japan Today) Oh god, even here, where Christmas isn’t really celebrated, Christmas stuff is up everywhere. At Seibu, the trees were up on October 30. Is there no escape? And at work, I had to start going over…

  • Mobile Life

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    A typical Japanese scene: Ken Kawakita is sitting on his living room floor, checking train schedules on the Internet, using a laptop computer running Windows over a wireless AirPort from Apple Computer. His son, Taro, 11, is downloading a game on his iBook over the same network, while daughter, Mari, 13, converses with a friend…