American Gaijin
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Lamentations
It has been amonth since I’ve posted. I should post something. I have been putting little effort into Japanese lately, if I’m to be honest. I’ve been mostly, when I do study Japanese, just looking at Japanese media and looking up things that might interest me. It is nice to have a sensei at these…
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Burning
I don’t really feel much like writing on this blog anymore. That’s not to say I won’t, but I just don’t feel like it. The past few months have been terrible. I have a hard time describing exactly how bad they’ve been. I am lucky because I still have a job and I haven’t yet…
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Idols
My first real introduction to Japan and Japanese was through idol culture. Morning Musume, to be precise. So it’s no surprise that I’m unusually knowledgeable about the subject. I can name quite a few idols from Morning Musume, AKB48, Sakura Gakuin, and a few others besides. And those that I can’t name, I might be…
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Racism and Leftism in Japan
I have been, for the most part, specifically avoiding this topic on this blog, and being very careful about how I engage with it elsewhere. The environment right now is very toxic, and quite frankly, it’s not really on topic for this blog (or, if we’re to be honest, many of the other places it’s…
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Gaijin
I heard a story. This is a story that appeared on one of the Reddit subreddits that are dedicated to stories. It could have been MaliciousCompliance, or ProRevenge. I can’t remember. It’s not important. Our protagonist was working at a Japanese company somewhere in California. The managers there were Japanese nationals, and the employees were gaijin. …
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Majime
When I was a teenager, I used to attend what could laughably be called a Bible Study. I say “laughable”, because it was for teenagers, and I may have been the only person in that room with a Bible, and ready to study. I didn’t know what that meant, but that was the purpose of…
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The Westernization of Japan
I watched an interesting thing on YouTube about the history of Japan on my lunch break today, and in doing so, I discovered something really interesting. It was Americans that kind of forced Japan’s hand and caused them to open up after several centuries of self imposed isolation. Japan has always struck me as a…
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Shades of Grey
Not of the “fifty” variety, sorry. Maybe that will be an appropriate topic in the far distant future, but not today. Over the past few days, my country has been in the throes of a great deal of civil unrest. It was precipitated by a very unfortunate event in Minneapolis. I don’t really want to…