Tag Archives: journey

Japanese novel translation: “The Rainlands” by Haruka Asahi [Chapter 1]

I’ve discovered an interesting short novel called “The Rainlands” (雨の国) by Haruka Asahi (朝陽遥), and gotten the author’s permission to translate it into English and put it on my blog. You can find the entire original Japanese text for the story here (on Kakuyomu), and the first chapter here. It’s a fictional, fantasy/adventure tale (the genre is… Read More »

Travels in Japan 2015: [Part 14: Mr. Numao, an amazing taxi driver]

One thing I feel makes Japanese culture unique is their service mindset (called サービス精神), which manifests as attention to detail, thoroughness, and politeness with dealing with customers. I touched on this topic in several other articles of this series, for example the ANA Stewardesses. When responding to a customer, you can see their respect reflected in… Read More »