Japanese fairy tales now available free on Kanshudo (a Japanese learning site)
One of my translations of a classic Japanese fairy tale is now available for free on Kanshudo, a full-featured site for learning Japanese.
Category Archives: Aside
Ukemi: Aikido and the art of rolling with the punches
A discussion about “ukemi” (受け身), a core part of aikido and one of the things I really enjoy about this traditional Japanese martial art.
A prominent figure in Japanese SF and one of the first dystopian novels (+ a book sale)
(Update: the book sale referred to in this article is no longer active, but you can find a book of Juza Unno’s stories available here.) Science Fiction lovers have a lot to enjoy in Japanese literature, with great authors like Sakyo Komatsu, Taiyo Fujii, Project Itoh, and Kobo Abe. But if you go back a… Read More »
Oregon Ki Society: Learning mindfulness, self-control, and Aikido in and around Portland
In this article I give a detailed overview of Oregon Ki Society, an organization dedicated to spreading the teachings of Koichi Tohei that include Ki-Aikido and Ki principles. While Ki-Aikido is a martial art, the principles learned at OKS can be applied in many areas of your daily life, promoting things like mindfulness and self-control.
Juza Unno SF story available in audio narration form on Historyradio.org radio program
The other day I wrote a post about how one of the science fiction stories I translated was published on a site that deals with various historically-relevant pieces of literature and other historical information. But it turns out that the main focus of that website is actually a radio station which streams historically relevant content… Read More »
Dystopian SF Novel review: “Cash Crash Jubilee” by Eli K.P.William
I reviewed “Cash Crash Jubilee”, a dystopian SF novel I found terribly entertaining that’s set in an all-too-realistic Japan.
A new YouTube channel for piano music
I finally decided to share some of my spontaneous piano pieces in the form of a new YouTube channel: “J.D.’s Piano of the Moment”.
Hey man, where’s my drone? (a tale of a runaway UAV) [w/ Japanese vocabulary list]
I finally decided to shell out some serious money for a prosumer drone. Little did I know that our time together would only be a few days… (includes a Japanese vocabulary list of drone-related words)
Free Japanese textbooks (for children with Japanese citizenship)
Many parents living in a country different from where they were born have a desire to teach their children about their home country’s culture and language. There is a plethora of resources online to study foreign languages, but for children often physical books are seen as the best type of media. However, there are not… Read More »
A bittersweet afternoon at Powell’s bookstore
Powell’s Books is considered to be the largest independent bookstore in the world, with their “City of Books” location in Portland containing over one million books across over 1.5 acres of space––a venerable labyrinth of books that is a must-see place for any book lover. With all the Japanese culture in Oregon, it’s no surprise… Read More »