It’s been around a year and a half since I’ve started training in a martial art informally called “Ki Aikido” that was created by Koichi Tohei (藤平光一). It is formally named “Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido”, and written in Japanese as 心身統一合氣道, which literally means “Aikido of Mind and Body Unification”. The casual term “Ki Aikido”… Read More »
Ever since I began training in the martial art of Ki Aikido (more formally known as 心身統一合氣道, shinshin touitsu aikido) in Oregon, I was always curious what it would like to train in a dojo in Japan where the training (稽古、keiko) was done in Japanese––though rather than merely a curiosity, I guess you could say… Read More »
I’ve been an avid reader since I was young, but until high school I mostly read fantasy novels that would be considered popular fiction. In high school I was assigned to read a variety of books in various genres, but I think it’s safe to say a majority of them could be considered ‘literature’ in… Read More »
I’ve mentioned it before, but one of the great things about running this blog is the many interesting people I come across. In some cases, I may only exchange a few words in a post comment, but in others I may go on to have extended email conversations, or even work on a project together.… Read More »
Japanese is well known for its complex layers of politeness that involve different verbs, verb endings, and nouns, among other things. Japanese classes often focus more on the polite side of Japanese since it’s generally safer to be more polite, especially with people you don’t know well. However, many Japanese learners are also interested in… Read More »
In this post I’d like to discuss Hitori Saito（斎藤一人), a man who is somewhat famous in Japan these days. Hitori Saito is the entrepreneur behind Ginza Marukan (銀座まるかん), a successful cosmetics and health food business. He also has a large number of books (many available on Amazon Japan, what you could call 啓蒙書 or “enlightenment… Read More »
The other day I got a comment from a reader asking about if I knew anywhere to meet Japanese singles in Portland. Although I don’t typically talk about this sort of topic, it is related enough to Japan/Japanese and I have some experience in this area myself, so I thought I would put down my… Read More »
I’m very pleased to announce my latest book, “Tales of the Disturbed,” has just been released on Amazon. This book contains my translations of several short stories by the classic Japanese author Yoshio Toyoshima (1890-1955), all which are appearing the first time in English. Whereas my other books have all been about science fiction or… Read More »
Last year I posted about my training in the Japanese martial art of Aikido (合気道, or sometimes written as 合氣道). There are many styles of Aikido which have many things in common and yet diverge in areas that can be both critical and subtle; for this same reason it can be counterproductive to try and learn… Read More »
While interactions with native Japanese speakers I have occasionally come across the expressions “nimaime” (二枚目) and “sanmaime” (三枚目). It turns out they have somewhat opposite meanings and are easy to confuse, so I thought I would go over their meanings and origins here. As you may know, “mai” (枚) is used as a counting suffix… Read More »