Japanese book review: 活の入れ方 (“Techniques for Motivation”) by 藤平信一 (Shin’ichi Tohei)
This is a review of the latest book authored (in part) by Shin’ichi Tohei, the head of the world organization for Ki-Aikidio.
Category Archives: culture
Japanesque 5: With recent AI advances, does learning a foreign language make sense anymore?
Ever since ChatGPT was released in late 2022, we have been seeing massive advances in various artificial intelligence technologies of the likes that eclipses the last few decades. Suddenly, it seems that computers can do things that it only seemed could be done by humans, such as complex image and text generation, and these new… Read More »
Portland Japanese Garden 2024: photo album
I visited the Portland Japanese Garden in April 2024 for the first time in quite awhile, where I was treated to its many beautiful views, further enhanced due to the light drizzle that made the colors that much brighter. I took a handful of pictures so I thought I would share some of them here… Read More »
Calligraphy brush unboxing: Ikkyuuen Umihotaru (“Sea Firefly”)
On a recent trip to Japan I stopped by a calligraphy studio in Kyoto and got a lesson with an expert. I talked about this in detail in this podcast episode here. In that studio I purchased a brush which is not available anywhere but in person, so I thought I would record video showing… Read More »
Studying calligraphy in Japan
On a recent trip to Japan, I took a 1-on-1 lesson with a skilled calligrapher in Kyoto (Chifumi Calligraphy Tokyo). Having primarily studied calligraphy without a teacher, it was an extremely educational experience, not to mention fun (the featured image shows the final artwork I produced from that class). While in Kyoto, I also stopped… Read More »
Japan travels: Shimadai Gallery (calligraphy photo collection)
On a recent trip to Japan I stopped by Kyoto, where there happened to be a calligraphy exhibit opened in the Shimadai Gallery, a relatively small museum located walking distance from Karasuma Oike Station. Having been into calligraphy (書道) pretty heavy as a hobby the last few months, I was really blown away by the… Read More »
Training Ki-Aikido in Osaka
Recently I discovered there was an extended Ki-Aikido training session being held in Osaka in the massive Asue Arena right around the time I had planned to be nearby on a family trip. While a bit nervous, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to practice Japanese in Japan while learning more about how… Read More »
Announcing *Japanesque*: a new podcast about all things Japanese
I’m happy to announce a new podcast about all things Japanese, “Japanesque”.
Japan Trip 2024 Video
In March of 2024 I went on a trip to Japan with my family for around a week. We went to Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Jinbocho, and Akihabara (yeah, it was a busy trip!). I’ve detailed a previous trip to Japan on this blog fairly extensively here, and for this recent trip I am not planning… Read More »
Japanese word deep dive: “nakama” (仲間) [as heard in One Piece]
When studying a foreign language, it’s nice to learn a little bit about a lot of words. But at the same time, it’s also nice to get deep and learn the various nuances of certain words, especially those that are used frequently. In this post I want to do a deep dive on the word… Read More »