Tag: Traditions

Everything comes back into fashion. And that includes Japanese loincloths. Fundoshi are usually only seen on the bodies (and buttocks) of men taking part in Japanese festivals or on sumo wrestlers ...

When in Rome, as the saying goes. And so when in Kyoto, wear a kimono. There's nothing pretentious about getting into "costume", so to speak, and exploring Japan's old capital in a kimono. It's ...

While Japan might at times seem just to be one concrete jungle, there's still a lot of nature around and even some cities maintain a rare balance between the forests of old and the convenience ...

JR West has announced a special new tourism train that will run between Kanazawa and Wakura hot spring in 2015. Kanazawa, known as a "mini Kyoto", is the main city in Ishikawa Prefecture, which ...

This article by Yulia Mizushima first appeared on Tokyo Cheapo. Some outfits never go out of fashion. Kimonos are a prime example – they’ve been making people look elegant for centuries. These ...

It's Valentine's Day in Japan (and it's snowing again too). While in Japan famously it's actually the custom for the girls to give a gift on February 14th, with the men giving something on March ...

Among many English speakers, spoken Japanese is often said to be fairly easy to learn. This is probably because conversational Japanese in large part is a language of omission which doesn't require ...

On June 24th, Ashley Madison, the world-famous online dating service for dissatisfied married people -- or more bluntly, plain cheaters (wannabes included) -- launched a Japanese version of the ...

Raising kids is indeed one of the toughest jobs out there. While parenting entails balancing when to treat and when to reprimand your child (of which I’m sure the latter is much harder), Media ...

The Japanese have one of these effortless and inimitable attitudes towards religion. It is both part of their lives, sort of, in the form of Shinto customs, visiting shrines, animistic "power ...

Lanterns in Japan are called chochin and are featured on the front of most izakaya restaurants, as well as shrines. There is a famously huge one, for example, at Kaminarimon ("Thunder Gate") in ...

As we see more and more young celebrities using informal speech (or tameguchi) on TV, some might question, “Is it acceptable not to use honorific language at all in our everyday life?” Perhaps ...

For the great majority of Japanese people, same-sex marriage is still a fantasy that, well, should only happen in a fantasy world. On March 1st, Tokyo Disneyland held its first same-sex wedding ...

Japanese weddings. All the ladies in their finest, particularly the unmarried ones, desperate to prove that they haven't been left on the shelf. All the guys in their pricy suits that will be shed as ...

Shinto, the native Japanese (quasi-?)religion, has never been averse to merchantile environs. Major corporations have their own shrines (jinja) and department stores may often have one on their ...