Category Archives: culture

Fun Link Friday: Breakdancing Monks

Posted on January 17, 2020 by Paula

How do you bring your hobbies and skills into your everyday life? This past week Tricycle reported on some fun news in the world of Buddhism: two monks from different Buddhist practices who have formed a breakdancing duo. Hoping to … Continue reading →

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Fun Link Friday: Newspaper Sculptures by Atsushi Adachi

Posted on December 20, 2019 by Paula

The holidays are upon us, so it’s a quick Fun Link Friday this week! This article by Spoon & Tamago caught my eye a couple weeks ago– a report about an upcoming exhibit by artist Atsushi Adachi, who plays with the theme … Continue reading →

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Fun Link Friday: Move over, gingerbread house, here’s a sweets sailboat

Posted on December 13, 2019 by Paula

While many of us may be honing our skills for seasonal gingerbread house competitions, none of us can hold a candle to the students of the recently opened Noda Kamada Gakuen vocational high school in Yokohama, who created a MASSIVE … Continue reading →

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Fun Link Friday: Ukiyo-e project and modern prints

Posted on December 6, 2019 by Paula

We’ve covered modern takes on and uses of ukiyo-e prints from early modern Japan a handful of times for our Fun Link Fridays here at Shinpai Deshou. The latest way in which ukiyo-e can be seen persisting in the cultural imaginary is … Continue reading →

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Book Announcement: Locating Heisei in Japanese Fiction and Film: The Historical Imagination of the Lost Decades

Posted on December 1, 2019 by Paula

Locating Heisei in Japanese Fiction and Film: The Historical Imagination of the Lost Decades By Marc Yamada This book provides the first interdisciplinary examination of the popular fiction and film of the “lost decades” of Japan’s Heisei period (1989–2019). Presenting … Continue reading →

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Book Announcement: Defamiliarizing Japan’s Asia-Pacific War

Posted on November 24, 2019 by Paula

DEFAMILIARIZING JAPAN’S ASIA-PACIFIC WAR Edited by W. Puck Brecher and Michael W. Myers This wide-ranging collection seeks to reassess conventional understanding of Japan’s Asia-Pacific War by defamiliarizing and expanding the rhetorical narrative. Its nine chapters, diverse in theme and method, … Continue reading →

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Fun Link Friday: Power Rankings of Japan’s Mascots

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Paula

Mascots are one of the most well-known aspects of Japan’s cute culture. Everyone from local governments to giant corporations battles it out for the affections of the public through the likability and charisma of their mascots. But as the Japan … Continue reading →

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Book Announcement: The Origins of the Modern Japanese Bureaucracy

Posted on November 17, 2019 by Paula

The Origins of the Modern Japanese Bureaucracy By: Yuichiro Shimizu Translator: Amin Ghadimi What is a bureaucracy, from where does it come, and how does it develop? Japanese have long described their nation as a “kingdom of bureaucrats”, but until … Continue reading →

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Fun Link Friday: Is Japanese the most difficult language?

Posted on November 15, 2019 by Paula

The Language Nerds blog recently posted an article summarizing reports from The Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State, categorizing world languages and their difficulty (namely, the amount of time officials have to spend learning them). The categories … Continue reading →

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OUR Shurijo Shuri Castle Digital Reconstruction

Posted on November 15, 2019 by Paula

As many know by now, Shuri Castle in Okinawa, an important piece of Ryukyu cultural heritage, suffered a devastating fire on October 31st 2019. As ongoing dialogues continue about how and when the reconstruction will take place, over two dozen … Continue reading →

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