Culture Wars

The Owakon

If you watch Japanese YouTubers like Heraiza you soon hear the buzzword ‘Owakon’. Owakon is one of those clever Japanese creations that combines ‘owari’ (over) + ‘content’ to create a handy new expression for ‘oh so over’ dead content. And it doesn’t only apply to things, it applies to people […]

Cool Japan - Transit

Abandoned Tokaido Line

Suit Train posted a wonderful video with his patented narration style. For a college guy he’s already way more professional, and much better than many TV announcers, and has that rare talent of talking with a instantly prepared script in his head. This particular video covers a section of the […]

Cool Japan - Transit

The Art of Train Announcements

This morning the conductor made an announcement as the Yamanote train pulled into Meguro station: “This train is not a waste basket, kindly fold newspapers and take reading material with you when you leave,” and went on to kindly remind passengers to hold backpacks in the front, put them on […]

Japan Journal

Un-worry

I didn’t learn how to un-worry until I lived in Japan a few years and saw how the Japanese do it. Un-worry is not the same thing as not worrying, the get out of bed late, don’t give a damn about others self centered variety I found too much of […]