Amy Chavez - The Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Mar 26, 2005

The train dropped me off at night right in the middle of Reno, Nev., where neon lights flashed everywhere and casinos lined the streets. The railroad to Reno was built in 1868 and the train runs over the mountains, not through tunnels. This is probably whey we don't have bullet trains in the U.S. --...

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Mar 19, 2005

Unraveling the mysterious choo-choos

Japan is a nation obsessed by trains. Every time you turn on the TV, there is a program about trains. Not necessarily high-speed trains, either. These programs cover trains around the world, celebrities traveling across Japan by train, or just trains choo-chooing peacefully through mountain scenery to...

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Mar 12, 2005

Respect carries a high price tag in Asia

I often meet people who are taking off a few months to travel through Asia. These people spend months traveling through China, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, etc., but they invariably skip Japan.

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Mar 5, 2005

Get! Strunk & White's punctuation soup

The Japanese have some unique ways of learning English. Did you know, for example, that you can learn English from animal crackers? Yes, animal crackers in Japan have English names on them, presumably to provide an educational aspect to snacks. Talk about forcing the language down our throats! Perhaps...

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Feb 26, 2005

The woes of the misunderstood 'gaijin'

I've been a nonnative speaker of Japanese for 12 years now. I'll go weeks without speaking a word of English, since where I live, I'm the only "gaijin." But after several years of consistent hard work, I have trained the 700 people on my island to understand my gaijin Japanese. We are almost at the point...

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Feb 19, 2005

Lesser of two evils: squat or tourist tush?

One common complaint I hear about Japanese youth these days is that "they sit anywhere." This statement refers to young people sitting on the ground. One reason for this phenomenon is that young people in Japan never used to loiter because they were in school six days a week and even spent Sundays participating...

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Feb 12, 2005

You've earned it: lifetime 'gaijin' status!

Japan Lite reader Peter Miller asks: After an extended stay in Japan, does one ever cease to regard oneself as a "gaijin" (foreigner)?

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Feb 5, 2005

'O-baa-chans' on the loose in Bali shops

I recently had the opportunity to accompany two Japanese women to Bali, Indonesia. This is not the first time I have been a personal tour guide for Japanese going to Bali, but this time was different because I was taking two very special people: my next-door neighbor Kazuko and another islander, Hiroko....

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Jan 29, 2005

To do or not to do -- that is the decision

Westerners often find it takes Japanese a long time to make decisions. I believe the training for decision-making starts at an early age, when Japanese children are conditioned to be shy.

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Jan 22, 2005

Taming the wild beet root in Australia

I have just come back from Australia and I'm covered with blood. But before I tell you about that, you're probably wondering why I chose Australia to spend the holidays. Well, Australia has a lot to offer. Inhabited by 11 of the most poisonous animals in the world, why wouldn't someone want to visit...

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Jan 15, 2005

For better or worse: the 400th column

Welcome to the 400th Japan Lite column! If you have been reading this column since 1997, then congratulations on our 400th anniversary. Four hundred weekend dates is longer than most unmarried couples make it. How does it feel to be 400?

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Jan 8, 2005

Fine-feathered flock of phrases flavors Year of the Chicken

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? This year, the chicken came first since 2005 is the year of the chicken, not the year of the egg. After the disastrous year of the monkey, I think we're all hoping for a few golden eggs this year. So, out with the monkey bananas and in with the chicken feed....

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Jan 1, 2005

Bless your house, TV for the new year!

A male voice called out. I ran downstairs and there was a Buddhist priest, dressed in full robes, standing in my genkan. At first I panicked, "Am I dead?" No, that's what Catholic priests do, not Buddhist priests. He smiled and looked at me expectantly. I smiled back, wondering why in the world a Buddist...

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Dec 25, 2004

Last-minute gifts for discerning foreigners

Merry Christmas! If you are one of those people who waits till the last nano-second to do your Christmas shopping, don't worry. You've still got till midnight tonight to get a Christmas present for that special gaijin you forgot about.

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Dec 18, 2004

Checklist before leaving for the holidays

Many foreigners will be leaving Japan for the holidays, and I am no exception. It's always a scary thing to leave my house for more than a few minutes: Japanese houses are so -- delicate. Almost anything could obliterate a Japanese house during your absence, which is probably the real reason Japanese...

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Dec 11, 2004

Slipper prophecy: My life, my toilet!

It all started last summer in a yakitori shop in Kyushu. I went into the bathroom and the toilet slippers greeted me with a chirpy English phrase written on them: "My life, my toilet!" This humored me greatly at the time. However, I have learned my lesson. I will not laugh next time.

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Dec 4, 2004

Roller Derby Queen swishes to hospital

When I walked into the hospital, I thought I had by mistake walked into a skating rink. The first thing I saw was the skate check. Women stood behind a long counter taking people's shoes and exchanging them for plastic slippers with large numbers painted on them. Rental slippers? Not exactly. The people...

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Nov 27, 2004

Free poinsettias! Torn between cultures

If the United States is my mother country, Japan must be my father country. And as it often is between kids and parents, I sometimes find myself in the middle, wondering which one is right, which one to listen to.

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Nov 20, 2004

Shiraishi, island of mists and trances

Shiraishi is an island of trances, a place where one is lured into long contemplative pauses. I can sit on top of the mountain and look out over the sea for hours, awed by the beauty of the Inland Sea. Like getting lost in your favorite song, or an entire CD, these are the moments when our mind is so...

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE

Nov 13, 2004

Ants go marching one by one, hurrah!

For years entomologists have been trying to figure out why ants work in the ways they do. Through years of my own research, and as an experienced "antomologist," I've discovered the answer: Ants have been copying the Japanese. It's ant "wa." The wa system has been in place by the Japanese since the beginning...

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