Evidence-led guides to Japanese language, names, culture, travel, food, anime, the Chinese zodiac and Japanese eras.
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Japanese Culture
Japanese Etiquette for Visitors: What Actually Matters
Japanese etiquette splits into rules of form, which nobody minds you getting wrong, and rules of boundary, which everybody notices. Only one of those lists is worth learning.
Japanese Eras
How to Read a Date on a Japanese Document
Seven slots, always in the same order, and five character pairs to recognise. After that, any form in Japan becomes readable.
Japanese Eras
The Four Japanese Years That Belong to Two Eras
1912, 1926, 1989 and 2019 each split between two eras on a specific day. The exact boundaries, and why Showa 64 lasted a week.
Japanese Eras
Kazoedoshi: Japan’s Other Way of Counting Age
You are one at birth and everyone gains a year at New Year. A baby born on 30 December is two years old on 2 January - and that count still decides four ceremonies.
Japanese Eras
Showa, Heisei and Reiwa Year Tables
The tables you can scan instead of calculating, the anchors worth memorising, and how a new era name is actually chosen.
Japanese Eras
Japanese Era Years: Meiji to Reiwa, Explained
Japan runs two calendars at once. Five eras, one subtraction each, and the two details that turn a simple conversion into a wrong answer.
Japanese Phrases
What to Say in Japan When Something Goes Wrong
Three numbers, four situations and a handful of sentences you will hopefully never use. Checked against the national tourism organisation's own page.
Japanese Phrases
Japanese Phrases for Trains and Stations
One phrase, one card and about eight kanji cover the world's best rail network. Plus train types, the exit that matters, and the luggage rule people miss.
Japanese Phrases
Ordering Food in Japanese, Start to Finish
The six-step script that works from a ramen counter to a department store, plus the two conventions that surprise Americans and the allergy phrases worth screenshotting.
Japanese Phrases
Japanese Politeness Levels, and Which One to Use
Casual, polite and formal are built into the verb, not added with tone. What each level sounds like, what keigo actually is, and why visitors should live in the middle.
Japanese Phrases
Essential Japanese Phrases for Travelers
Ten phrases, and three of them do most of the work. What to say, how to pronounce it, and the one thing phrasebooks leave out: which register to use with whom.
Chinese Zodiac
Zodiac Compatibility: Four Triangles and Six Clashes
The famous pairings come from the geometry of a twelve-point circle, not from anything about the animals. How the system works, how seriously it is taken, and where to stop.