Your Name in Japanese
The Check-In Card, Line by Line
Japanese law makes hotels copy a foreign guest's passport. What each line of the check-in card wants, and why the address field trips travelers up.
Japan Know How archive
Author: Megan Rothwell
Writing & Language
The Tiny Tsu, Ya, Yu and Yo
A small tsu doubles the next consonant and a small ya merges two sounds into one beat. Get the size wrong and you have written a different word.
Japanese Crafts
Folds That Ended Up in Space and Surgery
The crane is one model out of thousands. Where the standard folding notation came from, and how a fold designed in Japan opened a satellite solar array.
Japanese Eras
The First Era Name Not Taken From China
Every earlier era name traced back to a Chinese classic. Reiwa was pulled from an eighth-century Japanese poetry preface, and that was the whole point.
Your Name in Japanese
Surname First or Last: What to Write Where
Japan flipped its own romanized name order in January 2020. What that means for the order you write, and where a swapped name creates a mismatch.
Writing & Language
Why the Second Alphabet Trips Everyone
Four look-alike pairs, a long-vowel bar with no hiragana equivalent, and words you have to decode back into English. Where katakana really breaks down.
Japanese Crafts
How a Square of Cloth Carries a Bottle
Two knots do most of the work. Which cloth size to buy, how to wrap a box, a bottle and a watermelon, and why the plastic bag fee revived the habit.
Japanese Eras
1 April 2019, and the Board Held Up
Suga held the card up before midday, thirty years after Obuchi did the same for Heisei. What happened in the room, and why the name stayed sealed.
Your Name in Japanese
How a Foreign Name Becomes a Carved Seal
A hanko is not a signature and not always required any more. What a katakana seal costs, where banks still ask for one, and which shops carve them.
Writing & Language
A Two-Day Schedule for 46 Characters
Five blocks a day, written by hand, reading real words by Sunday night. The order that works, and the three characters worth extra time on day two.