Category: in a Japanese Pond

Japan is a safe country. Women and children walk unlit streets at night, confident that there won’t be anyone with a knife or a gun lurking. Each day, thousands of mama chari – mums’ bikes with a ladies frame and a basket on the front that are used by everyone, even sarariiman – are left… Continue reading 犯罪

I had mixed emotions when I moved into my apaato at the end of May. Not having a permanent address over the last couple of months, I’d learnt that a home is more than a room with a collection of possessions. It’s more even than the memories of those favourite objects gathered over the years,… Continue reading 家

From my hotel, I looked out on an extensive array of blue roofs. They weren’t a happy symbol, huddled together like a concentration camp while the meagre possessions of the occupants spilled into the alleys between. Each shack, I’d learned on a business trip the year before, housed a family who’d lost their home in… Continue reading 転勤

“So, how was it?” The first twenty times I heard it, I considered the question. Recently returned from a year of living in Japan, I was bursting to tell my friends what it was like to live with a Japanese family, to go to a Japanese school. In my head, I ran through the ensuing… Continue reading Prologue