Culture
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So You Want to Buy an Apartment in Tokyo: Here’s What You Actually Need to Know
Tokyo has a way of getting under your skin. One trip and you’re already mentally rearranging your life to figure out how to stay longer. The food, the energy, the neighborhoods that somehow feel like small villages inside one of the largest cities on earth — it all adds up to something hard to leave…
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Japanese Gardens in Vancouver: Culture, Calm, and Design
Vancouver offers plenty of places to slow down outdoors, but its Japanese gardens occupy a category of their own. Rather than impressing visitors with scale or abundant flowers, they work through restraint—arranging stone, water, and greenery so that a limited space feels deep, unhurried, and quietly alive. Nitobe Memorial Garden is the best-known of these,…
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Heisei-Era Retro: Why Japan Can’t Stop Falling in Love With Its Own Past
Heisei-era retro is one of the most fascinating cultural movements happening in Japan right now; a collective, joyful return to the aesthetics, objects, and rituals of the late 1980s and 1990s. Walk into the right kind of shop in Shimokitazawa or Koenji these days, and you’ll find something curious happening. Teenagers and twenty-somethings — people…
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Honne and Tatemae: Living Two Truths at Once
There is a moment that almost every foreigner in Japan eventually encounters. A colleague smiles and says, “That sounds interesting,” and yet something in the air suggests otherwise. A dinner invitation is met with “Let me check my schedule,” and the follow-up never comes. A friend says they are fine, and clearly they are not.…
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Japanese Street Culture: Hidden Worlds in Tokyo and Osaka
When people imagine Japan, they often picture quiet temples, meticulous etiquette, and orderly cities. Yet just beneath that surface lies a vibrant culture of self-expression that thrives in public spaces. Japanese street culture may not look like the graffiti-heavy, protest-driven scenes of New York or Berlin, but it is no less powerful. In Japan, the…
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10 Unwritten Social Rules in Japan Every Foreigner Should Know
Japan values harmony, respect, and an awareness of how one’s actions affect the people around them. Because of this, everyday life is shaped by countless small behaviors that most locals follow without thinking—yet rarely appear in any official rulebook. For newcomers, these unwritten expectations can be surprising, confusing, or even easy to miss entirely. Learning…
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Exploring Japanese Culture: A Guide for Foreigners
Discover the rich tapestry of Japanese culture with our comprehensive guide tailored for foreigners. Immerse yourself in traditions and customs!