Japan - Culture Smart! - Paul Norbury

Curious Customs: Tips for Visiting Japan, Part 2

Advantages: A great adventure
Disadvantages: Leave that handkerchief at home!

have to undergo rigorous training over a period of some years. The most celebrated fugu chefs are able to prepare the fish in such a way that traces of the poison remain in the flesh of the fish, causing a tingling sensation on the lips and tongue of the diner. Fugu can be enjoyed raw as sashimi or cooked in a variety of ways and with a bit of luck you'll even emerge from this experience still breathing. <7> ◄Taking a Bath► **Ofuro** The Japanese for bath is furo and it is usually afforded the honorific prefix "o", which approximates to "honourable", an indication of the importance of the bath in Japanese culture. Bathing in Japan traditionally took place in the sentou, a public bath house, and these still exist but are more in the nature of leisure centres these days. Taking a bath in the sentou meant sharing a huge bath ...

Mitsudan 22.08.2007 · Read full review
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Review of Customs (Japan)

Not Terribly Cultured

Advantages: More high points than their debut
Disadvantages: But that's not saying much

I may have discovered Orson by accident at first, but it was no accident that their second album came to my attention. Having been impressed by their debut single "No Tomorrow" and then being disappointed that the rest of the album didn't match up to it, I wasn't planning on getting "Culture Vultures". That was until I discovered that the first two singles from it were pretty good and figured that maybe the album would be worth a look as I knew it had at least twice as many decent tracks as the last one. The first of these tracks is "Radio", which is an up-tempo, upbeat heavy pop track. The early verses are a little deceptive, being a little slower than the bouncy intro would have you believe, but it picks up later on. It's got quite a driving beat, especially over the chorus, which makes it perfect running music. It's not as good as ...

Soho_Black 14.08.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Culture Vultures - Orson

Konnichiwa! Tips for Visiting Japan Part 3

Advantages: Successful communication feels like an achievement
Disadvantages: It pays to invest some time and effort

<10> Communication Welcome to the third and final part of my top ten tips for visitors to Japan. Having looked last time at the potential pitfalls for gaijin (foreigners) in blowing their noses and taking a bath amongst other hazards, this time I'm dealing with the biggest minefield of the lot - the all-important business of communication. So here is tip number 10. The Devil's Language? The brick wall up against which most foreign visitors come in Japan when trying to communicate is of course the Japanese language itself. It's said that in the sixteenth century the missionary St Francis Xavier, on discovering the difficulty westerners had in deciphering a single word spoken or written by the Japanese people, concluded that Japanese had been devised by the devil to prevent Christian missionaries from doing their good ...

Mitsudan 25.02.2008 · Read full review
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Review of General: Japan