Taiwanese artist Horian working on a full-body piece at the (now sadly defunct) King of Tattoo event in Tokyo. The guy in the chair is getting his final sleeve done, in a style which resembles traditional yakuza ink. It’s not news that you can get kicked out of hot springs, public swimming pools, and waterContinueContinue reading “Why Are Tattoos Still Taboo In Japan? (Spoiler: It’s not because they think you’re a gangster)”
Tag Archives: living in Japan
Japanese Invent A New Way For VIP Visits To Annoy The Populace
The populace protests the closure. You know how it goes when a VIP comes to town: streets unexpectedly blocked, swarms of shifty-eyed men in dark suits with little curly wires in their ears, cavalcades of unnecessarily long dark cars swanning through the streets? Annoying, right? Well, in Japan, everybody takes the subway, so you’d thinkContinueContinue reading “Japanese Invent A New Way For VIP Visits To Annoy The Populace”
Why Do Only Men Get Chocolate On Valentine’s Day?
This picture actually has nothing to do with the strange interpretation of Valentine’s Day in Japan, but doesn’t it look like there’s a big blue heart in the sky over the shrine next to my apartment? So, you know how in Japan, women don’t get any chocolate or roses or 600 carat diamond necklaces onContinueContinue reading “Why Do Only Men Get Chocolate On Valentine’s Day?”
Failing at Putting Out The Trash
Tomorrow’s trash challenge, as outlined on my handy garbage guidelines poster. Foreigners are legendary at garbage fail in Japan, but anxiety about Doing Trash Right runs deep here, even among native-born Nihon-jin. In a Japanese soap opera I watched recently, one housewife mercilessly bullies her neighbor by sneaking The Wrong Kind Of Trash into herContinueContinue reading “Failing at Putting Out The Trash”
Only In Japan 