Christmas Day (25 December) is not a public holiday in Japan, but most Japanese people nevertheless celebrate it by ordering fried chicken from KFC for their Christmas meal. If you wish to partake in this tradition, be sure to place your orders well in advance, as the high volume of orders received for this day means that you’re not guaranteed to snag a meal by just showing up on the day. Christmas Eve is considered to be one of the most romantic days of the year in Japan, and restaurants will Missav – Japanese be fully booked by young couples looking to have a romantic night out, so be sure to make your dinner reservations well in advance. The legislative branch is the National Diet (国会 kokkai), consisting of the upper House of Councillors and the larger and more powerful lower House of Representatives. Both are popularly elected under a parallel system, where some seats are filled by individual candidates and others are filled by a party.

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  • The program is run by the Japanese government but your employer would typically be a local Board of Education who assigns you to one or more public schools, often deep in the countryside.
  • As for kanji for personal names, the circumstances are somewhat complicated.
  • Japan offers one of the most efficient rail transportation systems in the world, the crowning jewel of which is the Shinkansen (新幹線), popularly known in English as the bullet train, the world’s first ever high-speed rail line.
  • Paired with softer stainless steel, the knife is easy to get back into shape with a few swipes on a honing rod.
  • Most of the Japanese government’s proposals to address the country’s demographic challenges have thus far not gained traction.

Curry powder was introduced to Japan in the late 19th century by the British. The Indian curry brought by the British was too spicy for Japanese tastes, but they altered the recipe to make it sweeter and thicker. Curry restaurants can be found throughout the country, but there are also localized versions, such as Kanazawa Curry, Bizen Curry, and Kuwana Curry. At the finest sushi restaurants, the chef puts a dab of fiery wasabi radish into the sushi, and glazes the fish with soy sauce for you. Thus, such sushi restaurants don’t have individual bowls of soy sauce or wasabi. (Turn nigiri sushi upside down before dipping, as the soy sauce is to flavor the fish, not to drown the rice.) Slices of pickled ginger (gari) refresh the palate.

Japanese people and culture

Religious freedom is respected by most Japanese, and people of all faiths are generally able to practise their religion without any major problems. You are expected to dress and behave in a respectful manner whenever you visit religious sites. Japanese women generally do not wear skin tight, super short dresses and cleavage is rarely shown, unless at the beach. Women dressed in tight short dresses and very sexy looks are often stereotyped as sex workers or escorts.

Sample Itinerary for Tokyo (Read my full Tokyo itinerary)

But, it’s quite complicated so I haven’t gotten around to it yet. We’ll fill in this section with that guide in the near future, but for now don’t use my slowness as an excuse. If you do, ordering will, for the most part, naturally fall into place if you follow the “know 80% of all new things” philosophy. It will take around 2-6 months to get through most beginner Japanese textbooks. Though, this does depend on how much time you have to spend on your studies and what grammar method you choose. You can even go through a couple different textbooks at the same time, if you want.

Japanese is often called a topic-prominent language because of its strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and the two do not always coincide. That is, a sentence might not involve the topic directly at all. However, the sentence’s comment does not describe Naoko directly at all, and whatever the sentence indicates about Naoko is an inference. The topic is not the core of the sentence; the core of the sentence is always the comment. An example of this mixed style is the Kojiki, which was written in AD 712.

When you get tired of browsing the web, you can browse comic books, watch TV or a variety of movies-on-demand, or play video games. The cost is typically around ¥400/hour, with free (non-alcoholic) drinks, and possibly more. Often they have special night fares of around ¥1,800 for any 8 hours between 10pm and 8am. Internet cafés can be a safe and inexpensive place to spend the night if you miss the last train; some will even have “flat seat” areas for this purpose.

Many restaurants and cafés, especially if it is a chain, and convenience stores also offer Wi-Fi. To use the Wi-Fi, you will usually have to register your email address, to which an activation link is sent to complete the registration. However, in case you don’t want to give your email address, the time interval to receive and click the link will always be around 10 min — during that time you can surf freely, even with a fake email address. A simple way of getting around the registration process is the Japan Free Wi-Fi app, which will allow you to connect without having to register every time. There is also some paid public Wi-Fi readily available and can be had for as little as ¥200 a month for one phone from Wi2.

They are the smaller components or elements that make up more complex Kanji characters. Think of them as the Lego pieces that you can put together to form different structures. Like anything worth learning, typing in Japanese takes practice. Keep at it, and soon enough, you’ll be zipping through your Japanese messages like a pro. I know some folks might say it takes ages to get the hang of Hiragana, but guess what? Instead of spending weeks doodling each Hiragana character, we’ll use some cool tricks and tools to speed up our learning process.