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Teru Teru Bozu

March 8, 2010
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Kids in the States know how to send away unwanted rain and attract the sun.
Rain, Rain, go away, come again some other day
Ah, the power of verse.
In Japan it is a bit different, but the idea is similar. When it is nasty weather and children want tomorrow to be sunny, they make a Teru teru [...]

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Japanese Beetles … for dinner?!

March 3, 2010
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Kids in Japan love beetles. I mean, they love beetles. All thruout the summer they embark on quests to catch beetles, vying with their friends to see who can catch the most and the best. Often, this involves spreading honey on trees and then waking up at the crack of dawn to see if any [...]

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Fry’s dog is Hachiko?!?

February 17, 2010
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I wrote about Hachiko a while back, the loyal Akita dog who waited around for his master day after day at the train station for ten years after his master’s death.
If you missed that, go read it now!
Today I can across a nice tribute to Hachiko on Futurama. As you may know, Futurama is [...]

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Friendship chocolate

February 4, 2010
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The standard practice for valentine’s day in japan is a bit different from the West where usually men buy chocolate or flowers for women. It’s the exact opposite in fact. In Japan, Valentine’s day means women buy chocolate for men. Honmei choko (hon-may-cho-ko) — love chocolate — for their boyfriends and husbands and giri choko [...]

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Setsubun and risshun

February 4, 2010
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Today is the first day of Spring! …or at least it was on the old calendar. It’s still pretty cold out, -4 this morning.

Anyways, yeah, demons. Those are demon masks for dad to wear while the kids throw soybeans at him. You see, yesterday was Setsubun, more properly called Risshun. There was plenty of [...]

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