The dog in the video is called Mame and he takes his performance very seriously because getting his treat depends on it. Curiously, when the Japanese woman tells him to bark softer: he does! She uses the word kawaii, which is one of the most fashionable words in Japan, along with moe. The truth is [...]

The ninjas knew a number of technical movements that helped them to quietly and swiftly move around different kinds of places. One of the movements they learned was ‘nuki ashi’. This step helped them to tread on wooden floors undetected. In Japan, most floors had a special mechanism incorporated. This technique ensured a squeaky or [...]

They may seem like two totally different classes, but the backgrounds of these two military classes actually had a lot in common. The most important factors that unite them is their sense of honour; both classes lived by, and for, honour. Neither would perform an act that was contradictory to their rules and they would [...]

The word “origami” originates in Japan and it comes from the union of two words, oru = fold and gami = paper. Actually, paper is “kami”, but there are cases in which the Japanese language changes the second word, just like they did with this one. Although the word originates in Japan, the art began [...]

The other day I ordered Chinese food and when the delivery guy came, he saw a painting with two Chinese characters in the entrance, so we started talking about China and Japan. I asked about his language and also about the Japanese language. I asked him if he knew Japanese and the answer to this [...]

Everybody knows that the samurai were a respected class in Japan. They were so respected that the law allowed them to kill somebody if they showed no respect to them. The samurai sword needed to be equally as good as them. Because of that, a Japanese sword had to be extremely sharp and durable. To [...]

Trains are very important in Japan, and as we already said, we travelled all the time by train and loved it. For us was it the perfect time to relax and the trains are very comfortable. What I didn’t expect was that in Japan, the people get really excited when they learn that the Shinkansen [...]