Japan Column
Japan’s Ageing Population, Seen from the Train Window
Closed schools, unstaffed stations, and a taxi driver in his late seventies. Japan's demographic shift is not an abstraction — it is…
Travel style: Off the beaten path
Japan Column
Why Japanese Cities Look the Way They Do
A noodle bar under a flat, a car park where a house was, wires overhead and no street names. Japanese cities look…
Japan Column
The Japanese School Day, from First Grade to Club Practice
Children clean their own classrooms, walk to school in groups from age six, and stay for club practice until six in the…
Japan Column
Konbini: How Convenience Stores Became National Infrastructure
Pay your taxes, collect a parcel, print a document, withdraw cash, and get fed during an earthquake. The Japanese convenience store stopped…
Japan Column
Why Are There So Many Vending Machines?
Around one machine for every thirty people, standing unattended on empty rural roads full of cash. The reasons are land prices, labour…
Japan Column
What’s in a Japanese Fridge?
Three kinds of soy sauce, a tub of fermented soybeans, and almost no cheese. What an ordinary Japanese household actually keeps, what…
Japan Column
The Japanese Work Year, Explained by Its Holidays
Japan has more public holidays than almost any developed country and its workers take less leave than almost any. Both facts have…
Japan Column
Where Do Japanese People Go on Holiday?
Not Kyoto. The domestic destinations Japanese people actually book are a useful reverse map for a visitor — and they explain why…
Japan Column
How Much Does Life Cost in Japan? A Local’s Monthly Budget
Rent, electricity, a supermarket shop and a phone bill, for three real households. Japan is cheaper than visitors expect for daily life…
Japan Column
What Does a Japanese Person Earn? Average Salary, Explained
The headline figure is around 4.6 million yen, and it tells you almost nothing on its own. What comes out of it,…