Category Archive: Resources
There is much news flying around about the earthquake, tsunami, explosions, and so on. Here are some sources that tell you what you most want to know.
Alerts, analysis, messages from our ambassador. Visit the main site for breaking news. Japan news within Dept. of State
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The winter quarter (spring semester?) has kicked off and the work is piling up. When you need a break, instead of playing Minesweeper 20 more times or losing yourself in Facebook Chat, try some of these links (from At Home in Japan. You may even learn something that moves you forward in your larger goals.
This web surfing installment is on sites about everyday life.
Japan FAQ
Know before you go, the mechanics of living in Japan, by a teacher at Fukuoka’s Seinan University.
Japan Window
The nitty-gritty of getting yourself set up in Japan (including Something Completely Different), by Andy and Hitomi Grey.
Ed Jacob’s Quirky Japan
Cool places that almost nobody visits, the honest photographer, SAQ/seldom asked questions, odd shops, vending machine heaven, quirky Japan index full of unsettling statistics–the number of schools that teach unicycle riding, etc.
What’s Normal in Japan?
Vote on “do you wash your hands in the stream of water that comes out of the toilet tank?” “At what age does a person become middle-aged?” “What flavor of ramen did you order most recently?”
In Japanese.
Engrish.com
Compilation of English glitches in Japan and everywhere else.
Justin’s Tokyo
Beyond amateur travel diary, a well-designed site with intriguing essays on love hotels, a snow festival, and so on. Great images too.
The Way We Are
My favorite of this set of links: photo essays from many Japanese high school students, 5 photos apiece; read between the lines. Love how kids think. Bilingual.
Survival-Online Guides
The ultimate way to end a web surfing session–a list of links! A comprehensive list of online guides.
Now, mind reeling, you’re ready to go back to the safe tedium of work!
Coming soon–sites about study, daily living, and travel.
Here’s an intriguing idea to get you up to speed on your Hiragana and Katakana. Has anyone tried it? I’d like to know what you think.
Kana Match Card Game, www.kanamatch.com
Jim Story, the creator, says, “Having had to memorize the Kana myself while studying Japanese, I know what a difficult and boring, yet essential, task it can be. But everyone likes playing a game. I thought, ‘How can I turn this dull and difficult task into a fun game, so that people can learn the Hiragana and Katakana while having fun?’
‘So I invented the Kana Match card game, a fun and easy way to learn Hiragana and Katakana. I played it with kids and they liked it, too! I hope you or your children or students find it both fun and educational.”
The 46 basic Kana are covered, and the cards are available in 3 versions: (1) Hiragana and Romaji, (2) Katakana and Romaji, and (3) Hiragana and Katakana. There is also a Solitaire version for the serious student–a great way to both learn and test yourself.
Yellow cards are Hiragana on one side and corresponding Katakana on the other. Green cards have Romaji on one side and the corresponding Katakana on the other. The cards are designed to be played as a game–when two people sit across from each other, each can see the character or letters.
It’s hard to imagine how different living with a family from another culture (or even living with a different family within your own culture!) can be. A homestay student and the family s/he stays with can each have radically different views of the experience.
How to prepare for this? Check out
Okay, it’s a resource website that can feel a little, well, simple at first.
But as I went through it, I discovered I wasn’t always getting the right answers to the tests. So I clearly had some assumptions that would be interpreted differently in Japan.
The site includes some tutorials. These tutorials are well-paced, using a variety of methods–prose, animations, diagrams, interactive images. Very small tests come up every so often. There are 3 modules–
(1) The Cultural Child (and we are all cultural children, especially we Americans)
(2) What You Need To Grow, and
(3) Homestay Diaries–Growing Pains . . . and Gains.
Here’s a quick example of differing perceptions–
There’s also a *great* Links page (within the Resources topic)–12 links for everyday life in Japan and 10 links on study/daily living/travel.
At Home In Japan was created by Jane Bachnik and funded by Japan’s National Institute of Multimedia Education (NIME) in Makuhari, as well as by the Japanese Ministry of Education.
Enjoy the tutorial and other resources there–they are a free, easy, no-risk way to prepare yourself for enjoying life in Japan.
Thanks to the staff at Western Washington University, a KCP affiliate university, for this link.
We did a post a while back about travel books for Japan and Tokyo. Reading a travel book is a great way to get some history, culture, geography, a good dose of practicalities, and a real taste of life there. It’s not expensive and it might spark some ideas for you of how to get over there!
We received a few suggestions from readers and fans, for books we hadn’t included. Here they are.
Living Abroad in Japan (Moon Living; Ruth Kanagy)
From an Amazon review–
I lived in Japan in my youth, speak the language, and often visit my Japanese friends, I found much new information that was helpful for planning to live in Japan again. Ruth Kanagy illustrates her guidebook with beautiful original photographs and gives accurate descriptions and background explanations, social customs, and the Japanese lifestyle.
This book is a useful guide for planning a quality short trip, including important money saving details that a travel agency won’t tell you. It’s also great for longer stays, an extended work project, or even relocation to Japan.
Eyewitness Travel Guide to Japan (Dorling Kindersley publishing)
This one was recommended by KCP alum Matt Henry. He heavily praised the photography and layout in it.
From an Amazon review–
This book is chock full of useful info and wonderful photographs. I particularly like their suggested “walks,” tours (such as Kiso Valley or Saga Pottery area), and maps.
Other highlights are detailed diagrams (such as the Gassho-zukuri houses and Toshu-gu Shrine in Nikko) and lots of photos and descriptions. Japan is a fabulous place to engage with the culture; this book can help you make the leap from reading/observing to engaging, since it takes away the reams and reams of text found in other books. It’s not at its best as a standalone reference, though.
In 2007, the talented staff at KCP created this book/DVD–
Virtual Hiragana Class in One Week (published by Bonjinsha).
A fun yet educational text gets you up to speed with some basic Hiragana characters in one week. This bilingual workbook includes romaji for basic pronunciation, but it mostly uses visuals to help you remember the phonetics when you see each character.
The course teaches pronunciation and writing of Hiragana by showing their appearance and using simple sentences. Each of the 8 units consists of an on-screen lecturer teaching the Hiragana individually, explaining stroke order, common errors, pronunciation, and more. The workbook has clear, short explanations, written practice, and simple fun tasks. Visual associations aid in memorizing each character. You’ll also pick up basic vocabulary through the quizzes.
It’s not widely available in the U.S. Prices top out at around $52, but the Kinokuniya Bookweb has it for under $30. When you click the link below, choose Bookweb USA and type Virtual Hiragana into the search box. Much of the info is in kanji, but click a shopping cart symbol at the right of the page to see the order form. Click “In English” just above the form. The site figures your nearest Kinokuniya branch store, or you can have it mailed (and pay the shipping cost).
To buy the virtual class–Kinokuniya
(Company info–Kinokuniya Company Ltd., founded in 1927, is the largest bookstore chain in Japan, a leading importer of information products like books, journals, and electronic databases, and the operator of a Yahoo award–winning online bookstore.)
If you want to get closer to the Japanese language–and to Tokyo–this is a fine start that’s not too spendy.
A great way to “explore” Japan, and to explore your own feelings about going there, is to read about it. These books may be useful to you in your exploring. They link to Amazon.com, so you can buy the books for low, low prices–as low as $2, in some cases. Also included are excerpts from reviews. Enjoy!
The one book you NEED to come to Japan
After spending about 3 weeks in Japan with this as my only guide book, I can honestly say you NEED to buy this book before traveling to Japan. It also serves as sort of a mini-travel dictionary in a pinch as well as a quick guide to cultural practices.
Better than Frommer’s
I recently bought both this book and Frommer’s most recent edition of its guide to Tokyo. I think the Lonely Planet guide is much better than its rival. Lonely Planet’s is shorter, but the information in it is much more useful–especially for my situation as a student with a place to stay and food being taken care of (though Lonely Planet does have information on hotels and restaurants for those who need to know).
Indispensable Atlas for a Traveler in Japan
I travel to Japan every 5th week or so to sell my company’s semiconductors to various manufacturers spread out all over Japan. This bilingual atlas is terrific for English-only speakers like me, as it has all the Japanese characters next to the English names, which is essential when navigating the train stations off the main lines. This Atlas has good city maps, too.
Innovative and upbeat, not your usual guidebook.
This is definitely not your average guidebook. Rather than just a listing of the usual tourist destinations, Tokyo for Free gave me insight into what living in Japan would really be like.
The greatest
Having lived in Japan for the past 6 years, I’ve had the opportunity to use all of the major guidebooks (and quite a few of the minor ones as well), and without a doubt, the most useful and informative guidebook is this one. Of course Lonely Planet has lots of information about restaurants and hotels, but what you really want is a purpose to visit the places that you are visiting. This guidebooks tells you the history of each place, so you can understand why each place is important.
Outstandingly beautiful book, yet information-packed.
Real-size images of Japan and Japanese
I’m a Japanese living in Japan. I bought this book to check if it’s worth recommending to my friends–and yes, I recommend this book. It’ll tell you real-life Japan and Japanese without exaggeration. It covers Japan from the inside–the life of ordinary Japanese people.
Even if we are in the “R-word,” you don’t have to give up on your study abroad dream. While many other Japanese language programs cost between $10,000 and $15,000 per semester, the KCP International Japanese Language School program costs $5,700 or less— about half the cost! Academic credit and financial aid are available through our sponsoring and affiliate universities; you should be able to apply federal and state financial aid to this program.
Visit our website for scholarship information and other resources to help fund your study in Japan. Check out http://www.kcpstudentlife.com/finances/ for scholarship websites, grants, and even a sample budget.
Student Views