japanese culture– tag –

The king of mashrooms in Japan is definitely pine mushrooms, Matsutake in Japanese. They are very expensive, like about 300 USD for one piece, but funnily enough, it's not popular at all outside Japan. Let's see the long history of eating mushrooms in Japan.

Fascination and awe for fire. We have such slightly conflicting emotions probably because that should be the optimal condition for survival, but now we can fully satisfy our feelings of fascination for fire under a safe environment here in Hokkaido.

In Japan, baseball is still the most popular sport, and the national high school baseball championship (Koshien) is a popular seasonal sport event. It has a long history of about 100 years. The shaved head of high school players is one of the traditions, funnily enough.

Japan and India seem to have their own unique box lunch cultures: Japanese bento and Indian dabba. Among other things, the tidy content arrangement of Japanese bento is one of a kind, while the lunch delivery system (dabbawala) in Mumbai is unequaled in the world.

The biggest festival of design and creativity in Hokkaido was back! Why do we need real communication events like this, though it's not good in efficiency? If efficiency is prioritized most, we have no other choice but to stop living our lives.

Instant noodles were invented in Japan in 1968. The inventor's name was Momofuku Ando, the founder of Nissin, the top instant noodle brand in Japan. Let's see the background story of how he invented instant noodles and his company has been improved them.

Why do we like gossip? As Yuval Noah Harari says, it's because we are first and foremost social animals and designed to feel good by gossiping. We human beings can't live without communication with others including gossiping. The biggest festival of design and creativity in Hokkaido was back after the COVID! We need real communication events like this.

Gacha, Japanese capsule toy vending machines come back in style! The biggest Japanese advertising agency brought about a revolution in the Gacha industry. They've started to install Gacha in some international airports in Japan. Their target customers are foreign tourists who have too much time and too many Japanese coins on their hands.

In the popular places for cherry blossoms in the peak season, you can see many blue ground sheets spreading all over under cherry trees. Even though a good spot is secured somehow, most people just enjoy drinking and eating, and only few people look up cherry blossoms. This is the reality of cherry blossom viewing parties in contemporary Japan.

What if there's a museum where you can see all the masterpieces of art at a time? Like Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh, Guernica by Pablo Picasso, etc. Of course, I know they are exhibited in different museums in Paris, Tokyo, and Madrid respectively, but there is one such what-if place in Japan.