Despite the title, this is not just another English teacher evincing the early signs of what will shortly become full-blown alcoholism.  Melinda Joe is, according to her profile, “a graduate of the John Gauntner Sake Professional Course and a WSET (Wine and Spirit Education Trust) Wine Certificate holder.”  She also writes a bar column for the Tokyo Food Page.  In other words, the lady knows her booze.

Her posts, though appearing irregularly, range from coverage of industry events to late night run-ins with sake sages in smoke-yellowed back alley pubs.  She does it all well, moving fluidly from personal anecdote to succinct and lucid appraisals of wines, sakes and food without a trace of pretension.  If you’re interested in sake, wine, or just finding a good place to eat and drink in Tokyo, this blog is an excellent place to start.  Find it here, or in the sidebar.

This blog is a potential lifesaver for some hapless young humanities major out there, with fantasies of coming to Japan and teaching English while he (a) dates an endless parade of submissive auto show girls (b) becomes a martial arts legend or (c) gets an apartment in Akihabara and claws his way to the top of the savage otaku food chain.

The blog’s About section puts it this way:

Let’s Japan seeks to debunk the beast known as eikaiwa, or English conversation in Japan…Working in Japan was nothing close to the image presented to us back home. We were salesmen, doing our best to keep students happy enough so that they would gladly keep paying for the privilege of speaking to us a few times a week.

Let’s Japan does an excellent job of tracking news items related to the big chain English schools, and has found ample material in the aftermath of the Nova fiasco.  The writers also pull very few punches in sharing their own anecdotes about life in the eikaiwa ghetto.  So the next time a young relative or friend’s kid brother asks about teaching in one of the McSchools, you have an alternative to the standard, “Sure, or you could just fling yourself in front of a train.”  Send them to Let’s Japan.

Here or from the sidebar.

Interesting primarily because there are so few similar blogs in English.  Jade (not her real name) is an American citizen working in a Roppongi hostess club.  In her blog, she writes about her co-workers, customers both good and bad, and her alcoholic mama-san.

The blog is obviously a place for her to blow off some steam, and the tone gets pretty vicious at times, but it works well as a window into the daily routines of a hostess in a small club.  She spends a fair amount of time wondering aloud just what she’s doing with her life, and after reading a few entries you’ll wonder too.  Still, the distinctly soap opera feel of the blog can hook you pretty quickly.

Here or from the sidebar.

It seems a great many people who arrive in Japan wind up trying to reinvent themselves, even if that wasn’t their intention at all when they set out.  I can’t say for sure why this is.  Perhaps the relative scarcity of opportunities allows some of us to look into possibilities we wouldn’t have taken as seriously back home.

I certainly won’t try to guess at what motivates the author of Frangipani, a wonderful little blog from an Australian in Tokyo.  But it’s been fun reading her site and following her work as she’s honed her camera skills and begun to think about launching her own photography business.  She wrote recently about the “Thousand True Fans” theory, a somewhat optimistic idea making its rounds on the internet, claiming that all an artist needs to make a living is 1,000 devoted fans.  I can’t vouch for the theory’s soundness, but if her work continues in the direction it’s going, she can sign me up.  

Be sure to click around a bit; her photographs are kept in several different places.  Here or from the sidebar.

This is another group effort, and an excellent example of how well this blogging model can work.  Néojaponisme draws on the time and talents of at least four regular contributors who write brief but interesting articles on Japanese culture, covering topics from film and literature to architecture and television.  In addition to articles, the blog includes interviews, a short series of podcasts, and book reviews.  Recent entries have explored Mt. Fuji’s place in the national psyche and literature, looked at lesser-known works by popular novelist Murakami Haruki, and even answered some questions about insulation in Tokyo buildings for the miserable, shivering creatures who live in them.

This is an especially refreshing effort for those of us who grow quickly tired of “Japanese culture” blogs that stick strictly to the martial arts / tea ceremony end of things or display similar fixations on animé and manga.  The Néojaponisme guys may find all the above interesting, and indeed their personal website suggest as much, but as a team they’ve managed to sidestep any single-minded obsessions.

Here or from the sidebar.

What a find!  There are some foreigners who pick one town or neighborhood in Japan and cling to it like barnacles.  Then there are the other kind.

Meet the other kind.  From their first blog entry:

In spring 2008, two Australian writers are leaping into a very big and exceedingly ancient pond, walking the entire length of Japan, upright and erect (at least at the start), a journey of up to six months and 3,500km. Ian is hiking solo from ‘mainland’ Japan’s most easterly point (Cape Nosappu: 43, 22′ N; 145, 49′ E) to its most westerly (Kousakibana: 33, 13 N; 129, 33′ E) ; Chris is starting at the opposite end of the country, walking from the most southerly point (Cape Sata: 30, 59′ N; 130, 39′ E) to the most northerly (Cape Soya: 45, 31′N; 141, 56′ E). Though physically and psychologically demanding, their adventure will provide two intimate, ever-changing views of Japan.

This looks like it’s going to be one hell of a trip, crisscrossing each of Japan’s four main islands. Be sure to check out their About page, in which they lay out the ground rules for the project and list the twenty “Waypoints” they’re both required to pass through. They’re about a month and a half into the journey now, and as might be expected they’ve hit a few snags. Fortunately it looks like neither of them is about to give up yet. As a bonus the writing is, for the most part, excellent. Check it out here or from the sidebar.
 

This is such a great idea, and it’s turned into an enormously popular blog.  After several years of trying to puzzle out what the Japanese actually thought about religion, Ken began to find and translate a variety of surveys and polls.   Things quickly got out of hand, and in just the last week, the blog has offered poll results on internet cafe use, where people get their hair cut, hay fever statistics, credit card use and which figure from history people would most like to meet in a seance.  Almost unbelievably, Oda Nobunaga comes takes first prize in that last one, in case you’re interested.

Ken is quick to point out that he does none of the research himself.  These are professionally conducted polls, drawn from a wide range of sources.  Ken is just making them available in English, with the occasional wry comment thrown in to keep readers coming back. 

Here or from the sidebar.

Here’s a very lively, chatty blog being kept by a young Australian in Tokyo.  She’s engaged to a Japanese man and has been teaching in an international kindergarten.  They’ll be moving back to Australia shortly, but only for a year. 

Sometimes its pleasant to read a blog that isn’t trying to flummox you with a hipper-than-thou attitude or captioned photos of cats.  Cherry Blossom Adventures is another good example of a seemingly nice person writing honestly about her life in a place she doesn’t completely understand.  Strangely addictive.  See for yourself, here or from the sidebar.

A wonderful site from the Hailstone Haiku Circle.  From the “About” page:

The Hailstone Haiku Circle is a group of poet friends - some Japanese and some foreigners - mostly living in the Kansai area of Japan, where both Basho and Buson were born and died. We meet regularly to study, compose and share English haiku, tanka and related art forms.

The blog recently moved to its new location; an older site maintains archives going back to January of 2006.  Entries are frequent and varied, so if you’re at all interested in haiku and similar poetic snapshots of frozen moments, by all means swing by.

Here or from the sidebar.