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LINKS & RESOURCES
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JAPANESE CULTURE WEB SITES
Inaka
- Forget Tokyo, Kyoto, Yokohama, Osaka, Hiroshima and other big cities.
This online photo collection that explores Japan's rural culture and
society. - Gaijin
a Go Go - A fun rundown of Hollywood celebrities who have
made big money appearing in commercials in Japan, though they would
never be caught "selling out" in the U.S. The site shows the
commercials on Quicktime video format -- you'll need to download it
if you don't have it on your computer.
- J-ENT
- A site that has been covering Japanese entertainment in English since
1993, with coverage of J-Pop, movies, and databases for Japanese Drama
and Celebrities.
- Engrish.com
- It's hard not to chuckle at how English is misappropriated in Japan
for signs,
slogans, packaging and just about everything else. This site collects
a lot of examples of English that just doesn't quite make... sense.
- Japanese
Gifts - A US-based online store that offers Japanese gifts,
kimono, Japanese clothing, paper lanterns, sushi supplies, Japanese
home decor and garden supplies.
- Japanorama
- An e-commerce site for Japan-related books, music, movies, screensavers,
software downloads and more.
- Japan
Zone - A guide to Japan and Japanese culture aimed at the rest
of the world, with travel information, and sections for Japanese popular
culture and Japanese etiquette. The site's a labor of love for Mark
McBennett, a young Irishman who found himself working in Japan in the
late 1980s, and then married a Japanese woman and settled there. It's
nicely organized with lots of informational text supporting relevant
links to sites about each topic.
- Unkai.com
- A Web site founded by pioneering Japanese online businessman Kei Izawa,
Unkai is based in Boulder, Colorado and sells US goods and products
to Japanese retailers.
- Ramen
Home Page - A Web site maintained by Matt Fischer exclusively
focused on... you guessed it: Ramen. I didn't know there could be so
many recipes for the stuff. I wonder though if he's ever had real ramen,
or if he has only had the dried instant stuff that college kids feed
on.
- The
Black Moon Japanese Culture - Site based in Los Angeles
that promotes the understanding and appreciation of traditional Japanese
culture, art, and animation withnews, reviews, merchandise in an online
marketplace.
- Tokyo
Food Page - A nice site of recipes, a gallery of images
of food in Tokyo, and guide to restaurants.
- United
for a Multicultural Japan
- A non-profit organization working to promote the welfare and legal
rights of non-Japanese with Japanese spouses, and other long-term or
permanent residents of Japan.
- Issho
Kikaku
- An organization that monitors the multiculturalization of Japan ..
and the current lack of diversity in Japanese society.
- Arudou
Debito - "Arudou Debito" is the Japanized name
of David Aldwinckle, a US-born writer and teacher who has lived in Japan
since the late 1980s and became a naturalized Japanese citizen in 2000.
He now lives in Hokkaido with his Japanese wife and two daughters, and
is a tenured teacher at a university in Sapporo. He writes about issues
of assimiliation and bigotry in Japan, and he's an activist for a more
multicultural Japan. A fascinating guy, with a lot to sift through in
his Web site.
- Jim
Allen's Japanese Baseball Page - History, stats, trivia
and more, fro an American working on the sports page of the Yomiuri
Shimbun.
- Fetal
Alcohol Syndrome in Japan - A sad but moving and ultimately
very informative site compiled by Peggy Seo Oba, about the rise of alcoholism
in Japanese women and the devastation it can cause in infants.
- iKjeld.com - Images of Japan - The home page of Kjeld Duits, who was born in the Netherlands but has lived in Japan since 1982. A journalist in both print and on Japanese TV, Duits collects together his varied and artistic photography on this site. The site features a huge database of over 3000 images organized by subject, plus featured photo essays.
- Lemolade JPop Repository - The JPop Repository is a chance for people around the world to sample JPop, the contemporary pop music of Japan, which absorbs American rock and roll influences and technology but manages to retain a Japanese heart. There is a lot of JPop out on the Internet, and we'll add more as time goes by.
- Japanese Era Conversion Tool - The traditional Japanese calendar is dated not by Western years (like 1999, 2000) but by the year of the current emperor's era. For instance, the current emperor is the "Heisei" emperor, and the previous emperor (Hirohito) was the "Showa" emperor. 1989, the year Hirohito's son Akihito took the throne, was the first year of the Heisei era. You can figure out these dates if you know the Western years that each emperor ruled, but thanks to the Internet, this javascript tool makes the conversion easier.
- Price Check Tokyo! - A wonderful idea: a pricelist of how much things cost in Tokyo. You can even e-mail your requests for items to list. Once you have the cost in yen, you can go to Oanda's Currency Converter to see what it means in U.S. dollars (or any other world currency, for that matter).
- Domo Restaurant - If you're ever in the Denver area, be sure to visit this interesting eatery for fabulous food, with nary a sushi roll in sight. Chef Gaku Homma runs an aikido dojo and serves up lunch and dinner Thursday-Saturday in this rehabbed warehouse just off Colfax Ave. in downtown Denver. The ambience can only be described as 19th century Japanese rustic -- it's designed to look like a Hokkaido farmhouse from 100 years ago. There's a great enclosed garden out back, as well as a small museum of Japanese artifacts. My favorite restaurant in town. The menu for an educational experience (you can also order Homma's book about Japanese country cooking), including the comments on the menu explaining why it's rude to rub your chopsticks together, or why there's soy sauce on the tables.
- Asahi Japan Collectibles - A very cool store that sells Japanese items including antiques, collectibles, and even such interesting items as custom-made hanko, or signature stamps, or custom-made pendants with your name in Kanji. There's also an online trivia game and a fun page where you can find out what year you were born in under the Japanese imperial calendar, as well as the Chinese zodiac.
- Princess Mononoke - This anime, or animated feature film, was the biggest-grossing film in Japan until "Titanic" came out. It's an interesting fantasy story, beautifully told, with an environmental twist. This is the Web site for the English-language release of the movie, with lots of interesting background and multimedia elements to click around on. I loved the movie and wrote about it.
- Ichoya Japanese Kimonos and Textiles - A Denver-based couple who collect Japanese textile have put up this Website to sell their wares from their buying trips to Japan.
- The Asian Rare Books Home Page - Great for book freaks like me, and a helpful resource for research.
- The Official Sanrio Web Site: Home of Hello Kitty! - The enduring popularity of the cute Hello Kitty image with little girls everywhere makes the manufacturer Sanrio one of the great pop culture bridges between Japan and the U.S. Here's the company's English-language home page.
- Daily Zen - This isn't quite a Japan site, but it's close enough. You can get a daily dose of Zen Buddhist wisdom here.
- Taiko Resource - A very complete Web site for anyone who enjoys or plays taiko drums, and increasingly popular traditional Japanese instrument with listeners in the U.S.
- 24 Hours Mt. Fuji Live - Just like it says. Beautiful archives of the best views, too.
- Open Japan - The gibberish you see on many Japanese Web sites is code that appears because your Web browser can't "translate" the Japanese language characters. This interesting Web site takes any url you enter, and converts the Japanese into visible characters. You still won't be able to read it unless you know the various alphabets -- Hiragana, Katakana or Kanji -- but at least with this extra step you'll be able to see the Web page the way as it appears to Japanese surfers.
- Stone Bridge Press - a California-based publisher of books and software about Japan, including English translations of Japanese literature, original fiction and other books. Watch for the Fall '98 release of "Four Immigrants Manga," a newly-discovered comic book from the early 20th century depicting the lives of four young Japanese men who come to San Francisco.
- Ukiyo-e Museum - Ukiyo-e (which translates into "art of the Floating World") is the beautiful form of woodcut and watercolor art of Japan created between the 1600s-1800s, which later influenced the French Impressionists greatly. This was the feudal period when Japan was isolated from the rest of the world, and many of its arts and crafts developed to their highest levels. You'll recognize many of the most famous Ukiyo-e works by such artists as Hiroshige and Utamaro immediately, because they've become familiar symbols of Japan of this era. This is a great Japanese site run by the Nagoya TV Server, broken down by categories (my favorite: click on "Demons and Ghosts by Yoshitoshi").
- Ukiyo-e, Pictures of the Floating World - A terrific resource compiled by Hans Olof Johansson, who's obviously very knowledgeable about Ukiyo-e. There's a gallery, a Q&A about the artform, a guide to other Web sites and "The Floating World of Cyberspace," a very complete list of links to Ukiyo-e artwork throughout the Net, organized alphabetically by artist and title. Take your time, and enjoy!
- Rekihaku: National Museum of Japanese History - Rekihaku is an inter-university research insitute for Japanese history, archaeology, folklore and museum studies. It doesn't cover recent history, but it's a nicely designed Web site, which has evolved a lot since I first bookmarked it in 1994.
- WWW A-Bomb Museum - Moving and historically complete overview of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with gut-wrenching photographs taken within days of the Hiroshima bombing.
- Japanese War Crimes - As horrible as the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (not to mention the conventional firebombings of Tokyo and other cities) were, the government of Japan still has unresolved issues of its own. This site can be strident in its anti-Japanese sentiments, but the crimes documented here in gruesome detail (including many graphic photographs, such as victims of the Rape of Nanking/Nan Jing) can't be denied. Not for the squeamish, but not to be forgotten or dismissed, either.
- Japan Photo Gallery - The home page says it all: It's a "Gaijin's view of modern Japan," by W. Dire Wolf. You can click from image to image (they're snapshots, but they do represent his view of modern Japan), or visit his other online content -- including a lot of examples of "Shockwave" multimedia production in the "Get Shocked" section. There's lots and lots of stuff -- and a lot of contemporary pop culture.
- realjapan -- A cool, brash and vibrant site created by Alisa Sanada, a young Nisei who currently lives in Tacoma, Washington but grew up spending a lot of time in Japan. What began when she was a high school teen interested in pop music and fashion has evolved into a site that's grpowing with her, and changing to reflect some of her more complex feelings and interests. This is Japanese culture filtered through a hip young American who's open-minded and inqusitive about the potential of communication and community-building via the Web. There's an active e-mail group you can sign up for. Alisa's an awesome Web designer and a fine writer with a direct and likeable personality too. Worth keeping tabs on.
- Roger & Marilyn's Photo Tour of Japan - An incredibly deep -- though graphics heavy (and they tell you so right upfront) -- site created by Roger and Marilyn Jesrani. Worth a visit, but helps if you have a fast connection.
- Urban Essence: A Photographic Tour through Tokyo - The site loads slowly because of all the photos, but it's worth the effort, because this is a cool look at everyday life in contemporary Tokyo via images of architecture, nature, faces and transportation. Kudos to the young creators, Roberto Anton Patterson (a Bermudian-Chilean-German) and Chris Seta (Japanese Filipino) and Grace Hardy (not noted).
- Anime Web Turnpike - The best source for information and links to Web sites about any and all anime (and manga, Japanese comics), or Japanese animation, which is becoming more than an underground sensation in the U.S. Given time, anime will be "mainstream" in the States -- it's getting there now, with the popularity of anime video rentals and such Saturday morning cartoons as "Pokemon."
- Godzilla Index to Kaiju-DIRECT! - I have no idea why someone would do this, but once again, an idea like this could only exist on the Internet. It's a very complete index to Web pages for and about Godzilla ("Gojira" to those of you across the Pacific) around the world, including links to even articles on other Web sites that mention Godzilla (including mine). A very pure expression of cult fandom.
- The Kanji-Picture-Collection - This fun and educational site is actually part of a larger site about the village of Yaho in Kunitachi City, Tokyo. The Kanji Picture Collection shows the Kanji for more than a hundred English words, with explanations of the ideographs, so the Kanji makes visual sense.
- japan-shop.com - I'm happy to find this Web site, a Japanese "e-commerce portal." The site describes iteslf as an "Online Mall specializing in Japanese goods and services for people living outside of Japan." It's nicely organized by category and a list of businesses whose Web sites are linked.
- Kabuki for Everyone - This is what the Web is perfect for! This site uses high tech for a great introduction to the Japanese theatrical tradition of Kabuki. Famed actor Ichimura Manjiro guides the viewer through text (translated in English), sound files and even video clips of Kabuki performances. What a wonderful way to bridge the cultural gap!
- SumoWeb
- Ever wondered what Sumo wrestling is about? You can learn about the
popular Japanese sport with essays, Q&A and updated reports by Western
writers who love Sumo, then use its list of Web links to explore more
on your own.
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