Benjamin Martin's Blog: More Things Writing, page 39

2014 Rakuten Eagles Spring Camp Begins

This year’s national baseball champions in Japan were the Tohoku Rakuten Eagles. As Champions you might expect a bit of extra attention from the media and a lot of interest in their spring training. Normally based out of Miyagi prefecture, every year the Rakuten Eagles come to Kume Island in February to train for the upcoming season. On February 1, the Eagles kicked off their camp with a ceremony at the Kume Island Stadium, with tons of fans from around

2014 Kume Island Sakura Festival

Once again the sakura begin to bloom again on Kume Island. With this year’s surprisingly warm winter weather the very first blossoms arrived on New Year’s day. Now, however, the bright colors of the many cherry trees are at their peak. The island celebrated the cherry blossoms with the annual sakura festival. Normally a two-day event, this year’s festival took place at the Fureai Park instead of the usual location Daruma Mountain. The reason for the change was the growing
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Food of Miyazaki Prefecture

You might have noticed that there was no post last week. The reason is that I spent 5 days in Kyushu’s Miyazaki prefecture. Though I’ve been to Kyushu three times with my students on their school trips, this was my first time to the southern prefectures. There was a lot to see and do so I’ll split the trip into a series of posts on each place I visited. This post I’ll use to share some of the interesting differences

2013 Year in Review

Happy New Years! Once again we have made it through another year. Thanks for sticking with MoreThingsJapanese. This past year a lot has changed for me and I’m sure some of it has been reflected on the blog. First off, I ended my time teaching English with the JET Programme (they have a five-year limit) in July. I began working for the Okinawa OTEC Demonstration Facility in August. I first wrote about OTEC without much in the way of knowledge

Okinawan Culture in Dance and Song

This past weekend the Okinawa cultural promotion association in partnership with the Kume Island Board of Education hosted a free night of song and dance at the Gushikawa Community center on Kumejima. The event, titled Dentou Tenou Kouen (伝統芸能公演) or Traditional Arts Performance, was a two-part evening with a mixture of traditional music, dance, and plays. The majority of the performances were in the Okinawan dialect hogen, which most people no longer regularly speak. Along with the performanc...

I Don’t Want a Bed

Sleeping in Japan isn’t as straight forward as you might expect. Houses in Japanhave unique features that have led to differences in the appliances and things people use in the home. One of the most significant differences is the way people in Japan traditionally sleep. With raised floors and often muddy outdoors, it is understandable that removing shoes before entering one’s house became commonplace, and then the rule. Since they are raised off the ground and cleaner without boot...

Japanese Houses

Japan’s unique history has led to culture that is not surprisingly unique in the world. In Japan, natural disasters and local weather has led to housing adapted for the resources and needs of the people. While new materials have been included in modern building, many of the aesthetics developed for traditional housing are still carried into the modern age. Since a lot of Japanese culture revolves around the home, this post will be a base for many others in the

Redesign going into 2014

More Things Japanese has a new look! Over the past 5 years I’ve taken tens of thousands of photos, but I haven’t always done the best job of doing them justice on this blog. Hopefully going forward you’ll be able to find new and interesting posts more easily and in a more visual way. In addition to blog posts you can now skip straight to galleries of my best photos from the menu above. I hope you enjoy the new

2014 New Years Cards

It’s that time of year again. It’s time for Nengajo, New Year’s hagaki greeting cards in Japan. Since it can be impractical to actually call everyone you know on New Years Day, post cards have become a popular way to … Continue reading →

Revenge of the Akuma Clan Launch

It’s November 26 and that means that my second book officially launches in the United States and will soon launch in other countries around the world. Writing a novel is a work of years and so it’s exciting to finally … Continue reading →