GenkiJACS New Year’s Pledge: 5% of profit to UNICEF
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| The new year is almost a quarter of the way done, but we finally managed to get our new year’s resolution done! GenkiJACS will donate 5% of all after-tax…
Nippon versus Nihon versus Japan
| It often takes foreigners in Japan a while to distinguish between the two ways of pronouncing the name of the country itself, “Nihon” and “Nippon”. First of all, they…
Hakata-ben kouza: “-ttai”
| What makes Fukuoka’s local dialect, Hakata-ben, different from standard Japanese? The single part of speech that symbolizes Hakata-ben for most people is the word “ttai” (or sometimes just “tai”).…
Photos of GenkiJACS Class at ALT Meeting
| GenkiJACS is proud to have been invited to present a class on Japanese gestures at the most recent Fukuoka JET ALT Meeting. Two teachers attended, and taught a 45-minute…
2016 Olympics in Fukuoka?!
| The locals have been abuzz recently with the news that Fukuoka is aiming to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. (Sapporo is also in the running, but one might…
Coming-of-Age Day
| Today (the second Monday in January) is “Seijin-no-hi”, when 20-year-olds gather for a special ceremony to celebrate reaching adulthood, and dress in their best furisode (for the girls) or…
Taoru wo doozo!
| In Japan, the gas stations provide services that are as good as restaurants do. At full service gas stations, which most are, allows you to sit back and relax…
Fukuoka Robots!
| This week’s news brings us Kiyomori, a two-legged robot with a great website, born in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture. It’s famous for the revolutionary ability to rotate its pelvis as…
Festivals coming up in Fukuoka!
| Japan loves its festivals, and Fukuoka is of course no exception. Here’s what’s coming up (info excerpted from a very helpful post to the Fukuoka JET website: January 3:…
How safe is Japan?
| Very very safe! A few examples we’ve noticed recently, from in and around Fukuoka: – When you get large amounts of change from the subway vending machine, a loud…