Category: Oddities
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Hallowe’en Tree
I don’t know. It’s only the middle of September, and the shopping centres already have their Hallowe’en Trees up. Hang on a minute… This is the first one I’ve seen in Japan, but for all I know they’re really common. In other news, I continue to be really busy, which is why there are still…
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Japanese Prime Ministers
I’m sorry it’s been so long since I updated this blog; we went to the UK in the summer, and that ate up a lot of time. I have a bunch of things to post, and I’ve started working on them, so I’ll keep this entry short, just to bring some life back to the…
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The Colour of Traffic Lights
A notorious peculiarity in the Japanese language is that they think that the “go” light on traffic lights is blue. That is, the word that is normally translated as “blue” (ao) is used to describe the “go” light, rather than the word normally translated as “green” (midori). This is something that foreigners, particularly Western foreigners,…
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Global Phenomenon
I listened to yesterday’s Yomiuri Podcast this morning as I was having a walk. Susan Boyle failing to win Britain’s Got Talent was one of the news items. A genuine global phenomenon.