Archive for December, 2007

Japan: Waiwai ArchivesWaiWai: Foreigners’ Home Sweet ‘Homi’ greeted by local cold shoulder

Tucked in a corner of the Aichi Prefecture city of Toyota, the Homi Danchi housing estate most famous for its racial problems, may offer a vision of the Japan of the future.

The estate opened in 1975 and, like many public housing complexes at the time, was then a highly desirable residence for many families.

WOTD - JapaneseJ-WOTD: お土産外交

おみやげがいこう (omiyage gaiko) * “J-WOTD” = “Japanese Word of the Day” The beauty of the term Omiyage Gaiko is in its simplicity. Rather than being a complicated “4 character word” (四字熟語) it’s a neat little phrase that I saw for the first time being used on the television earlier this week. Yukio Hatoyama (鳩山 由紀夫) [...]