After having their first child in 1986, they have decided to pursue their long-hidden dream of exploring the world. Inspired by their life-changing adventure throughout the world, they have decided to serve as a tour guide. This happy couple has been serving as a Japan local tour guide for more than 30 years now. In their effort to show the world what Japan truly is, they have decided to write a book about it. Download your copy today! Take action and experience Japan at its fullest potential now! Get this book for FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

    Sad Toys is a collection of 194 Tanka, the traditional 31-syllable poems that evoke Japan's misty past.

    The only comprehensive study that examines all areas of Basho's work, including haibun, renku and critical commentaries.

    It is a moving literary reminiscence, a collection of thirty-nine autobiographical essays penned a year before the author's death. Written in the genre of shohin (little items), the personal vignettes provide a kaleidoscopic view of Natsume Soseki's private world and shed light on his concerns as a novelist.Readers are at once ushered into Soseki's book-lined study, in his residence in Kikui-cho, as he muses on his present situation and reflects on the past. The story is filled with flashbacks to Soseki's youth-his classmates, his family, and his old neighborhood-as well as episodes from the more recent past, all related in considerable detail. There are his characteristic ruminations about his physical well-being, and from the quiet spaces inside the glass doors of his study, he also calmly observes the clamorous state of the world outside. The essays in this book, crafted with extraordinary subtlety and psychological depth, reflect the work of a great author at the height of his powers.In his introduction to the work, Dr. Marvin Marcus provides a fresh perspective on Soseki the man and writer, as well as an insightful commentary on the novel itself and the place of reminiscence in Soseki's writings. A selection of photographs of Soseki and his family and friends add further interest to the book.

    Almost more Japanese than the Japanese—"to think with their thoughts" was his aim—his prolific writings on things Japanese were instrumental in introducing Japanese culture to the West.In this masterful anthology, Donald Richie shows that Hearn was first and foremost a reliable and enthusiastic observer, who faithfully recorded a detailed account of the people, customs, and culture of late nineteen-century Japan. Opening and closing with excerpts from Hearn's final books, Richie's astute selection from among "over 4,000 printed pages" not including correspondence and other writing, also reveals Hearn's later, more sober and reflective attitudes to the things that he observed and wrote about.Part One, "The Land," chronicles Hearn's early years when he wrote primarily about the appearance of his adopted home. Part Two, "The People," records the author's later years when he came to terms with the Japanese themselves. In this anthology, Richie, more gifted in capturing the essence of a person on the page than any other foreign writer living in Japan, has picked out the best of Hearn's evocations.Select writings include:The Chief City of the Province of the GodsThree Popular BalladsIn the Cave of the Children's GhostsBits of Life and DeathA Street SingerKimikoOn A Bridge

    The seventeen-syllable form is rooted in a Japanese tradition of close observation of nature, of making poetry from subtle suggestion. Infused by its great practitioners with the spirit of Zen Buddhism, the haiku has served as an example of the power of direct observation to the first generation of American modernist poets like Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and also as an example of spontaneity and Zen alertness to the new poets of the 1950s. This definitive collection brings together in fresh translations by an American poet the essential poems of the three greatest haiku masters: Matsuo Basho in the seventeenth century; Yosa Buson in the eighteenth century; and Kobayashi Issa in the early nineteenth century. Robert Hass has written a lively and informed introduction, provided brief examples by each poet of their work in the haibun, or poetic prose form, and included informal notes to the poems. This is a useful and inspiring addition to the Essential Poets series.

    

    The year is 1986, and the strange communal life of this foursome, extending over half a year, from the end of winter to midsummer, makes up the plot,such as it is, of Plainsong, as this ersatz family finds itself growing closer, and lifecontinues—quietly—around them. Part of the generation that grew to prominence following the success of baby boomers like Haruki Murakami, KazushiHosaka’s work chronicles the small moments, the moments without conflict,that most novels work to elide. His characters talk, work, exist; their story is onewhere the tiniest occurrence takes on the proportions of a grand drama.

    The co mpanion will interest tourists, students and business travel lers to Japan. '

    Captain Shore’s enthusiasm for firearms and especially for rifles led him to take every possible opportunity to try out different weapons, ammunition and methods of shooting. His interest was combined with sound common sense, and he would never countenance a rumour about a particular weapon or incident unless he was able to confirm it for himself.As a result everything in this book is based on his personal experience. In World War II Captain Shore took part in the British landings at D-Day, and fought in Normandy and northern Europe. He came across many different weapons in varying condition, some of the worst being those used by the Dutch and Belgian resistance fighters. He was keen to learn from experienced snipers and then to train others, and he became an officer sniping instructor at the British Army of the Rhine Training Centre.He shares a wealth of first-hand knowledge of different rifles, pistols, machine guns, ammunition, telescopes, binoculars and all the equipment a sniper should carry. This is not only an account of sniping in World War II but also a guide to all aspects of sniping based on personal knowledge and experience in training and battle. Illustrated heavily with photos, pictures and other illustrations of snipers, their weapons and their tactics.

    These journeys were part of his religious training as a Buddhist monk as well as literary inspiration for his memorable and often painfully moving poems. The works he wrote during this time comprise a record of his quest for spiritual enlightenment.Although Santoka was master of conventional-style haiku, which he wrote in his youth, the vast majority of his works, and those for which he is most admired, are in free-verse form. He also left a number of diaries in which he frequently recorded the circumstances that had led to the composition of a particular poem or group of poems. In "For All My Walking, " master translator Burton Watson makes Santoka's life story and literary journeys available to English-speaking readers and students of haiku and Zen Buddhism. He allows us to meet Santoka directly, not by withholding his own opinions but by leaving room for us to form our own. Watson's translations bring across not only the poetry but also the emotional force at the core of the poems.This volume includes 245 of Santoka's poems and of excerpts from his prose diary, along with a chronology of his life and a compelling introduction that provides historical and biographical context to Taneda Santoka's work.

    Another thing that makes Japan unique in the gaming world is the prevalence of game arcades. While the game arcade scene has died in the U.S., there are 9,500 "game centers" in Japan with more than 445,000 game machines. Arcade Mania introduces overseas readers to the fascinating world of the Japanese gemu senta. Organized as a guided tour of a typical game center, the book is divided into nine chapters, each of which deals with a different kind of game, starting with the UFO catchers and print club machines at the entrance and continuing through rhythm games, fighting games, shooting games, retro games, gambling games, card-based games, and only-in-Japan games. Covering classic games from Space Invaders to Street Fighter, games that are familiar to Americans in their home console versions (Rock Band, Guitar Hero and Dance, Dance Revolution), as well as the unique, quirky games found only in Japan, Arcade Mania is crammed full of interviews with game makers and star players, and packed with facts about the history, background and characteristics of each game, all lavishly illustrated with photographs and game graphics. This book is a must-have for gamers everywhere.

    After completing a university education, Oyama entered the business workforce and appeared destined to walk the same path as many a "salaryman." A singular temperament and a deep loathing of conformity, however, altered his career trajectory dramatically. Oyama left his job and moved to Osaka, where he lived for three years. Later he returned to the corporate world but fell out of it again, this time for good. After spending a short time on the streets around Shinjuku, home to Tokyo's bustling entertainment district, he moved to San'ya in 1987, at the age of forty.Oyama acknowledges his eccentricity and his inability to adapt to corporate life. Spectacularly unsuccessful as a salaryman yet uncomfortable in his new surroundings, he portrays himself as an outsider both from mainstream society and from his adopted home. It is precisely this outsider stance, however, at once dispassionate yet deeply engaged, that caught the eye of Japanese readers. The book was published in Japan in 2000 after Oyama had submitted his manuscript on a lark, he confesses for one of Japan's top literary awards, the Kaiko Takeshi Prize. Although he was astounded actually to win the award, Oyama remained in character and elected to preserve the anonymity that has freed him from all social bonds and obligations. The Cornell edition contains a new afterword by Oyama regarding his career since his inadvertent brush with fame."

    Published only recently, it set sales records in the millions of copies and soon crossed over to other media as well--first as a radio and TV drama, then as a blockbuster movie. The popularity of the novel has spread across Asia as well, with hugely successful translations into Korean and Chinese. In the West, readers may be reminded of The Bridges of Madison County, another best-selling novel of blazing midlife passion--one with a very different outcome.Here the lovers are Kuki, a 54-year-old employee in a publishing company, and Rinko, a childless, 37-year-old woman unhappily married to a cold fish of a husband, a professor of medicine. Stuck in a dead-end job and an uneventful marriage, Kuki is irresistibly drawn to Rinko from their first encounter, seeing through her demure demeanor to the passionate woman beneath. She returns his feelings with ever-increasing abandon, despite lingering fears about where her sexual awakening may lead her. In the end, both are prepared to risk all for their relationship: family, career, and social standing, even life itself.The story contrasts the lovers' defiantly freewheeling passion--described in imaginative, smoldering detail--with a rigid society where people are expected to play a prescribed role, whether as dutiful wife or compliant office worker. In escaping these conventional roles, the lovers often escape the city as well, immersing themselves in the traditional beauties of Japanese nature and art as they give themselves over to each other and the pleasure of the moment. And ultimately they make a much more radical escape: one that will ensure that they are left in peace, to enjoy an abiding love.Perhaps not all the choices they make will seem reasonable, or even understandable, to Western readers. But their story, with elements as modern as yesterday's headlines and as timeless as the tug between love and death, opens a window into the secrets of the Japanese soul.

    This book is told in the words of three Australian Helicopter airmen who supported the ground troops in the vicious war fought in jungles and mountains against an almost invisible enemy.