Japanese fruit trees Japan is country with a great tradition of farming. The quality of their fruits is really astounding and one really has to come to Japan to taste their flavours. Although it has limited arable land (only 12% of its land is used for farming), the intensity of the farming and the focus on the quality rather than the quantity in many farms, is perhaps why the competitive w...

The 7-5-3 Ceremony Shichi-Go-San or the 7-5-3 Ceremony is a traditional festival day in Japan for three- and seven-year-old girls and three- and five-year-old boys. The ceremony dates back to a traditional rite of passage from Samurai times and is still continued today by people from all walks of life. In this weekly blog for students who are learning the Japanese language, one of the Japanese ...

Japanese modern musicians The Japanese music scene is a vibrant one with many young up-and-coming musicians and respected veterans in many fields and genres. Live music in Japan is also very popular. There are many livehouses, small venues, concert halls and large stadiums in which musicians of many different levels of skill and fame can connect with their fan bases in acoustically unique spaces...

Japanese alphabets The Japanese language is often known as being one of the most difficult languages to learn since it has not one but three different alphabets — hiragana, katakana and kanji — which can be differentiated both by the method of writing them, and their uses. In this weekly blog from one of the Japanese teachers at Japonin(JOI), Itaya sensei, she explains some great language learni...

Japanese school entrance ceremonies The Japanese school year starts around the beginning of April, and ends in mid-March. At the start of the school year, it is common to have entrance ceremonies. These are formal affairs often with parents attending and taking pictures. Eguchi sensei, one of the professional Japanese teacher at Japonin(JOI), writes this easy blog to help you to learn Japanese. ...