JapanUp! magazine

The Foreign Language Nightmare If you grow up speaking English, learning to read is relatively straightforward. You memorize 26 letters, learn how they sound together, and you are ready to read a book. But for anyone trying to learn Japanese, reading is a massive, highly intimidating hurdle. The Japanese language is globally unique because it doesn’t just use one writing system—it actively uses three entirely different scripts in the exact same sentence: Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. To a foreigner, looking at a Japanese newspaper looks like a chaotic mix of complex Chinese symbols, flowing cursive lines, and sharp, robotic strokes.…

The Hollywood White vs. The Samurai Black If you live in Los Angeles, the ultimate standard of dental beauty is a blindingly white, perfectly straight Hollywood smile. People spend thousands of dollars on whitening strips and bleaching treatments. But if you were to travel back in time to Japan during the Edo Period (1603-1868), you would witness the exact opposite beauty standard. For centuries, Japanese women (and sometimes men!) actively painted their teeth pitch black. This startling practice, known as “Ohaguro” (Black Teeth), looks like a terrifying Halloween costume to a modern Westerner, but in traditional Japan, it was considered…

The Global Education Gap If you look back at global history during the 18th and 19th centuries, literacy was generally a rare privilege. In many parts of Europe and the Americas, reading and writing were strictly reserved for the wealthy elite, aristocrats, and the clergy. The average farmer or merchant simply had no need or opportunity to learn. However, if you traveled to Japan during the Edo Period (1603-1868), you would find a completely different reality. Even though Japan was a totally isolated island nation, an estimated 50% of men and 20% of women in the capital city of Edo…

The American Culture Shock If you live in Los Angeles, you would never let your first-grade child walk a mile to school by themselves, cross busy intersections, or ride the subway alone. American parenting is heavily reliant on carpools, school buses, and constant adult supervision. So, when Westerners visit Japan or watch the massive Netflix hit show Old Enough! (Hajimete no Otsukai), they are absolutely terrified and amazed to see tiny 6-year-olds confidently walking through city streets completely unchaperoned. To the outside world, it looks incredibly dangerous. But in Japan, it is a deeply celebrated milestone of independence. How is…

From Hollywood to a Small Classroom When you think of the history of television and film, your mind probably goes straight to Hollywood or the high-tech laboratories of New York. We are so used to our 4K OLED screens today that we forget the humble, flickering beginnings of broadcast technology. While many inventors around the world were racing to create an “electronic eye,” the very first successful transmission of a clear electronic image didn’t happen in a major American city. It happened on December 25, 1926, in a small classroom at a technical college in Shizuoka, Japan. The Glowing Katakana…