Married to a Japanese wife and proud father of two Japanese-Dutch children. Together, we run the largest Japanese language school in the Benelux, fostering cultural exchange and understanding. I am also the caretaker of Paopao, a 17-year-old left-behind child from Changsha,…

Xinjiang’s Coal Mining Aims for 60 Million Tons a Year In Urumqi, the Tianshan Laboratory has burst onto the scene like a coal-fueled juggernaut, aiming to not only tackle Xinjiang’s toughest energy challenges but also rewrite the global rulebook on mining. Named after the…

€1 Million Fountain of Hope Dies for the Price of 700 Lattes The "Big Phoenix" fountain in Takarazuka City is a majestic tribute to resilience and rebirth after the Great Hanshin Earthquake—now being put out to pasture for the jaw-dropping, astronomical, earth-shattering cost…

Tianhe: Saving the Planet While Western Computers Play Call of Duty While the rest of us were busy debating whether it’s acceptable to microwave eggs, China’s Tianhe supercomputers were out there solving complex data puzzles, predicting the apocalypse, and probably figuring out…

Japan Invents the Reverse Pay Raise Let me introduce you to the 「103万円の壁」 (103-man yen wall), Japan’s very own fiscal booby trap that’s been making part-time workers cry into their bento boxes for decades. Imagine you’re a part-timer, grinding away to bring in a little…

Carbon Neutrality by 2060? Hold My Green Tea, Says China China's Blue Book on Sustainable Development—or as it might as well be called, "The 2024 Guide to Telling Everyone We’re Saving the Planet While Still Building Skyscrapers at Warp Speed"—just dropped at the COP29 climate…

Who Needs Democracy? Meet the Island Ruled by a Shrimp Dynasty for 64 Years. Forget democracy, dear reader, and allow me to introduce you to the island of Himeshima, a seven-square-kilometer plot of land in Oita Prefecture that time—and apparently modern governance—forgot. Here,…

The Hong Kong Story You Didn’t Know The sentencing of Joshua Wong (黄之锋) and Benny Tai (戴耀廷) is the latest flashpoint in Hong Kong's transformation under Beijing’s National Security Law. The West portrays these developments as the grim final act for Hong Kong’s freedoms,…

Saito’s Political Resurrection After a Staff Suicide Motohiko Saito’s re-election in November 2024 is a political story so wild, it makes Tiger King look like a documentary on lawn care. Just two months after being unanimously booted out by the Hyogo Prefectural Assembly for…

立つ瀬がない - Tatsu se ga nai - Geen poot hebben om op te staan 立つ瀬がない (tatsu se ga nai) is een uitdrukking die doordrenkt is van poëtisch drama, en het gevoel oproept dat je alles volledig hebt verknald, zonder enige mogelijkheid om nog enigszins waardig uit de situatie…

立つ瀬がない is a phrase that drips with the poetic drama of realizing you've made an absolute mess of things, and there’s not a single patch of dry ground left to save face. This isn’t just your garden-variety embarrassment. No, it’s a linguistic work of art designed to capture…

Chef-mate in Shogi Showdown! In Japan, where shogi (将棋)—a game so mentally grueling it probably doubles as brain surgery practice—is a national obsession, a new twist has stolen the spotlight: shoubu meshi (勝負めし), or “game meals.” These aren’t just lunches—they’re edible…

THIS IS FOR YOU, HUMAN. PLEASE DIE. PLEASE. This is the technology big translation agencies are selling you, claiming human translators are obsolete. It’s the same technology that told a user, “You are not special, you are not important. You are a stain on the universe. Please…

Two major professional associations have now weighed in on Powerling ’s disgraceful handling of its obligations to translators and interpreters, and the verdict is damning. The NGTV | Nederlands Genootschap van Tolken en Vertalers pointed out that after Powerbling’s opportunistic…

Bonjour, Backdoor? Huawei Woos France With Cloudy Promises Huawei Cloud’s first summit in Paris—because when you think "Paris," the natural next thought is "Chinese tech giant takeover." Hundreds of government bigwigs, industry VIPs, and probably a few people who just came for…

Breaking News: Japanese Employees Allowed to Sit Japan is a land where customer service is so exceptional that it often verges on masochism. "お客様は神様です" (The customer is God), they said, and for decades this divine decree dictated that cashiers, security guards, and…

How China Turned Rocks Into Liquid Gold China’s energy game is like watching someone juggle flaming swords while reciting Shakespeare—ambitious, dramatic, and completely fascinating. The latest act in this epic performance? The completion of the first phase of the Bohai Bay 26-6…

How Japan Plans to Stop Parents from Naming Their Kid Space Unicorn Japan is officially pulling the plug on *kirakira names* (キラキラネーム), the naming trend that gave us such masterpieces as **光宙** (*Pikachu*, meaning “shining space”) and **泡姫** (*Bubble Princess*,…

Honey, I Shrunk the Apartment—and the Shanghai Grandpas Approved! China’s new housing tax policy has landed, and the internet is already buzzing. Starting December 1, 2024, if your dream home is under 140 square meters, you’ll pay a cozy 1% deed tax—whether it’s your first home…

From Supplements to Scandals: Taisho’s Recipe for Disaster Taisho Pharmaceutical, the kings of ステマ (stealth marketing), have truly outdone themselves this time. The scandal is as clear as the lack of “PR” tags on their influencer posts. The setup? A marketing strategy so…

From Translation to Litigation: Powerbling’s New Core Business Powerbling: the undisputed champions of corporate irony. Picture this: a LinkedIn post so earnest, it could bring a tear to the eye of even the most cynical marketer. “Product Detail Pages are the heart of any…