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Website Reviews
Web Guide Monthly magazine
Website reviews on Japanese culture sites
Japanese culture is as singular as the wildlife in the Gallapagos. During the hundreds of years that Japan was cut off from foreign influences, it developed unique traditions at which foreigners continue to marvel. I've enjoyed writing about various aspects of Japanese culture, including this piece which discusses some of the best websites in the field.
Japanese Culture (1998)
The Net is teeming with information to help English-only surfers learn about Japanese culture and society. An excellent starting point for exploring any facet of modern Japanese life is the Japan Information Network (JIN) at http://www.jinjapan.org/index.html. Its Japan of Today section has dozens of articles on business, society, culture, etc., and each is full of facts and statistics. For example, an article on working women in Japan offers a coherent overview as well as charts showing female employees by marital status; female employees (5-year age groups); number of female part-time workers; hourly earnings of female part-time workers; and an international comparison of female employees by industry. And that's relatively scanty treatment -- a topic like Sports and Leisure has over 30 charts!
JIN has other excellent features, too. A clickable map of Japan will help you find information about different localities. The Japan Insight section has in-depth essays about various trends in Japanese society, including the aging of the population, the employment situation, and urbanization. JlN's Japan Directory contains contact information for thousands of Japanese organizations. There's also Kids Web Japan that gives children a real sense of what it might be like to grow up in Japan. JlN is a handsome site that's easy to navigate and has fast links.
One section of JIN that might prove a bit disappointing, however, is the Japan Web Navigator. While it has hundreds of links to Japan-related sites, many of these are Japanese-only resources. A more useful directory for the English-only surfer is TN's Japan Related Web links (http://www.panix.com/-tn/japan.html), which has over 2,000 links, most of them in English. There's nothing fancy about this site; indeed, it's pretty much just a laundry list -- but an unusually comprehensive one. The top link on the home page is a helpful List of Web Lists that contains still more Web directories to explore.
If you're hungry for tastier fare, you're ready to visit the Tokyo Food Page (http://www.twics.com/~robbs/tokyofood.html). If you enjoy armchair travel, accompany The Culinary Explorer to Japan's micro breweries, the Shin Yokohama Ramen Museum, and the Katsunuma Wine Cave. A trip to the food floor of a Tokyo department store will bring back pleasant memories for anyone who has scavenged lunch, er, tried out the samples at Mitsukoshi or Seibu. The Sushi Multimedia Page is a bit lame, with its sounds of green tea being poured (gurgle, gurgle) and chopsticks being split apart (crack!). Still, no harm done, and the files are blessedly short for downloading.
Move on to the Japanese Specialty Cuisine section, where you can read up on nabemono (Japanese stews), unagi (grilled eel), tempura, yakitori (grilled chicken), okonomiyaki (savory pancakes), and oden (fish cake stew). For each dish, there's a discussion of its history, preparation, and how to order it in restaurants. The creators have thoughtfully included the names of the "set meals" in Japanese restaurants and what they consist of. For example, "tendon" is "tempura-fried prawns over rice." If you'd rather stay home and make it yourself, you'll find directions in the Recipe Collection. Try out takoyaki (octopus balls), chawan-mushi (egg custard), and natto (fermented beans). There's also over 200 detailed listings of Where to Eat in Tokyo, which are by no means limited to just Japanese foods (had any Nepalese lately?). Finally, be sure to visit the Resources & Web Links section, which is crammed with other excellent food sites.
With all this eating, your waistline may be expanding substantially. If you want to feel (comparatively) skinny, check out SumoWeb! (http://www.sumoweb.com). Visitors will find the day-by-day results of the latest tournament, along with a brisk commentary. Beginners can read up on all the basics in the Spectator section. Still have questions? It's probably archived among the dozens of Q&As provided by the Sumo Guru, but if not, go
ahead and ask her yourself (that's right, it's a her). There's also a wide-ranging glossary, stats on the wrestlers, and a good number of additional resources, both on and off the Web.
SumoWeb! and all of the other sites listed here are mostly or entirely in English. But eventually you're going to land on some sites filled with gobbledygook symbols -- that's Japanese text waiting to be decoded. If you want to see the Japanese, you'll need some additional software. For some advice on how to go about finding it, point your browser to Kanji's Home Page (http://home.earthlink.net/-haitani/). Scroll down the home page a bit, and you'll see links to shareware programs and demos that will do the job. Webmaster Kanji Haitani also provides a useful discussion of how to read, write, receive, and send
Japanese e-mail messages over the Internet, CompuServe, AOL, etc. He has lots of links to Japanese computer-related sites too.
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