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Culture — Life in Japan

  • culture/ Jun 30, 2026

    Through the Ring of Grass

    A ring of woven grass, a paper stand-in, and a culture that schedules its mid-year reset for 30 June.

    A curving arc of a large ring woven from cogon grass, its strands drying from green to pale straw, against the soft grey light of an overcast morning.
  • culture/ Jun 16, 2026

    The Other National Sport

    How football built itself a home in a generation — borrowed name, hometown clubs, and a national team that lives abroad.

    A worn, scuffed leather football resting against a white net on grass.
  • culture/ May 21, 2026

    Three Days of Noise

    If Kyoto's Aoi is a whisper, Tokyo's Sanja is a shout — the few sanctioned days a restrained society lets itself be deafening.

    A gilded phoenix figure with spread wings perched atop a black-and-gold, rope-bound portable shrine.
  • culture/ May 18, 2026

    Reading the Banzuke

    A systems guide to sumo, read off its ranking sheet: how one calligraphic page encodes the entire hierarchy.

    A close view of the straw boundary rope and white sand line on a sand-coloured sumo ring.
  • culture/ Apr 30, 2026

    The Great Migration

    Four holidays nobody thinks about, a whole country on the move at once, and a returnee weighing collective rest against the kind she chose.

    A silver hard-shell suitcase standing in a dim entryway, viewed through a partly open sliding door.