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Kadomatsu, New Year decoration in Japan
The period of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of January is called “Oshogatsu” in Japan. New Year’s Day is called “Gantan”, which means “the beginning of the day”. During Oshogatsu, families gather to celebrate the

Just like in so many other countries, Japanese kids look forward to the next day and are full of dreams when the time comes to go to bed on Christmas eve. In Japan too, “Santa” visits homes while children are

Japanese people have the reputation of being hard-working – and this is a fair assessment (that, alone, could be the subject of a few articles). But did you know that only 4 countries in the whole world (India with 21

Yet again, Japan has seen an increase in the number of tourists in 2015 (for more information on this, click here), but it does not rest on its laurels.
Surprisingly, despite its well-deserved high-tech reputation, Japan does not provide much in

Perspectives from a former Japanese language teacher, Masa (Counselor at MotivistJapan)
Once upon a time, years ago, I was a Japanese language teacher for foreign people. It was a really tough experience because students were from all over the world so they all had different

We often receive inquiries from people willing to study in Japanese universities. Our first reaction is to ask them: “How good are your Japanese language skills?”. Most often, the answer to that question is “I cannot speak Japanese”. Those aspiring