Blog Posts for Wendy Nelson Tokunaga

Reading Your Writing Out Loud

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:45:35 -0700

Reading Your Writing Out Loud Today I’m preparing for my reading tonight at LitQuake’s LitCrawl. I’ll be reading from my forthcoming novel, Love in Translation, and I’m excited to be a part of this great literary tradition in San Francisco. We only have 5-6 minutes to read and this makes total sense; it’s hard for an audience to concentrate on a passage much longer than this, ...

New People J-Pop Mall in San Francisco's Japantown

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:47:56 -0700

New People J-Pop Mall in San Francisco's Japantown I visited the new New People mall in San Francisco’s Japantown a few days after its grand opening the weekend of August 16. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a sucker for Japantown’s, Little Tokyo’s, Japanese malls, stores, urants, etc. located anywhere outside of Japan. I’ve found them in Paris (in the Opera district) and ...

Tokyo and Japan on the Cheap, Everything You've Always Wanted to Know About Otaku

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:46:01 -0700

Chirashi Roundup You can give me twenty lashes with a wet udon noodle if you wish, but I sure find it difficult to keep up with writing a blog with any amount of consistency. So I’m trying kind of a different format, which may allow me to post with a little more frequency.I ran across this article in my hometown newspaper, The San Francisco Chronicle, which has some good tips for traveling ...

Interview with Todd Shimoda, Author of Oh!: A Mystery of Mono no Aware

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:45:16 -0700

Oh! A Mystery of Mono no Aware - by Todd Shimoda Todd Shimoda’s latest novel, Oh!: A Mystery of Mono no Aware, published by Chin Music Press, is a fascinating and compelling book that weaves themes of both traditional and modern Japanese culture. You’ll be drawn in by Shimoda’s spare but elegant prose, which reminds me of the writing style of Haruki Murakami.The protagonist of Oh!, Zack ...

Crazy for Kanji

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:35:03 -0700

Crazy for Kanji When I first started studying Japanese years ago, I became immersed in learning the written language, from hiragana and katakana (the phonetic language systems) to the actual characters—the kanji. And Celeste Duncan, the protagonist in my forthcoming novel, Love in Translation, also discovers an inexplicable connection to kanji once she finds herself in Tokyo.No one, though, ...

Interview with Jaimal Yogis, Author of Saltwater Buddha

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 11:01:34 -0700

Saltwater Buddha - by Jaimal Yogis You don’t have to be a surfer or a Buddhist to enjoy Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer’s Quest to Find Zen on the Sea. This coming-of-age memoir by San Francisco-based journalist Jaimal Yogis, with its crisp, clean prose and delightful self-deprecating tone, will pull in any reader who has ever yearned to learn something new as well as garner some spiritual ...

SMAP Star Arrested for Public Indecency

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:32:41 -0700

SMAP Star Arrested for Public Indecency The Japan Times reports that Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, member of the long-time J-pop group SMAP, was arrested by police after being found naked and drunk in Hinokicho Park around 3:00 am. The park is close by the 34-year-old’s Roppongi apartment in the la-dee-dah Tokyo Midtown complex. Beforehand he’d been drinking with two friends in Akasaka. He ...

Japan's Biggest Export

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:39:11 -0700

Japan's Biggest Export It’s official. Japan is no longer the dominant exporter of electronics and cars, but of its popular culture. Despite the economic downturn, conventions promoting Japanese pop culture are making more money than ever. Ronald Kelts, author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S., reports in the Daily Yomiuri that Seattle’s Sakura-con boasted ...

LOVE IN TRANSLATION -- The Cover

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 12:07:24 -0700

The cover art for LOVE IN TRANSLATION is here and I couldn't be more pleased. The book comes out on November 24, 2009. Yay!

The Cat Cafes of Tokyo

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:59:24 -0700

According to the Global Post, cat cafes are all the rage in Tokyo. Japanese love their nekos (cats) and cafes with names like Nekorobi, Cat Cafe Rien, Calico, and Cateriam are springing up all over. They’re perfect if you work long hours, have to be away a lot on business or live in an apartment that forbids pets, but need some feline companionship to keep you happy. It’s not free to ...