Donald Ash is an Atlanta, Georgia-born, American expat who has been living in a Japanese time warp for the last eleven years. While in that time warp, he discovered that he absolutely loves writing, blogging, and sharing. Donald is the creator of thejapanguy.com blog. Wanna know more about this guy? Check out his "What's Your Story" page.
By Donald Ash | Learn Japanese
Anyone else a fan of samurai bad-asses? Well this guy is! This guy also happens to have a few drops of anime nerd in his bloodstream. So instead of picking up a shinai or donning kendo armor that I put outside in the summer as a sweat offering to the Japanese Gods of Stench, I […]
By Donald Ash | Learn Japanese
A common question I get here at the Japan Guy Blog is how to get started learning Japanese. It’s a HUGE question and it’s part of the reason I’ve been a bit absent lately (sorry to all the Japan Guy readers out there). But this is the book that got me started and I hope […]
By Donald Ash | Tales from Japan
Today we’re going to talk about the kancho game. As much as I wish I could say that Naruto, or some other cool anime, was my first exposure this game (Donnie’s bottom lip quivers) it wasn’t. My first kancho exposure was 100% live in an eikaiwa (English conversation school) hallway. Watch this video and listen […]
By Donald Ash | Japan Talk
Video Transcript Hey this is Donald with thejapanguy.com and this is Japan talk Session 2. In our last discussion we were talking about whether or not there was a pecking order among foreigners when it comes to workplace. This was gonna be a two-part series So with the second part I wanted to see: “Is […]
By Donald Ash | Japan Talk
Video Transcript Hey, this is Donald with the thejapanguy.com and welcome to the very first session of Japan Talk. Just really quick, what I want to do with this…the Japan Talk Videos, posts, etc. are gonna be purely about discussion: topics that may be a little bit touchy here in Japan, things that I read […]
By Donald Ash | Japanese Culture
Since coming here in 2008, I’ve gotten to have some downright fascinating discussions about Japanese culture and why certain aspects of the culture are the way they are. A subject that’s been discussed and rehashed, time and time again, is Japanese beauty. Before you call me a chauvinist and put my head on a spike, please […]
By Donald Ash | Japanese Cuisine
When you think of Japanese cuisine what food comes to mind? For many people, it’s sushi. What is sushi exactly? Sushi in its most basic form is a usually* cut of raw, hopefully fresh, fish laid on a small bed vinegared rice. Sushi can also be a small cut of raw fish wrapped into a […]