The hardest thing I have ever done was to teach my own children English. Like with most international couples, my wife and I have secured dual citizenship for our kids, meaning that they themselves get to choose their nationality once they reach adulthood. Yet, long ago we realized that the choices we made for them when they were little would pave our son’s decisions. Emphasis on either language, we felt surely would point them in the direction of that culture.

If the old saw is correct and, "You are what you eat," then Takeru Kobayashi is a hot dog. In more ways than one. First, he is the brightest star in one of the world's fastest growing "sports" – competitive eating. And what he is most renowned for is his dominance of the "sports' " marquee event, Nathan's annual Fourth of July hot dog chow down in New York, an event he has won for six years running and where he once devoured 53 plus dogs in 12 minutes.

This Japan Times column from 2014 is about “stage fright,” not capybara. Yet, keep reading. I tie things together in the end. As for stage fright, I have suffered my share, especially when addressing groups in Japanese. At those times, I long to drop my text and dash for the door. And I am not alone. Many of my countrymen get the willies when speaking before groups, thus the stage fright nickname: the American disease. In my first few years in Japan, I was invited to speak of

Hello. My name is Tom Dillon and I am a tofuholic. Yes, I fork down tofu by the saucerload. I slice it and dice it into salads and dump it wholesale into sukiyaki. I spear it up from the misty depths of my miso soup and snarf the deep-fried variety like candy. When I raid the fridge late at night and find a tofu tub quivering in fear behind jars of jam and wrappings of "chikuwa," I offer no mercy.

Most of my Stateside family and friends have knowledge of Japan only as deep as what they see on TV. Which means they think I live my life in a dizzy world of ninja, yakuza and robots. And for the web-surfers out there, the impressions can be even dizzier. For have you read the news about Japan lately? I mean the "research" news — those tantalizing tech tidbits that pop up on Internet sites.

The concierge at my hotel had to ask me twice. "You want what?" "A bookstore," I said. Over my shoulder showed the never-sleeping glitz of the casino. "You want what?" she asked yet again. But then shook herself and said there had indeed been a bookstore on the strip in years past. Her pupils grew, as if she were gazing into history and the noble days of the Southern Paiutes. "But now you'll have to take a cab into the city." A notion I scoffed at.

"Hey… Get that!" A simple husband-to-wife request in what had been the hush of a peaceful weekend morning. "Get what?" she said. "What do you mean, 'Get what!?'" For at that moment our tea kettle was foaming at its metal mouth and peeping a tune so shrill it could both wake the dead and make them regret the experience. A screech I found I could only illustrate by adding a particular emphasis – by declaring that our about-to-burst kettle was… "Screaming like a banshee!"

The train roars on while the lost foreigner blinks at the map plastered above the door. It's a spider's web of crisscrosses that seems to blur the more that he stares. So, he girds himself and turns to the businessman standing alongside. "Excuse me? Do you speak English?" The man jumps, either with the shock of being approached or at a perceived slight to his education. "But of course!" The foreigner blurts his question. "Great! So what's the next station?" "Who-Wants-To-Know

I once overheard a teacher tell his students that to succeed in life all a person needed was a single clear focus. At that same time, I also had a friend who could talk like a duck. Somehow these two threads ran together for the quacky and quirky short story below.

Here's a fun fact to sweeten your life: The average Japanese consumes about 1.1 kg of chocolate per year. Meanwhile, your typical American gobbles down five times that amount -- which is still nothing compared to the 10 kg snarfed away by your average Swiss or German. The sugary hook on the modest Japanese figure is this: Sixty percent of the total consumption centers around one specific day. And what day is that?

"This month we cheer the Olympic team. Like this: 'Go for broke, Japan! Go for broke!'" She raises her arms and rattles her bracelets. The waiter glances our way and I signal for more wine. Urgently. She lowers her arms. "You don't like it? Why?" I gulp my wine. I have been here before. "Listen, Mariko, your dialog's fine. But people don't talk this way. No one screams, 'Go for broke' these days. Especially as a group. We'd just say, 'Go, Japan, go!' " She wrinkles her n

2014 is — according to the Chinese zodiac — the Year of the Horse. We thus celebrate the spin of the 12-year cycle. This is our year! "Well, they can take it back," she says. "I don't want it." Right. It's not like they give you anything. They don't hand you a golden key to the planet or a weekend pass to Disneyland, or even a packet of tissues. I could get that much at least with a quick trot around Shinjuku Station. The only thing you get is a horsey glow — that is, if y

She jiggled in blue-striped pajamas before the bathroom mirror. She looked a fright, a witch, a hag. Her eyes were packed in red, her hair a ratted ball, and her face sallow and lifeless and above all old! She stuck out her tongue. Of course, it was caked! She put a cold hand to her throat and said, “La, la, la…” The sounds croaked out. Oh she was sick! How could she possibly, possibly sing?

Meet "Father Smith" -- silver hair, gentle smile and a voice so mellow that it flows with a grace from beyond. Maybe there’s a God and maybe there isn't, but when you're with Father Smith, you tend to believe there is. There's just one thing. He's as phony as hell. "I'm an English teacher," he says. "I marry people at a hotel chapel on weekends. I wear the robes, a cross, the whole nine yards. Nobody knows. And nobody cares." He smiles his smile. "Except for maybe me."

"The reason I love zombies…" The speaker has skin the hue of a soft-shell taco. At his jaw line, the taco has been ripped away to expose bleeding gums and skeletal teeth. His right cheek has been chewed into hamburger, the bloody bulge of which keeps his loose eyeball from popping out and rolling across the floor. All of this make-up. I think. "…is that I hate them so much." Love? Hate? Zombies? Sounds like the perfect Halloween romance!

Heroes, in a mythological sense, always need a guide — a spiritual beacon to lead them safely through the dark forest of doubt and then onwards to face the twin pressures of fear and fate. "And for dinner," says my guide, "how about Hooters?" Hooters? And heroism? Not a likely match, but perhaps you sense my dilemma: How should I play my first visit to the land of hamburgers and hot pants? Should I go highbrow? Or low?

Yes, my fellow competitors... it's cockroach season. And the pressure to exterminate is on. First, if you've never had the pleasure of coming face to head with a Japanese roach, let me describe the enemy: They're big. They're ugly. They're bugs. What more do you need to know?

Smoke, as they say, gets in your eyes. Not to mention your clothes, hair, nose, lungs, taste buds, teeth, gums and (if you are a smoker) your pocketbook. Yet, this well-hammered health hazard remains Japan's vice of choice -- a pastime to die for. Literally.

The snake is perhaps more tacky than menacing. To others, it shows only my poor taste in decoration. To me, however, the snake symbolizes something beyond. It signifies the choice I made in opting to live my life in Japan. An eternal reminder that I am snake-bitten. "Get rid of it," says my son. I can't. The snake, in its evil coil, is a scaly link between my two homes, one here and one in the States. Which of these is "abroad," I can no longer say.

I was beachball-eyed with love. In fact, when we first met, I couldn't take my eyes off her. I pledged my devotion and we traveled everywhere together, merrily rolling over the hills and valleys of life. Rarely have I been so happy. Then -- slowly -- the years took their toll. She began to age. She lost the pep of her younger days. She lost some beauty too. She remained steadfast and responded eagerly to my every request, yet… I couldn't help it. My eyes began to wander.