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

"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

I prefer this season not as one of tinsel, lights and storefront carols, but rather as one of quiet — a season of soft-falling snow, a season of anticipation, a season of memories. In this season I am haunted by the memory of a Christmas past, that of my very first Christmas in Japan in 1976. And like the Dickens messenger from the shadows of distant youth, the ghost that I welcome is not unfriendly at all.

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."

She figured the last sight she would ever see would be that of a bear-sized American soldier chopping at her with a bayonet.

When I first came toJapan, I never thought I’d have to learn the language.