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

"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

"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

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