Uchikura & Co Blog
2026-09-02
6 Business Structures to Know Before Starting a Business in the U.S. Starting a business in the U.S. looks a little different than setting up a company in Japan. One of the most important things to ke...
2026-09-02
She Understood Social Presence Before Social Media When Fumiko Motoya was asked to run APA’s hotel division, she had no experience managing hotels. But perhaps that was her advantage. Instead o...
2026-09-02
Nagori — What Remains After Something Is GoneJapanese has a beautiful word: 名残 (nagori). Nagori describes something that remains after something else has ended or disappeared. But it is not simply ...
2026-09-01
The Railroad Company That Survived by Not Selling Train Tickets Choshi Electric Railway is a small railroad company in Chiba, Japan. But what makes it remarkable is not its trains. It is how the co...
2026-09-01
Same Characters, Different Order: 礼儀 and 儀礼Japanese has two interesting words: 礼儀 (reigi) and 儀礼 (girei). What makes them especially interesting is that they use exactly the same two kanji—礼 and 儀—...
2026-09-01
Nagatsuki — When Japan Looks Up at the Moon September has a beautiful traditional Japanese name: 長月 (Nagatsuki), commonly understood as “the month of long nights.” For Japanese people, September ...
2026-09-01
Why Does Japan Put the Family Name First? In Japanese, the family name traditionally comes before the given name. For example, 山田太郎 is Yamada Taro, not Taro Yamada. Why? One reason is that Ja...
2026-08-31
The Month When the Gods Leave JapanJapan has a month when the gods are said to disappear. The traditional Japanese name for the tenth lunar month is 神無月 (Kannazuki). The characters can be read lite...
2026-08-31
The Island Mentality Japanese has an interesting expression: 島国根性 (shimaguni konjo), literally “island-country mentality.” Japan is an island nation that developed for centuries with relatively l...
2026-08-30
I Had No Idea 💦 Meant THAT in EnglishI recently learned something surprising about emojis. In Japan, 💦 is commonly used to represent sweat, nervousness, embarrassment, or a feeling like, “Oops!” We...