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Jessica Kozuka

Jessica Kozuka is a freelance writer and editor living in the exciting, interesting and sometimes perplexing city of Tokyo. Her work has appeared in Wine Spectator, CNN Travel, and The Japan Times, as well as numerous other print and online media outlets. She writes a column on NPO/NGOs and volunteer work for Metropolis, the largest English-language magazine in Japan, and specializes in EFL educational materials and travel writing. Kozuka is rarely to be found without a book or two within arm’s reach, though there's no telling if they will be serious literature or frivolous guilty pleasures, and she runs a monthly book club for other bibliophiles in the Tokyo area. She's also an enthusiastic if mediocre cook and daily laments the smallness of Japanese kitchens.

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Posted by Jessica (Page 13)

Forget Google: Head-Scratching Questions from Japanese Job Interviews

April marks the beginning of a new fiscal year in Japan, bringing with it the season for job hunting. Of course, that means interviews. NicoNico News wondered what interview questions might be lying in wait for the unsuspecting, so they sent out a questionnaire to 1000 businesspeople to hear what questions had stumped them in the past. Here are some of the best, from the truly bizarre to the especially thought-provoking. Read More

In the port town of Numazu in Shizuoka Prefecture, a very strange festival is held each April. The local fisherman don women’s clothes, board brightly decorated fishing vessels, and make the boats “dance” around the bay, all while singing and dancing on deck for the spectators. The tradition is said to bring safe seas and good catches to the town. Or curious tourists, at the very least. Read More

Six Things I Learned at Tokyo’s “Food and Bev Expo”

This week, a major food and drink expo was held in Tokyo’s Odaiba area called The World Food and Beverage Great Expo 2013. It’s actually a combination of six different events, including a dessert and wine fair. With hundreds of exhibitors from Japan and abroad showing off their latest and tastiest concoctions, we decided to check it out and see how many free samples we could gobble up. Here’s what we learned. Read More

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Ah, elementary school! The carefree days of youth when my biggest concerns were the ingredients in the cafeteria’s “special” lunch and whether the boy sitting next to me did, in fact, have cooties. Sure, those concerns seemed weighty at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight, I know those were halcyon days indeed.

At the risk of sounding like a old crank, I have to wonder if young girls today are missing out on those years of blissful ignorance. A new book, published here in Japan, suggests that the weight of the world may be falling on the shoulders of elementary school girls much earlier than it did for girls of my generation.

Being a Girl collects a variety of concerns expressed by elementary school girls and offers advice from doctors and other specialists, and you might be surprised what secret worries burden young girls’ hearts. Read More

Lifehack for Cooks: How to Remove Garlic Skins Quickly and Cleanly

Ah, garlic. It’s so fragrant and delicious. These days, cooks are using fresh garlic even for everyday dishes because it’s just so tasty and relatively easy to use. There’s just one small problem: getting that papery skin off the clove without ending up with bits of it all over the kitchen! More people would probably use that delicious, delicious garlic if it didn’t make such a mess.

No need to worry about that any more, though, because we’ve discovered a simple tip that will remove those pesky skins cleanly and easily. Read on to discover how. Read More

Corn Soup, Robots and Pheromones: Strange New Beauty Product Hits Japanese Shelves

We’ve covered the Japanese obsession with corn soup here on RocketNews24 before. It’s a popular flavor for all kinds of snacks and even comes in little cans out of vending machines. But this latest corn soup product might be taking the obsession a bit too far…

LC Love Cosmetics has announced it will be selling a product billed as a “kiss beautifying liquid” that is supposed to give you extra kissablity by adding the taste of corn soup to your lips. Read More

Japan’s Newest Fashion Trend: Dressing Like a Zen Priest?

Bon, a fashion house from Hiroshima, Japan, has been creating some buzz on the Internet. What for, you ask? Well, it turns out their clothing, actually intended for fashion-forward Zen priests, is being bought be regular Joes–er, Juns?–as well. Which leads us to ask: what the hell do fashion-forward priests even wear?!

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On the Japanese TV show Nep & Imoto’s World Rankings, they conduct surveys to rate countries by random attributes. For example, recent shows have ranked everything from how common it is to cry at graduation ceremonies to the number of shotgun weddings and frequency of cellphone checking.

Another ranking that has generated some chatter in Japan was one people’s tendency to lie, which ranked … countries in accordance to how likely they were to bend the truth.

So where do you think Japan came in? Read More

Auntie Power: Japan’s Older Women Form “Obachan” Party

In Japanese, obachan is a word that means aunt, but is sometimes used to refer to a middle-aged or elderly woman in a derogatory way. There is no good translation in English, but the image is of an eccentric, loud, irritating busybody long past youth or beauty. Not many women would choose to apply this word to themselves, but a new political party has emerged out of Osaka that is proudly claiming ownership of the word and attempting to reform the image of Japan’s obachans. We went to find out more about this All Japan Obasan Party. Read More

To mark the second anniversary of the March 11 disaster, student volunteers in Vancouver spent two days dealing with the lingering effects. They collected more than 40 large trash bags of tsunami debris that has been littering beaches on Vancouver Island’s Pacific Rim National Park. Read More

A while back, we reported that Tokyo Disneyland had agreed to offer its wedding packages to same-sex couples in Japan. This month, the very same lesbian couple that encouraged the company to do so became the first to get hitched at the park, with Mickey and Minnie in attendance, of course. Read More

It’s famously said that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and while that may be true, you can at least get some of the ingredients without laying down a penny. We check out a new website that claims to offer free produce, straight from the farmer to you. Swag!
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Get Your Delicious Indigenous Grub on at Tokyo’s Only Ainu Restaurant

Even Japanese who have never been to Okinawa have probably eaten Okinawan food at one time or another due to the spread and popularity of Okinawan restaurants across the country.

The same unfortunately cannot be said for the food of Japan’s northern indigenous people, the Ainu. Even in cosmopolitan Tokyo, there is only one restaurant serving Ainu cuisine. Thankfully, though, the chefs at this restaurants are true masters of the art. Let us introduce HaruKor! Read More

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Kutaniyaki, or Kutani ware, is a style of porcelain making that dates back to the 17th Century. It’s known for its bold colors and designs, but one company is taking the traditional form in a decidedly modern direction with its new series of Kutaniyaki Skulls. Read More

It’s considered common knowledge that cats hate water, but recently YouTube has been awash (get it?) with cats enjoying their bath time. In this latest addition, kitten Hana-chan experiences a bath for the first time, displaying the range of expression with normally associate with Hollywood’s finest. Check out her journey from terror to bliss after the jump! Read More

Japanese are generally perceived as being particularly fastidious when it comes to bodily cleanliness, what with the special toilet slippers and showering before getting in the bath and all. But it turns out that doesn’t keep some of them from engaging in a much debated activity: peeing in the shower. Read More

Interspecies Love Story: Dog and Wounded Bird Become BFFs

Five years ago, a dog and bird met for the first time, and they’ve been inseparable ever since. Here is their story. Read More

According to a study conducted by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, about half of unmarried women report that they are not dating anyone with any serious intent. Why are so many available ladies completely unattached? Could it be that they just don’t see the appeal of having a partner? Or conversely, maybe they are holding out for an unrealistic Prince Charming.

Goo Rankings decided to look into the issue and asked the single ladies what they would ideally want a boyfriend to do for them, if they had one. The surprising answers after the break: Read More

Consumers are always hoping to get more than they paid for products and services, but in reality, the reverse is just as common. We’ve all been suckered in by a wily shopkeeper at one point or another, but what knowledge and preparation can we arm ourselves with to avoid being taken advantage of?

There are a bounty of goods and services available to us, all of which are marketed with beguiling strategies. Some of them will be such good values our hearts will delight in our own cleverness, while others will simply satisfy with their averageness. Of course, the remaining products, for all their appeal, will be deeply disappointing. Maybe billionaires can just spend for the joy of spending without worrying if something is really a good value, but for common people like  you and me, making a poor decision can impact our wallets and our self-esteem for a long time to come.

In the hope of protecting their readers from it, Japanese weekly magazine SPA! has set out to discover what exactly is behind this buyer’s remorse in all its complex forms. Read More

Make Tracks to Tokyo’s Train Bars

There are train hobbyists and then there are train hobbyists. Japan’s particular breed of railway aficionados are referred to by the somewhat-affectionate term densha otaku, or train nerds, and are famous for feats like memorizing complex, phonebook-size timetables or visiting every single one of the country’s almost 10,000 stations.

Of course, when they aren’t trying to increase their encyclopedic knowledge of all things rail-related, they are out looking for like-minded people to impress with it. As it turns out, Tokyo offers the densha otaku a wide selection of appropriate watering holes, or perhaps we should call them bar cars. So grab your subway map and let’s go see this elusive creature in his natural habitat. Read More

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