Audrey Akcasu

Audrey was born in Michigan, raised in Los Angeles but has felt most at home in Nagasaki, Japan. While teaching English in Omura, she discovered her love of nature, the countryside and ultimately Japan. When not working on her black belt in Ryukyu karate, or mastering her Nagasaki dialect, she wrote for and ran the English language magazine Nagazasshi. She loves traveling, frolicking all over Japan and Asia (with a few stints in Africa and Europe). But her best trip to date was her two-and-a-half weeks hitchhiking from Nagasaki to Aomori. Although she has relocated back to the States, she will probably be out the door to somewhere new in no time. Until then she’s enjoying the great outdoors and the bugs that come with it, doing anything from running to rafting, although her current "boom" is rock climbing.

Posted by Audrey Akcasu (Page 3)

We ask Japanese people about their favorite aspects of eight different cultures

We often hear about foreigners’ favorite parts of Japanese culture, like trains running on time and unparalleled customer service, but it’s not every day that we hear from Japanese people about their favorite parts of foreign cultures.

With that in mind, one of RocketNews24’s Japanese-language writers decided to interview a few well-traveled Japanese people and hear some of their favorite aspects of the different cultures they’ve experienced and how they compare to their own.

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Buildings transform into giant robots in Japanese real estate company’s anime commercial【Video】

When was the last time you sat down to watch a YouTube video by a real estate company? We’re going to assume never, because who even knew that real estate companies had YouTube accounts?

Japan’s Mitsui Real Estate Residential, however, not only has a YouTube account, but their recently posted video is becoming wildly popular. The company managed to combine their housing expertise with the fail-safe giant robot genre to create a short animated series about apartment buildings that transform into giant robots!

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Parental advice not always as astute as we’d like to believe: Japanese netizens share

Often, in hard times, kids turn to their parents for guidance and advice. While we’d like to believe that our parents are always full of wisdom, sometimes the advice we get is not quite what we were seeking.

Thanks to the Internet, people can share the great (or not so great) advice they receive from their parents with the rest of the world. Today we bring you a collection of Japanese parental advice with varying degrees of usefulness and entertainment.

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Boy sends granny packing as she attempts to steal a kiss 【Video】

Many teenage boys daydream about some beautiful older woman planting her red lips on their own, but one young man in China found himself the recipient of unwanted advances recently, when a woman old enough to be his grandmother appeared to go in for a kiss while the two of them stood alone in an elevator.

Thankfully, the young man knew exactly how to respond.

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The Snack Poster: Illustrations to spread the love for authentic Japanese foods

For those unaccustomed to Japanese food, even the most common edibles may seem quite odd and, well, unappetizing, at first glance. The first time you saw monjayaki, did you not think it looked a little…weird? Of course, not all Japanese cuisine is unappealing to the eyes, but even the delicious-looking food is still not widely known throughout the Western world.

A California-based Japanese food blogger is trying to change that. Gaining momentum from the success of her Ramen Poster, artist Fanny has come up with another hand-drawn infographic displaying some of her favorite Japanese street foods and snacks: The Snack Poster.

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It must be love: Korean couple make dramatic body transformations in just five months

Want to go from flabby to body builder in five months? Yeah, who doesn’t, right? It may seem to be an impossible feat, but one couple in Korea did it and they are loving life. The couple’s transformation from on-the-chubby-side to bodybuilding not only changed their appearance, but also made them famous. Think it’s too impressive to be real? Check out the photos below!

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Chinese employees publicly thank their boss for giving them work

When was the last time you thanked your teachers for giving you homework or your boss for piling on the work? Probably never, right? A group of employees in China did something crazy last week, publicly thanking their higher-ups for giving them work.

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“I can’t believe I ate this!” American kids try nigiri sushi for the first time 【Video】

Believe it or not, sushi has been available in the US since the 1960s. In fact, the first American sushi restaurant opened in 1966 in Los Angeles. But while sushi is booming now, it took some time to really take off in the States and still isn’t necessarily a family-friendly dining option, with many kids (and adults) not so keen on eating the raw fish delicacy.

REACT, a light-hearted YouTube channel featuring kids, teens, and older adults reacting to a variety of things, recently released Kids vs. Food – SUSHI, a video showing a few American kids trying some popular nigiri sushi and some of these Japanese favorites didn’t all sit well with the kiddos.

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Talk about slowpokes…New Pokemon, Yadon’s official debut song finally released in English

What’s better than Pokémon? Music videos about Pokémon! Last year, the Pokémon higher-ups in Japan released an official theme song and video for Yadon (Slowpoke, in English), the lethargic, sleepy, pink Pokémon. The Japanese song, Donaiyanen Yadon, was made to celebrate the Pokémon Center’s Facebook page and is charming, if not hypnotic.

Apparently, though, Yadon’s sluggishness is contagious and spread to the Pokémon Center’s translation team, because the translation of the psychedelic-reggae song was not released until a solid year after people started grooving to the original. But we’re happy to say: The English version is finally here in all of its bizarre glory.

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GAX-G1, the inside out umbrella that may have just revolutionized the age-old tool【Video】

Umbrellas have been around for a very, very long time. The oldest record of a collapsible umbrella dates back to 21 A.D. in ancient China. While that in itself is pretty crazy, what’s even crazier is that the core design hasn’t really changed.

Never say never, though! A Japanese company has recently released an umbrella that is backwards to any umbrella you’ve seen before…literally.

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New anime-style mascot character for Taipei government is an out-of-this-world cutie

It seems to be that moe girls, those cute, sometimes slightly sexualized, doe-eyed animated characters, have spread from their origin in Japan throughout Asia. Not only have we seen them being used to mock government initiatives in Indonesia. In Taiwan, they’ve been employed extensively as subway mascots, and now the Department of Technology in Taipei has joined the moe bandwagon with 230-chan.

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A hoodie that transforms into a travel neck pillow just made our Christmas wish-list

Traveling can be brutal, whether it’s by plane, train or car. It’s so hard to find a comfy way to snooze when you’re surrounded by strangers and your neck is left unsupported, wobbling to and fro. I for one, always thought those neck pillows were silly, until I tried one, at which point I swore never to leave home without one, that is, until I realized how cumbersome they are to carry around and how ineffective the space-saving, inflatable ones are.

But never fear, fellow travelers! A Japanese clothing start-up, Monogatari Project, has come up with the perfect solution: A hoodie that can be rolled up into the perfect neck pillow.

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Women in Tokyo are cutting through stress and fat with this new “Katana Exercise” class

There’s a growing fitness trend in Tokyo, but it’s nothing new really, being based on age-old traditions: Katana Exercise.

Not only will you be taught to swing a sword like a samurai by a handsome teacher, but you’ll cut out stress and extra fat. Check out our hands-on experience of the class after the jump!

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Japan Feelings: Foreigners let us in on their loves and qualms about Japan 【Video】

Visiting Japan is one thing, but living there can be something completely different. When many people first visit the country, they get the oohs and aahs of the bright lights in Tokyo and the cultural experience of Kyoto, with plenty of temples, shrines and good food along the way, and by no means is that a bad way to do it! However, you there are some things about Japan that might not sink in during just a brief visit. Living in the country is a unique experience in both awesome and frustrating ways; there may be times when you never want to leave, yet times you feel far from home.

A recently released video gets into some of these complex feelings of foreigners living in Japan in the aptly titled video: Japan Feelings.

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Artist strikes back at Indonesian government’s Internet censorship with parodic moe character

If you’re in Indonesia and trying to view some lewd content on the Internet, it will most likely be blocked. Strict Internet content regulations have been an area of controversy for some time in the country, but a recent development has put a new spin – and a new face – on the fight against governmental censorship.

Ipo-chan is a moe anthropomorphism of the Indonesian Ministry of Communication’s web-filtering service, “Internet Postif”. She’s cute, she looks tough, and she’s becoming so much more than the embodiment of Internet police.

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5 discriminatory interview questions employers in Japan are no longer allowed to ask

For many young people in Japan, August means summer vacation, festivals and free time. For fourth-year university students however, it means time to start interviewing for jobs. The job-hunting process in Japan is long, grueling and very systematic, culminating in interview after interview for the jobless, soon-to-graduate, young adults.

Interviews can be nerve-wracking for even the most experienced candidates, but Japanese companies don’t always ask the most predictable questions. In fact, some of their questions can be downright weird. Many of these oddball interview questions, however, may not actually be legal.

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WikiLeaks reveals US spied on Japanese government and corporations for at least three years

Uh-oh, looks like the political relationship between the US and Japan may get a little shaky as whistleblower organization WikiLeaks has exposed America’s three-year surveillance of the Japanese government, major industries and banks. Even worse, it looks like the US may have also shared their collected info with other countries.

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Top 10 acts of customer service that Japanese men would rather do without

In Japan customer service can be pretty unreal. Little things like taxi doors opening or closing automatically and complimentary reading glasses at check-out counters are harmless and go unnoticed by many locals, and are probably under-appreciated. Sometimes, however, the desire to please the customer and attend to their every need is a little over the top and some people find it just down-right annoying. 

Online research group iResearch surveyed a group of 200 male 20-somethings for their thoughts on “Which services do you secretly wish people would stop providing?” Some of the results are pretty understandable, but some of them make you wonder if the guys surveyed just hate people in general!

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Cats hate getting their teeth brushed, but it’s important…and they look so cute getting it done!

Cats are the stars of millions of the pictures and videos that we humans enjoy day in, day out. Like human celebrities, our cats need to be pampered and get their health needs met so they look and feel their best.

The cats themselves may not always be on board, however, especially for teeth cleanings. While we’re finding out that brushing cats’ teeth is exceedingly important, we’re also realizing that no matter how pissed they are about it, they maintain their cute-factor.

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Many teenage boys and young men across Japan were probably sitting at the edge of their seats waiting for July 20. That day marked the release of a special DVD featuring photographs of the idol turned TV super-hero Suzuka Morita as she leaves behind her yellow ranger outfit for some skimpy bikinis.

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