Tag Archives: haafu

Ten Years of Taking Leave


Looking back, it’s amazing to me now that I dared to even apply for a year of paternity leave while living in a foreign country. But I’ve never regretted the decision. As I told an audience of university students and … Continue reading

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The Joy of Reading


We were eager to have books readily available for our kids…and not just available, but in a location where the kids could choose the books they wanted, when they wanted. So we arranged for the cubbyhole built into the staircase in the living room, and we had two small bookcases put into the kids’ play room.

It was up to us to provide the materials… Continue reading

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On the Pond


This past Sunday, my wife, daughter, and I joined in an outdoor barbecue at a prefectural park originally built for a Japanese emperor. Sounds impressive, I guess…Taisho Tenno wasn’t a particularly long-lived emperor by modern standards, and was in poor … Continue reading

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