Skip to content

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Blog note

Since I’m such an irregular blogger, it doesn’t make much sense to announce that I won’t have internet access for about a week, so there won’t be any more posts until I’m back. But I’ll say it anyway for the sake of the few poor souls who do (misguidedly) keep checking in to see if […]

Of cats, blogs and imperial decrees

The story goes that in 19th century Japan most people had only given names. Then, during the Meiji Restoration, an imperial edict went out: everyone must, by law, have a family name. What to do? All over the nation, peasants looked around and named themselves after pretty much the first thing they saw that they […]