“There’s a beautiful, beautiful goddess in the toilet. Clean it every day, and you’ll be beautiful like the goddess.”

I was blown away when my son told me he wanted to do his sixth grade research project on Japan’s human torpedoes, the manned missiles that crashed themselves into enemy ships toward the end of World War II.

Racial profiling had never struck me as a personal issue.

The drizzly weather didn’t dampen the excitement at the annual spring imperial party last month as the royal family strolled along Tokyo’s Akasaka Palace grounds.

The postcard-sized paper my son brought home from school had four imposing Chinese characters written vertically down the middle.

When I e-mailed a school mother to congratulate her on her daughter’s prize-winning report, she wrote back that she didn’t know anything about it.

As I gazed up enthralled at the ornate, pink columns in the ancient city of Petra, I heard the annoying chant again: “Chi chi no cement.”

“Herbivorous men,” “fast fashion” and a “change of government.”

Clean, fast and punctual, Japan’s rail system is normally a pleasure to ride.

"In America, don't lay even a finger on anyone," I tell my 10-year-old son as I pack his bags for summer camp in the U.S.

My brother peered into the coffin lined with dry ice and tugged at the sheet of gauze that had frozen onto my grandmother’s cheek. “Let me do it,” I said, pulling the cloth away with the sound of tearing Velcro.

If sound travels 331 meters per second in zero degrees Celsius, and the speed increases 0.6 meters as the temperature increases by one degree, what is the distance between a person and lightning if the person hears the bolt 5 seconds after he sees the lightening in 5 degrees Celsius?

As I plan our spring vacation, I’m dreading how much homework my 8-year-old son will have.

I witnessed a bizarre scene at my son’s primary school earlier this year. A dozen or so school mothers had encircled a teacher and were bowing deeply.

I was about to write down my age on a ski-class form earlier this year when I sensed an eagle eye peering over my shoulder.

Every day in Japan I face etiquette dilemmas.

When I picked up my son Yataro last spring after his ski camp, the train station was abuzz with children talking about who got which certificate.

Pity the lonely Japanese salaryman, or white-collar worker, who wrote that ode to his electrically warmed commode.

Despite some predictions that Chinese will become the next worldwide lingua franca, the acceptance of English as the global language, spurred by the spread of the Internet, is here to stay.

Today is Thursday, so I meet my 7-year-old son after school at the bus stop and nag him to walk home quickly so we can make it to soccer practice on time.