The Japanese celebrate New Year's Day on January 1 each year. Before 1873, the date of the Japanese New Year (正月, shōgatsu?) was based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar and celebrated at the beginning of Spring, just as the contemporary Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese New Years are celebrated to this day. However, in 1873, five years after the Meiji Restoration, Japan adopted the Catholic Gregorian calendar, so the first day of January is the official New Year's Day in modern Japan. It is considered by most Japanese to be one of the most important annual festivals and has been celebrated for centuries with its own unique customs.

Recently in Japan, a group of scientists at the Japanese National Food Research Institute led by Nobuya Shirai turned their attention to snake oil as well. In 2002, in Fisheries Science, they evaluated the composition of oil from the Erabu sea snake—the source of snake oil in traditional Chinese medicine.

Bento is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. Bento can be very elaborate, aesthetically pleasing cuisine arrangements. Often the food is arranged in such a way as to resemble other objects: dolls, flo

This is Kushikatsu, the traditional Deep Fried food that famous in Japan especially in Osaka (as Street Food) in miniature sized, attached the strap. The detail is really amazing, from the photo, it’s really make the hungry people drooling.

The largest study examining the relationship between the traditional soy-rich Japanese diet and development of prostate cancer in Japanese men has come to a seemingly contradictory conclusion: intake of isoflavone chemicals, derived largely from soy foods, decreased the risk of localized prostate cancer but increased the risk of advanced prost[...]

MSU's Asian Studies Center hosted its annual Japanese picnic, featuring traditional food, music and martial arts . Video included at www.SpartanEdge.com