Living with Japan

Editorial policy

Living with Japan is written with AI. What makes it worth reading is the part AI cannot supply: one person in Japan saying what their kitchen actually holds, and why.

Who is behind it

The site is edited by Shota Ando in Yokohama, Japan. There is no newsroom and no team of human writers.

How an article is made

  1. Questions. For each topic we write down what a home cook abroad would want to know, and what only someone living in Japan can answer.
  2. A recorded conversation. Shota answers those questions in a dialogue session. Each answer becomes a dated note, saying whether it is something Shota has done, has seen around them, or simply thinks.
  3. Approval. Shota checks each note before it can appear. The site will not publish an article while any of its notes is unapproved.
  4. Drafting. AI (Claude) drafts the article around those notes, and adds background facts from published sources.
  5. Checks. Every published fact links to its source. Each article lists its sources at the end, what each one was used for, and the date we last opened it and checked it against the text.

What counts as first-hand

Only the boxes marked "From our editor in Japan" are first-hand. They are Shota's words, shortened and translated, with the date of the conversation. When a note is an opinion or a rough impression rather than experience, it is labelled as the editor's view.

AI does not invent experience, reviews, ratings, prices or quotes. If we have not asked Shota something, the article does not pretend to know.

Articles link to Amazon searches, placed next to the passage they relate to. They are searches, not single products, because we have not tested the listings: each link says what to look for, and you check the listing against that.

We choose what to search for from what the article says Japanese homes use, not from commission. Today they are plain links. Once we join the Amazon Associates programme, each block will be labelled as advertising. See Privacy.

Photos

We would rather show no photo than a misleading one. Photos will be our own, taken in our editor's kitchen, or openly licensed and credited with their author, licence and any changes we made. We do not use AI-generated images of products or kitchens.

Corrections

If something is wrong or out of date, email . We fix the text, recheck its sources and update the dates shown under the title.