What’s with the name? You’re not going try to tell us it’s a reference to George Bernard Shaw’s 1903 play Man and Superman, are you? Or to the philosophical source material for that play, the “Superman” or “Übermensch” that philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote of in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra?

Huh. I didn’t even know about that stuff.

Where and what is a Fukui?

Go ahead, laugh. You aren’t the first, and you surely won’t be the last. (For the record, it’s pronounced fuh-kūwee.) In strictly geographic terms, it’s at 30°03′57″ North, 136°13′126″ East. Elevation: 34 feet, tops. Metaphysically, it’s something else altogether. Roughly 10 miles from the Sea of Japan, Fukui City is the capital of the otherwise invisible prefecture of Fukui, Japan. Bombed into smithereens by American forces during World War II, Fukui’s only remaining tokens of pre-war history are its name and the mossy stone walls of a battered castle in the industrial city’s center, now home to a clutch of nondescript office buildings. If you swoon at the sight of endless industrial sprawl pockmarked by parking lots, rice fields, decaying Communist-inspired architecture, and a ubiquitous stubble of unburied power lines, then Fukui’s the spot for you.

What’s a “gaijin”?

Gaijin (guy-jeen) is the Japanese word for non-Asian foreigners. It’s not the politest way to refer to a non-Japanese person living in Japan, but neither does it cross into ethnic slur territory. Really, there aren’t enough non-native racial minorities here for anyone to have invented an ethnic slur for them. Native Japanese make up something like 99.5 percent of the population. There’s an old Japanese maxim: “To see one gaijin is a rare thing. To see two gaijin together, it is good luck. To see three gaijin, run.” Actually I just made that up.

What’s the Japanese Yen worth?

Just one? Diddlysquat. A single Yen (¥) is worth less than a penny, but for whatever reason, that’s the measure of currency they use here. Think of it as if all prices in America were instantly converted to cents instead of dollars. (Imagine buying a sweater that costs 3,890¢.) Consider also that a Yen is worth somewhere between eight and nine-tenths of a penny (while I’ve been here, exchange rates for the Yen have flitted between $.00854-.$00889). All that makes it a challenge sometimes to figure out what you’re paying for something. It also means you wind up carrying around a lot of change. The smallest paper bill in Japanese currency is a ¥1,000 note – worth about $8.60, give or take. That’s like if the U.S. suddenly eliminated $1 and $5 notes, replacing them with coins.

But I don’t worry too much about it. Everyone knows foreign currency is just play money.

They say Tokyo’s the most expensive city on earth. Is that true of all Japan?

It’s like comparing the cost of living in Manhattan to that in Greenville, SC. Fukui and most other Japanese cities aren’t too bad – but it also depends on what you’re talking about. The cheapest beer I’ve seen here, for example, is at a joint called Bear’s Bar in downtown Fukui, where all the bottles are ¥500. That’s about $4.30 for a 12-oz. bottle of Asahi. And that’s a great deal. The 12-oz. canned drinks in most vending machines (mostly tea, plus the occasional Pepsi) run ¥120 each, or a little over a buck – not wildly out of proportion to the U.S. At the grocery store, beef will set you back an arm and a leg (so to speak), but chicken breasts are half what they cost in the states. Sushi here – surprisingly, about the same, maybe a little less. But much, much better. And winter is Fugu season…

Is there a God?

No.

How do you get around in Japan?

I walk or, more often, bike. If I’m really going a long way – to downtown Fukui if I’m feeling lazy, or to nearby Sabai, or to the onsen out at Mikuni Beach, or if I’m traveling – I’ll walk about 75 yards to the Nittazuka train station up the street. Two trains an hour in either direction – Fukui and Mikuni. From Fukui Station, I can catch a shinkansen (that’s a bullet train) to just about anywhere.

What do Japanese people say when they answer the telephone instead of hello?

“Mushi, Mushi.” Really.