Ilya Milstein

2 days ago | nytimes.com | Pico Iyer |Ilya Milstein

Throughout its history, the country has taken imports and changed them into something else entirely. Credit Credit... Illustration by Ilya Milstein. Animation by Jonathan Eden A Japanese sentence is often as mongrel as a Japanese street. While walking through a shopping arcade in Osaka - here a tatami tearoom, there a French cafe, in between a McDonald's - you'll notice Chinese characters, known as kanji, on many storefront signs.