go: A Japanese game of strategy played with black and white stones on a board marked with many intersecting lines.
haiku: A Japanese verse form, rendered in English as 3 unrhymed lines of 5, 7, 5 syllables respectively, often on some subject of nature.
Issei: First-generation Japanese immigrant in America.
kanji: Chinese characters used in Japanese writing.
koto: A Japanese harp or zither.
Nihonmachi: Japantown.
Nisei: American-born children of Japanese immigrants; second-generation Japanese Americans.
shamisen: A Japanese instrument, similar to a banjo.
shikata ga nai: It can't be helped. There's nothing one can do.