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.