Transport authorities launched a full-fledged investigation Sunday into the derailment of a bullet train on the Akita Shinkansen Line in Daisen, Akita Prefecture, on Saturday afternoon.
It's a dangerous, unpredictable world. Twice in January Chinese warships in the East China Sea challenged Japan's Maritime Self Defense Forces patrols in a manner deemed threatening. And on Feb. 12 came North Korea's nuclear test.
Here's an open secret: Japanese men have a bad international reputation on the romance front.
SELLING WOMEN: Prostitution, Markets and the Household in Early Modern Japan, by Amy Stanley. University of California Press, 2012, 282 pp., $49.95 (hardcover) In the vast cultural landscape, Japan fascinates the mainstream with manga and anime, the martial arts, Zen and kimono. Of course, ...
Kenta Maeda shook off worries about his form with five shutout innings as Japan beat China 5-2 in first-round Pool A of the World Baseball Classic on Sunday at Fukuoka Dome. Japan improved to 2-0 following a tough win over Brazil in Saturday evening’s ...
When you see an obvious mistake, should you point it out or just keep silent? It was coming up to Christmas, and I was in the bakery beside the station getting a sandwich for my lunch, when I noticed something new on the shelves: ...
Japanese Art in Detail, by John Reeve. British Museum Press, 2005, 144 pp., £14.99 (cloth) FLOATING WORLD: JAPAN IN THE EDO PERIOD, by John Reeve. British Museum Press, 2006, 96 pp., £9.99 (cloth) Museums frequently produce books, calendars and postcards based on the exhibits. ...
A JAPANESE MENAGERIE: Animal Pictures by Kawanabe Kyosai, by Rosina Buckland, Timothy Clark and Shigeru Oikawa. London: The British Museum Press, 2006, 112 pp., £16.99 (cloth) The Meiji Era artist Kawanabe Kyosai (1831-89) is said to have had his first memorable encounter with an ...
The Haiku Apprentice: Memoirs of Writing Poetry in Japan, by Abigail Friedman. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2006, 235 pp., $14,95 (paper) The story in this book begins with a chance encounter. As the author later explains, she was living with her family in Japan, ...
ON TWO SHORES: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, by Mutsuo Takahashi, translated by Mitsuko Ohno & Frank Sewell. Dedalus Press, Dublin, Ireland, 2006, 126 pp., 12 euro (paper). We are only too familiar with those books in which a foreign visitor, usually from a Western ...
POEMS OF DAYS PAST / ARISHI HI NO UTA, by Nakahara Chuya, translations by Ry Beville. The American Book Company, 2005, 81 pp., $19.99 (paper). RIGHT EYE IN TWILIGHT / MIGI-ME NO BYAKUYA, by Ban’ya Natsuishi, translations by Ban’ya Natsuishi & Jack Galmitz. Wasteland ...
MAD ABOUT THE MEKONG: Exploration and Empire in South-East Asia, by John Keay. HarperPerennial, 2006, 294 pp., £8.99 (paper). The long-lasting conflict in Vietnam made the name of the Mekong familiar to people in other countries, but to those who live along its banks ...
BASHO’S JOURNEY: The Literary Prose of Matsuo Basho, translated with an introduction by David Landis Barnhill. State University of New York Press, 2005, 191 pp., $19.95 (paper). The great haiku poet Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) was first represented to the West just over a century ...
“There is a green hill far away, without a city wall,” goes the Easter hymn, originally composed for children. The Easter holiday, which one is hardly aware of in Japan, figured in one of my trips back to the green hills of Ireland’s north ...
OMAI: The Prince Who Never Was, by Richard Connaughton, Timewell Press, 2005, 270 pp., £16.99 (cloth). It may not be true that, as the adage has it, every picture tells a story, but if pictures have any tales to tell, then Joshua Reynolds’ portrait ...
