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 ...
We live in interesting times. With the shortage and high cost of domestic labor, the Japanese government has brought over record numbers of cheap foreign workers. Even though whole industrial sectors now depend on foreign labor, few publicly accept the symbiosis as permanent. Instead, ...
In 1999, a Brazilian resident of Japan named Milton Higaki was involved in an accident that killed a schoolgirl. Rather than face justice in Japan, he fled to Brazil fearing “discrimination as a foreigner in Japanese courts.” Although the domestic media quickly saw this ...
Since 1990, when Japan started allowing factories to easily import foreign labor, the number of registered non-Japanese (NJ) residents has nearly doubled to more than 2 million. Many migrant workers have become immigrants: staying on, marrying, and having children. Some have faced illegal work ...
Making headlines worldwide last month was the publication of a magazine entitled “Kyogaku no Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu (“Shocking Foreigner crime: the Underground File”). On sale at major Japanese bookstores and convenience stores nationwide, Gaijin Hanzai (GH) attributed criminality to nationality, and depicted foreigners ...
The government and media would have you believe that Japan has lost its mantle as a safe country. Apparently we live amidst a spree of heinous crimes. Accurate? Not very, according to a new academic study. But before we get to that, let’s take ...
I s the world’s second-largest economy, Japan feels it deserves the respect and privilege accorded the club of rich countries. It certainly mouths money. Japan has been a major (if not the biggest) donor to the WHO, UNAIDS, UNESCO, UNDP, and UNICEF, not to ...
Last month, Diet member and Senior Vice Minister of Justice Taro Kono publicized a new action plan for immigration. Entitled “Regarding Future Acceptance of Foreigners” (“kongo no gaikokujin no ukeire ni tsuite”), it offered several policy propositions for Japan’s future as an international society. ...
In July 2005, Doudou Diene, a special representative of the United Nations’ Commission on Human Rights, came to Japan at the invitation of the Japanese government. He visited Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and Hokkaido to see if Japan, an aspirant for a U.N. Security Council ...
On Oct. 12, 2005, the Tottori Prefectural Assembly approved Japan’s first human rights ordinance, a local law forbidding and punishing racial discrimination. In a land where racial discrimination is not illegal, this is an historic occasion. Even a clarion call: If even rural Tottori ...
Steve McGowan, an African-American resident of Kyoto, sued an eyeglass shop in Daito City, Osaka Prefecture, for refusing him entry in 2004 on the basis of the color of his skin. It should have been a slam-dunk case. The owner shooed McGowan away from ...
