AP A car bomb exploded outside a mosque Sunday, killing at least 37 people and wounding another 141 in a mostly Shiite Muslim neighborhood in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi — the third mass-casualty attack on the minority sect in the country this ...
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 ...
For Julian Ryall's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
WE ARE NIPPON: The World Cup in Japan, by Simon Moran. S.U. Press, 2002, 190 pp., 1,500 yen (paper) As anyone who was here will undoubtedly recall, things got a little raucous in Japan and South Korea last summer. But hosting a World Cup ...
My Tokyo taxi driver loses the ability to speak for a second or two, then gushes: “They’re simply the best. They’re professionals. They do that test . . .” “The Knowledge,” I prompt him. “Is that what they call it?” he says, looking at ...
“The lights are on but nobody’s home” used to be a slur, a criticism of inability, inadequacy, ineptitude. Not any more. Today, it’s one of the highest accolades that can be paid to a company or organization. Just imagine: You’ve had a hard day ...
PYONGYANG — It’s not difficult to find your way around Pyongyang. The city has few tall buildings and wherever you go, the imposing monolith of the Tower of the Juche Idea — topped by a red “flame” that glows at night — enables visitors ...
Paul Betney is perpetually in motion. It’s the first thing that everyone notices about him. To put it bluntly, he shakes. Sometimes he looks like he’s going to rattle himself apart, but then he arches his eyebrows and says, “Can you imagine me at ...
I had noticed the woman in the shop, but hadn’t really thought anything of her. She was watching me as I tried to keep an eye on Alex, my hyperactive 2 1/2-year-old son, while at the same time picking my way through the kids’ ...
Patience. Parents need it by the bucketload; teachers, doctors and nurses must be able to summon it by the truckload. But where do other people get their reserves of patience? I, for one, am not sure I could pull it off. Indeed, now that ...
KYRENIA, Cyprus — The wail of the muezzin drones from the high balcony of the minaret, down through the cobbled streets to the harbor and out across the water to the massive ramparts of the castle. The faithful of the northern Cyprus town of ...
If my mates could see me now, they’d just about die laughing. I’m flat on my back with a soft towel wrapped artfully around my head, my shoulders and neck glistening with a lavender-scented massage gel and a green face pack covering what are ...
One man’s meat is another man’s poison, as they say, though I have never really had qualms about my own fondness for flesh in its many and varied forms. But just as you should never say never, there recently dawned a day when that ...
