May 7, 2011

American’s food import firm has grown organically

Jack Bayles, owner of Alishan Organic Center and founder of Tengu Natural Foods, has lived within a 5-km radius his entire time in Japan in the shadow of the verdant, hazy mountains of Chichibu near the Koma River in Hidaka, Saitama Prefecture. After nearly ...

May 1, 2011

Temperance comes to Japan

REFORMING JAPAN: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in the Meiji Period, by Elizabeth Dorn Lublin. University of Hawaii Press, 2010, 176 pp., $35.95 (paper) A temperance movement supports a reduction in consumption or total abstinence from alcohol beverages. It found followers in Europe and ...

Quest to gain, impart knowledge drives expat

| Apr 16, 2011

Quest to gain, impart knowledge drives expat

The importance of education informs Aileen Kawagoe’s life view, although early on she turned down the chance to become an educator like her father. While in high school, Kawagoe declined a scholarship that could have led to an opportunity to study education at Cambridge ...

International school typifies Sendai’s community spirit

Apr 2, 2011

International school typifies Sendai’s community spirit

Local merchants crowded in with proud parents and teachers, eyes glued to the screen and banners waving. It could have been anywhere in Japan during Koshien season: a community gathered around the television in the school cafeteria, neighbors coming together to cheer the home ...

Canadian writer draws on creators’ support for Tohoku

Mar 26, 2011

Canadian writer draws on creators’ support for Tohoku

News stories around the world reveal a deluge of incomprehensible sameness, the debris of aggregate destruction overshadowing an area known for its rugged beauty and strong individuals. Annamarie Sasagawa, a 29-year-old travel writer and co-owner of Sasa Trails, a tour guide company based in ...

Poetess achieves duality of words, numbers

Mar 19, 2011

Poetess achieves duality of words, numbers

Statistically, there’s no accounting for Jessica Goodfellow’s life in Japan. The daughter of an engineer, on a fast track in her early 20s to a Ph.D. in economics at California Institute of Technology, Goodfellow realized something essential didn’t correlate: her incalculable love of poetry. ...

Harmonia Opera marks milestone

Mar 5, 2011

Harmonia Opera marks milestone

Emiko Iinuma’s voice has a distinctive sugared drawl, a sweet residue from her early years as a student at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. It is more than the drawl that attracts — her voice dances, leaps across decades, travels up and down pitch, ...

Feb 27, 2011

Touched by teen suicide

ORCHARDS, by Holly Thompson. Illustrations by Grady McFerrin. Delacorte Press, 2011, 325 pp., $17.99 (hardcover) Great suffering etches images of itself into human emotions. Holly Thompson uses this psychological reality to frame an arresting and authentic novel in verse. “Orchards” is a collection of ...