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The consumption tax increase next April will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people's financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the impact of the hike, experts say.
Every parent is all too familiar with The Tantrum. The screaming, the flailing arms, the angry head butting — and the timing (normally in the most inconvenient public place possible).
International events undermine Japan's democracy. Shame on the International Olympic Committee for being a party to it.
Tucked away behind the main museums in Ueno, the Tokyo University Art Museum may not be on most people’s radar, but it is definitely one of the city’s top museums in terms of curatorial quality. Whenever I go there, I am always delighted by ...
Francisco Liriano showed up at PNC Park on Tuesday afternoon in a suit with his suitcase packed for a trip St. Louis. The message reverberated through the Pittsburgh Pirates clubhouse. After 21 years away from the playoffs, it was time for the best story ...
Mark Schreiber worked as a salaryman in travel, consumer electronics, computer software, advertising and market research before turning to translation and writing full time. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he has lived in Tokyo since 1966.
For Mark Schreiber's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Even a 入門者 (nyūmonsha, entry-level learner) of Japanese can use a personal computer to his or her advantage, as a supplementary learning tool.
The weekly magazines’ and tabloids’ reaction to the selection of Tokyo to host the 2020 Olympics reminds one of an oft-quoted remark by Oscar Wilde that goes, “In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the ...
In “You Only Live Twice” (1964), the 12th in Ian Fleming’s series of James Bond novels, a perplexed Tiger Tanaka, MI5′s Japanese secret police liaison, informs 007 he was unaware that ninjas still existed. JAPANTOWN, by Barry Lancet. Simon and Schuster, 2013, 416 pp., ...
“Emperor,” a film directed by Peter Webber that takes up the subject of Emperor Showa and the postwar occupation period, has been showing at local theaters since July. The film’s protagonist is Gen. Bonner Frank Fellers, who served as a subordinate to Supreme Commander ...
A 71-year-old man in Gifu Prefecture made headlines recently when he attempted to initiate a lawsuit against broadcaster NHK. Through its excessive use of foreign derived words, the man claimed, NHK had caused him 精神的苦痛 (seishinteki kutsū, psychological pain). He demanded ¥1.41 million in ...
“Are you tourist?” asked the man seated beside me on the early afternoon flight from Tokyo’s Haneda airport to Kochi in Shikoku. He spoke in hesitant English. “Not exactly. I’m on my way to cover the Ekin Matsuri,” I replied in Japanese. “Ah, Ekin. ...
Mitake, a tiny mountain hamlet located in eastern Yamaguchi Prefecture, is administrated as part of the city of Shunan (pop. 150,000). The area is so remote, cell phones don’t always receive signals there. On the night of July 21, according to news reports, two ...
The future promise of Abenomics notwithstanding, Japan’s white-collar office workers are still being squeezed in terms of their discretionary spending. Results of the annual survey of salaryman kozukai (allowance), released June 28 by Shinsei Bank, noted that this year the average monthly spending money ...
Qiu Xiaolong’s police procedural novels, featuring Shanghai police inspector Chen Cao, have gradually shifted from the earlier themes dealing with the deep wounds left by the insanity of the 1960s’ Cultural Revolution, and have more recently focused on social issues more relevant to present-day ...
Years ago, a colleague at a company where I worked had a surname written using a character so obscure, that when handing out his business card he used to joke apologetically, 名前の漢字、ほとんど誰も読めない (namae no kanji, hotondo dare mo yomenai, hardly anybody can read the ...
Elections for the House of Councillors will be held a week from today. The election is being billed as historic in that candidates are permitted to appeal to voters via the Internet. To the near-exclusion of the other 120 seats in contention, however, the ...
While watching a variety program on NTV over lunch a few weeks ago, I happened to see the word 儚い (hakanai) flash up on the screen. I didn’t recognize it right off — I can only speculate how many viewers did, as it is ...