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P/SUNNY
A sit-in by visa violators and their families entered its second day Tuesday in front of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau with protesters seeking government good will. The action at the bureau in Minato Ward is being organized by the Asian People’s Friendship Society, ...
Kazuhiro Shiraishi, 66, is a guest-house manager in the Izu-kogen Highlands, a famous resort area on the Izu Peninsula of Shizuoka Prefecture. Looking out onto the Pacific Ocean, and just 90 minutes by train from Tokyo, Izu has a warm climate all year round ...
“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
Takashi Miike's blood-soaked vengeance tale, one of two Japanese films being shown in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, draws the biggest boos so far, with critics savaging it as overacted and cliched.
Have you ever given your best effort while striving to achieve something but felt like what you were doing was futile? That’s the feeling I’m getting about Tokyo’s bid to host the 2020 Olympics. With just over three months to go until the IOC ...
“In some rural areas even today, elderly villagers face the rising sun each morning, clap their hands together, and hail the appearance of the sun over the peaks of the nearby mountains as ‘the coming of the kami,‘ “ — so wrote historian Takeshi ...
In A.D. 552 (or 538 — experts disagree; some say it never happened) a Korean envoy presented himself at the Japanese court of Emperor Kimmei. The Korea of that time was split among several perpetually warring kingdoms. The three largest were Kokuli, Silla and ...
Reiko glances nervously about her. She’s never been in a saibansho (裁判所, courthouse) before. The sixth floor, the yobidashijō (呼び出し状, summons) had said. She looks around for an elevator. “Sumimasen . . . “ Momentarily startled, she quickly regains her self-composure. “What am I ...
Your son is a sainō no aru ko (才能のある子, a gifted boy),” Mr. Sawamura says. “His seiseki (成績, marks) are not impressive, and his social skills are perhaps not as developed as . . . “ “He’s uchiki (内気, shy),” I say. “As a ...
“Tamaki-kun! It’s you, isn’t it?” Startled, the man looked up from the book he’d been perusing. He stared at the woman in bewilderment. “Yes, my name is Tamaki . . . “ “And you don’t recognize me!” “I . . . no . . ...
“You ask who I am? I’ll tell you,” I declaim, being a bit horoyoi kigen (ほろ酔い機嫌, tipsy). “I am the eternal nokemono（除者, outcast)!” “Nōnashi (能無し, good-for-nothing) is more like it,” retorts one of my new friends to a chorus of approving laughter. “Like us!” ...
History has seen worse years than 2009. All the same, this Year of the Ox has been more than most of us born after World War II in the relatively privileged regions of the Earth were conditioned to cope with. Think back to New ...
“Can I help you, young man?” The lady behind the desk smiles. She does not mean her brisk manner to be intimidating (kowagaraseru tsumori wa nai, 怖がらせるつもりはない), but the “young man,” uncertain and anxious (fuan, 不安), instinctively (honnōteki ni, 本能的に) takes a step back. ...
“Can I help you, young man?” The lady behind the desk smiles. She does not mean her brisk manner to be intimidating (kowagaraseru tsumori wa nai, 怖がらせるつもりはない), but the “young man,” uncertain and anxious (fuan, 不安), instinctively (honnōteki ni, 本能的に) takes a step back. ...
What a strange dream! The city was engulfed in a wave of random murders (musabetsu satsujin, 無差別殺人), and when my doorbell rang it was not the murderer (satsujinhan, 殺人犯), as I’d feared, but a high police official come to coax me out of retirement ...
Here’s a beguiling irony: Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-98), architect of Tokugawa Japan’s rigid class structure and the author, in 1587, of a firm ban (not firmly enforced) on surnames for commoners, was himself born without a surname. “Toyotomi,” the family name under which his memory ...
“How do you do, my name is Saito Ichiro Sama-no-kami Minamoto-no-Ason Tadayoshi.” We can be grateful to the reformers of the Meiji Period (1868-1912) for cutting Japanese names down to size. Renaming the Japanese people was part and parcel of their overthrow of feudalism. ...