In his Olympic year, Oscar Pistorius steadily became an avid firearms collector, joining a gun-collecting club and purchasing a collection of firearms that included a .500 Magnum pistol and a civilian version of a military assault rifle.
When it comes to gender equality, Japan has never failed to disappoint.
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, ...
Manchester United's Shinji Kagawa is back with a bang, becoming the first Asian player to score a hat trick in the English Premier League.
For Steve Trautlein's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Every Monday night at 7, Japanese TV viewers are treated to the sight of comedians being locked inside a fast-food restaurant. Formica tables take the place of iron bars, and instead of three square meals a day the cast is fed a steady diet ...
Doritos and Budweiser, canapes and Champagne, jamon and Tempranillo — when it comes to happy hour, everyone has their favorite combination of booze and umami-infused treats.
Ramen’s rise to global prominence has taken many forms: Japanese noodle shops debuting to great acclaim overseas, from Sydney to Honolulu to London; the proliferation of English-language ramen blogs; international chefs incorporating elements of the dish into their cuisine. Now, the worldwide interest in ...
Call it the Pancake Revolution. During the past five years, Japanese diners have become enamored with inventive takes on classic Western breakfast dishes. Unlike many homegrown culinary trends, though, this movement is being driven by big-name chefs and dining groups arriving from overseas with ...
The best of 2012 The inaugural Tama Geta Shoku no Saiten in Hachioji offered locavores a chance to sample the creative cuisine of western Tokyo. Thirty vendors showed off dishes such as motsu yaki-udon, a bowl of beef tripe and noodles from the town ...
In these times of economic hardship and political tension, the Yahoo! Japan Ramen project proves that a humble noodle can help bring people together. The project, launched this summer with the goal of promoting ramen around the world, has completed its first phase: selecting ...
Forget izakaya, soba restaurants and divey Chinese eateries — if you really want to see salarymen in mass munching mode, catch them in their natural habitat at the office shokudō (cafeteria), where colleagues rub shoulders daily over a tray of freshly made rations. Besides ...
One of the most welcome things about the B-kyū gurume (B-grade gourmet) boom is that it’s rescued dishes such as ramen and katsudon from the clutches of salarymen. The down-home cooking that constitutes the bulk of the B-kyū menu is now widely appreciated as ...
From its origins as a regional festival in the backwaters of Aomori Prefecture, the B-1 Grand Prix has attained a status of Fuji Rock-like proportions. The seven-year-old event, which attracts enthusiasts of local cooking from around Japan, almost single-handedly kick-started the country’s obsession with ...
When I heard that ramen had become popular in my hometown a few years ago, I can’t say I was surprised. We New Yorkers, after all, consider ourselves aficionados of down-home, stick-to-the-ribs cooking. Hot-dog carts, takeout Chinese joints, 24-hour delis and hole-in-the-wall falafel shops ...
