Filmmaker captures the 3/11 stress of Tohoku's deaf

Mar 10, 2013

Filmmaker captures the 3/11 stress of Tohoku's deaf

Nobuko Kikuchi, a 72-year-old resident of Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture, couldn’t hear the emergency sirens that followed the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that struck on March 11, 2011. Nor could she hear the public announcement urging people to evacuate to higher ground as a massive tsunami approached ...

Making life easier for working moms

| Mar 3, 2013

Making life easier for working moms

Yukari Horie, 30, is managing director of Arrow Arrow, a Tokyo-based NPO that offers consulting to companies with female workers who are in the later stages of their pregnancy or who have just become moms and are wondering how to adjust their work styles ...

Battling the postpartum blues

| Mar 3, 2013

Battling the postpartum blues

Maco Yoshioka is the founder of Madre Bonita, a nonprofit group that offers postpartum fitness programs for women using elastic exercise balls. Yoshioka, 40, who studied sports physiology at the University of Tokyo, says she became aware of physical and mental difficulties for new ...

Documenting the gender imbalance

| Mar 3, 2013

Documenting the gender imbalance

Yu Negoro, 40, is a documentary filmmaker who has delved deep into the issues of gender and sexuality in Japanese society. Her first project was a series of three short films dealing with women suffering from eating disorders, a condition Neguro suffered in her ...

Mar 1, 2013

Sample Okinawan flavors on Yokohama walk

In order to escape the current harsh winter weather, some of us might be planning a getaway to somewhere nice and warm, such as Okinawa. But for the rest of us who can’t actually make the trip to Japan’s delightful subtropical region and lie ...

Sewing words for thought

Feb 19, 2013

Sewing words for thought

Some words can evoke powerful images, values and stereotypes that have crept into our subconsciousness to sometimes dictate the way we think or behave. For Ruri Clarkson, this is something that needs to be challenged in Japan, and which she does herself with art.

Tracing time's passing through faces of Tokyo

| Feb 17, 2013

Tracing time's passing through faces of Tokyo

Petri Artturi Asikainen would regularly accost strangers in Tokyo, on the streets, in parks or bars and on trains. With a high-end Nikon D3 digital SLR in his hands, the lanky and bespectacled Finn would ask — somewhat timidly summoning one of the few ...

Skiers, head toward the lights

Feb 15, 2013

Skiers, head toward the lights

Skiers and snowboarders who pass through JR Nagano Station should make the effort to take a short side trip to nearby Zenkoji Temple during the week starting Saturday. Wooden buildings that line the street approaching the popular temple will be lit up in five ...

Carp expo hopes to make waves with enthusiasts

Feb 1, 2013

Carp expo hopes to make waves with enthusiasts

The love of nishikigoi, an ornamental carp with characteristically red and black patterns, has recently spread worldwide, spawning a variety of koi (carp) clubs, associations and periodicals in various regions and languages. Anyone interested in taking a peek into this vibrant hobbyist culture of ...