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.
It was a single visit to Kenya in 1972 that completely changed Michio Hiraiwa’s philosophy on life. He fell in love with the country, and visited there 150 times over the past 40 years. Once a workaholic, Hiraiwa says he now leads a stress-free ...
Katsura Sunshine wants to spread the world of rakugo (traditional comic storytelling) to people all over the world, including his home country Canada, by delivering English-translated versions. The 42-year-old Slovenian-Canadian, who was given the stage name from his master, Katsura Bunshi, after three years ...
Mohammad Moin tries to realize what he calls “intellectual fair trade” through his operation of an online English conversation school for Japanese — all taught by Filipino teachers. The inexpensive English lessons are offered to Japanese students via Skype, while at the same time ...
Ry Beville’s love of craft beer has developed into an occupation in which he publishes Japan’s only bilingual craft beer magazine. With the quarterly Japan Beer Times launched in 2010, Beville, 37, from Richmond, Virginia, says he wants to help spread the microbrewing culture ...
Born in Nebraska, Louis Caporale started playing the violin at the age of 4. By 14 he was building violins. At 18, he was the youngest student enrolled at the Chicago School of Violin Making. In time, he became a respected maker as well ...
As a veteran of the tourism and hotel industries in Japan for more than two decades, Tony Virili says he will “never forget” what took place at one of his firm’s franchise hotels in Sendai on March 11, 2011. The 60-year-old Italian-Australian calls last ...
Everett Brown’s lifestyle is a reflection of his philosophy on life. The American photojournalist, who has lived in Japan for 24 years, says that the Japanese people should re-create their traditions by fusing classical ideas with modern technologies or ideas to lead happy, comfortable ...
Shunwa Honda, a renowned scholar of indigenous ethnic groups, emphasizes that the Japanese people need to create a stage for the nation’s indigenous Ainu, who “still suffer from not having their voices heard properly in society.” Though he looks Caucasian and uses the pen ...
If drama were a sport, then the name Gavin Bantock would probably be known throughout Japan. Transposed into the baseball universe, for example, Bantock might occupy a position similar to that of Fumiya Tsuta, who through the 1970s and 1980s led the students of ...
Waku Miller, a resident of Tokyo for over 30 years and a veteran translator who recently served as a spokesman for Michael C. Woodford — former president and CEO of Olympus Corp. — said he found it odd how indifferent major Japanese shareholders were ...
When you step out onto the veranda of Theodore Jennings’ penthouse apartment in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district, it almost feels like you’re on vacation in some other location — be it New York or some European resort. “A lot of people tell me that. They ...
Jadwiga Rodowicz-Czechowska, Poland’s ambassador to Japan, says she was utterly heartbroken when she witnessed the catastrophe caused by the earthquake and tsunami that hit Tohoku last March. “I couldn’t stand being witness to this tragedy. I felt at the time (I was) not only ...
