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DRIZZLE/RAIN
Farmers in the city of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, have begun planting rice in a district once designated a no-go zone because of radioactive fallout ejected by the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Recently I was asked to write a blurb for a new liquid plant-nutrient. As soon as I saw the name of the product, 早根早起 （Hayane Hayaoki), I smiled at this example of linguistic creativity.
Life in Japan just seems tailor-made for certain foreign residents, who slip into the fabric of this society as smoothly as a hand slides into a glove. American Curtis Patterson, a professional koto player and music teacher, is a case in point. Not only ...
Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune “Only Teardrops,” despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Juries and television viewers across Europe awarded the barefoot, ...
One team’s quest for a first title has ended. The other team’s fight will continue next season. The Yokohama B-Corsairs outplayed the Rizing Fukuoka in Sunday’s bj-league championship game, controlling the tempo for larger stretches and making enough timely baskets to fill an instructional ...
They started performing on stages in Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district, and today their ubiquity is unrivaled. The current flavors of the month pepper the TV schedules and covers of weekly magazines all year round. In Tokyo, you can’t swing a carrot without hitting a ...
A reader writes: “I’m a foreigner in a long-term same-sex relationship with a Japanese national. The deed to our house is registered in the name of the Japanese national. Is it possible to have my name put on the deed so that I am ...
Several months ago we looked at a house that had been bought at auction by a housing company, fixed up and then put on the market. We found it among the listings on the home page of a realtor we’ve dealt with in the ...
Reader JA is seeking a Japanese language school in the countryside here for his 18-year-old son. “He would like to live in rural Japan and study Japanese for three or four months, and then ski Japan’s famous powder,” he writes. “Is there any resource ...
In response to our Oct. 23 column, ” ‘Prenups’ uncommon but doable; aid for avid J. League fans,” some of our readers wrote in with their favorite Japan soccer resources. One popular suggestion was the Rising Sun News, a site that covers all aspects ...
Part-timer “Mary” writes: “Due to the nature of my work, the company wants me to come into the office only when they know they have work for me. This is two to three days a week, and not fixed according to any specific day. ...
In an effort to cut costs, electronics maker Sharp has announced that it is transferring its struggling liquid crystal display business from factories in Kameyama, Mie Prefecture, to factories in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. In 2004, the Kameyama facility started making large LCD screens for ...
Some of our non-Japanese readers are wondering why, when trying to sort out a phone and contract with Softbank, they often seem to be subject to different rules than Japanese customers — and even fellow foreign residents. BJ writes: “When getting an iPhone at ...
In an effort to cut costs, electronics maker Sharp has announced that it is transferring its struggling liquid crystal display business from factories in Kameyama, Mie Prefecture, to factories in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. In 2004, the Kameyama facility started making large LCD screens for ...
In response to our Nov. 6 column (“If you need to bring drugs to Japan, sort out the paperwork — or else”), regarding how to find tattoo-friendly onsen, a few readers wrote in with their public bathing experiences. “Apart from private baths as you ...
Reader AP asked how house and land prices are decided in Japan. “If a person has lived in a house for over 40 years without any type of contract and either the landlord wants to sell or the tenant wants to buy the land ...
‘Kathy’ writes: “My husband and I have a property in Japan, which is under his name. Unfortunately we are filing a divorce now. We have a 5-year-old son, who I am fighting for the custody of. My husband doesn’t have a job, and he ...