The death toll from a blizzard that hit Hokkaido and the Tohoku region over the weekend has risen to nine, local police said Monday. The latest fatality as of Monday was Kuniko Jingi, 76, who was found collapsed under the snow on a road ...
Sleeping in. Breakfast in bed. Sunny brunches. Strolls in the park. Laid-back afternoon tea. Cocktails at sunset. Decadent late nights. Saturday — the word brings to mind a flurry of images associated with the first day of the weekend and the chances are, they ...
For the past year, Tokyo sixth-grader Manami has had dinner at home an average of four times a week. The rest of the time she has had to make do with a juku-ben, a boxed dinner prepared by her mother and consumed between classes ...
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, ...
Cuba overpowers China, winning 12-0 and advancing to the second round of the World Baseball Classic.
Despite much promise and a flurry of activity, it didn’t happen: Japan failed to ratify the Hague Convention on international child abduction and pass the extensive piece of accompanying domestic legislation the government felt was necessary in order for it to do so. Both ...
Some responses to Patrick Budmar’s Feb. 28 Light Gist column, “Teacher outfoxes board, exposes bid to fleece JETs“: Sense of deja vu This story sounds exactly like what happened to me during my final year on JET (the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme), except ...
Several months ago I made a bet with a friend about how the Hague Convention on international child abduction will be applied after Japan finishes implementing it through domestic legislation. My bet was this: If a Japanese court ever does order the return of ...
For the attention of the Japanese government: Like many other court hearings that follow a divorce, a court transcript out of Tennessee reflects testimony concerning a couple’s two children: Attorney: Ms. Savoie. … You have known all along that Dr. Savoie’s biggest fear is ...
The following are readers’ responses to the Nov. 8 Zeit Gist column headlined “My children are my everything — the reason I’m alive” by Simon Scott. The story followed Canadian Bruce Gherbetti on a surprise visit to his estranged wife’s home in Fukushima in ...
Dear Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, Minister of Justice Hideo Hiraoka, Minister for Foreign Affairs Koichiro Gemba, Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare Yoko Komiyama, and the government of Japan, I pose the question: How many children in Japan cannot be with both of their ...
On Bruce Gherbetti’s right forearm, the names of his three lost children are permanently inscribed in a swirling script of dark blue tattoo ink. “They go with me everywhere I go,” he says, smiling. “It is a physical representation of the fact that my ...
Those focused on the government’s stumbling efforts to protect the children of Fukushima from radioactive contamination may find this hard to believe, but Japanese family law just got more child-friendly — maybe. If Japan finally signs the Hague Convention on child abduction, as it ...
The Way of Cake is mysterious and paradoxical. A master of the Way can make his neighbors feel they have filled themselves with tasty cake without ever cutting off a piece. The Way allows its disciple to step outside the boundaries of rational thought ...
To the government of Japan: Parental child abduction to Japan has become an epidemic that has received its share of dramatic media coverage this year, and even though many countries have long been pressuring Japan to address this issue, the demands for a solution ...
Last in a two-part series In mid-April, 12-year-old Michiko Watanabe, as she was now being called, found herself in a precarious situation. Earlier, her mother had clearly let her child know that she would no longer consider herself Michiko’s mother if Michiko ever attempted ...
Last in a two-part series Parents, lawyers and activists alike understandably frame the problems of parental child abduction and parental alienation in Japan in terms of children’s rights. While it would be easy to conclude from what I wrote in last week’s column that ...
