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.
Some responses to the Nov. 6 Just Be Cause column by Debito Arudou headlined “For the sake of Japan’s future, foreigners deserve a fair shake“: Favoring ‘the 1 percent’ Debito Arudou’s comments on unfairness toward foreigners in Japan are well taken. However, after living ...
These past few columns have addressed fundamentally bad habits in Japanese society that impede positive social change. Last month I talked about public trust being eroded by social conventions that permit (even applaud) the systematic practice of lying in public. This month, let’s discuss ...
Some responses to Debito Arudou’s Nov. 1 Just Be Cause column, headlined “The costly fallout of tatemae and Japan’s culture of deceit“: Tatemae a type of truth, not lie Although I agree with fellow activist Debito Arudou on most things, I must take issue ...
Pop quiz: Who live in palatial homes in fashionable Tokyo neighborhoods but are subject to various forms of discrimination, have no family registry, can’t vote and have limited constitutional rights? Answer: the Imperial Family. For those of you who responded “expat bankers,” I will ...
The Japan Times received a large number of readers’ emails in response to Debito Arudou’s Just Be Cause column published Aug. 2, headlined “The loneliness of the long-distance foreigner.” Here, belatedly, are a selection. The elephant in the room This topic is something of ...
Following are three more readers’ mails in response to both Gerry McLellan’s May 24 Hotline to Nagatacho column “Japanese adults need an education in dealing with difference” and other letters published on the subject on June 28. Education also needed elsewhere In response to ...
To the Japan Sumo Association: I have yet to watch a sumo bout. It’s one of the few unfulfilled goals I set for myself when I made a list of things to do while living in Japan. I’ve heard that sporting events in Japan ...
Following are responses to “Arudou’s Alien Almanac” by Debito Arudou (Just Be Cause, Jan. 4): Insulting rural Japanese I enjoy reading The Japan Times online very much, and look forward to the news almost every day. It’s reported in a well-written and seemingly unbiased ...
In Dec. 28′s Japan Times, Charles Lewis wrote a respectful Zeit Gist column asking three fellow wise men (sumo wrestler Konishiki, musicologist Peter Barakan and Diet member Marutei Tsurunen) about their successful lives as “foreigners” in Japan. Despite their combined century of experience here, ...
Following are are a selection of readers’ responses to “Mind the gap, get over it” by Charles Lewis (Zeit Gist, Dec. 28): Patronizing, naive, dangerous While living in Japan from 2007 to 2010, I experienced my fair share of discrimination. I was denied housing, ...
No. 5: The Otaru onsen case (’99-2005) This lawsuit followed the landmark Ana Bortz case of 1999, where a Brazilian plaintiff sued and won against a jewelry store in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, that denied her entry for looking foreign. Since Japan has no national ...
Things have changed for the better for foreigners since the old days in Japan. Cries of “Expel the barbarians!” are rare now. The five settlements where foreign residents were required to live in the Meiji Era are a thing of the past. The Ee ...
