Transport authorities launched a full-fledged investigation Sunday into the derailment of a bullet train on the Akita Shinkansen Line in Daisen, Akita Prefecture, on Saturday afternoon.
It's a dangerous, unpredictable world. Twice in January Chinese warships in the East China Sea challenged Japan's Maritime Self Defense Forces patrols in a manner deemed threatening. And on Feb. 12 came North Korea's nuclear test.
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, ...
Kenta Maeda shook off worries about his form with five shutout innings as Japan beat China 5-2 in first-round Pool A of the World Baseball Classic on Sunday at Fukuoka Dome. Japan improved to 2-0 following a tough win over Brazil in Saturday evening’s ...
Alex Bennett was 18 years old when he first read the wisdom — “From one thing, know 10,000″ — in Miyamoto Musashi’s “The Book of Five Rings.” Now living this maxim, Bennett is a scholar, teacher, translator, writer, coach and active competitor in the ...
If you want to learn Japanese the fastest way possible, read on. Notice I did not say the easiest way possible. If you think learning Japanese is easy, well, you can stop reading now. Presuming you want to learn Japanese, I offer the following ...
“Ha ha! I can’t believe it’s you!” The man extends his hand as if pointing a pistol. I spin around, just to check, but there is no mistaking. The target is me. He wrenches my wrist. “How long has it been, I wonder? Years ...
Alex Bennett was 18 years old when he first read the wisdom — “From one thing, know 10,000″ — in Miyamoto Musashi’s “The Book of Five Rings.” Now living this maxim, Bennett is a scholar, teacher, translator, writer, coach and active competitor in the ...
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 ...
After eight days on Miyakojima in which again our departure was delayed by bad weather, we finally set sail for Ishigaki Island, part of the Yaeyama Island chain and the end of our sailing trip through Japan. Our nascent sailor and crew member — ...
Monte Cassim, 65, slips effortlessly from English to Japanese and back, as befits one of the few non-Japanese to have served as president of a major Japanese university. After heading Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Beppu, Oita Prefecture, from 2004 to 2009, the Sri ...
It didn’t come as much of a surprise to Grant Pogosyan when the offer came to him from the Armenian government to become his home country’s ambassador to Japan. For over 20 years, Pogosyan, 59, has lived and worked in Japan — albeit in ...
“I see,” I say. And then I say, “I see.” And a few more times as well. “I see. I see. I see.” “You say, ‘I see,’ too much,” says my wife, who has been eavesdropping as I spoke with my boss via telephone ...
After four days of sightseeing on Okinawa Island, we set sail for Miyakojima, the next major island to the south in the Okinawan chain. Having just visited Okinawa’s Churaumi Aquarium, I was more aware of the beautiful sea life underneath our sailboat such as ...
The skin as canvas, inks and needles replacing the palette: tattoos by Khan transcend mere decorations. Whether he is depicting eye crinkles in a portrait of the Dalai Lama or the leer of a supernatural ghoul, his rich color and technical realism redefines the ...
Nara native Atsushi Takagi and Mihaela Serbulea from Bucharest met in 2003 when Mihaela gave a lecture on SARS for an international exchange organization in which Atsushi is a member. They hit it off at a social gathering after the lecture, when they found ...
