Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
Life | WEEK 3 May 19, 2013
Learning to live with your death
by Tomoko Otake
It can be a big challenge, even a burden, to strategize your life and prioritize your goals — and then stick to them.
Environment | WEEK 3 May 19, 2013
The other costs of concrete
by Winifred Bird
Where does concrete come from? The material has become such a pervasive symbol of human alienation from nature that it's tempting to assume it's just another brutish product of the 18th-century Industrial Revolution.
Life | WEEK 3 Apr 21, 2013
New moves to save Japan's sacred trees from a fiery end
by Winifred Bird
Spend a while walking the streets of any Japanese city and you are bound to notice it: Here and there among the concrete towers, shops and bustling streets, you’ll find clusters of trees. In some places, five or 10 stately Japanese cedars provide a ...
Environment | WEEK 3 Apr 21, 2013
Thunderbirds to go and meet on high
by Chris Cook
It seemed like a good idea at the time: With a four-day vacation over New Year's, why not head off to the North Alps in search of ptarmigans, Japan's quintessential birds of its loftiest heights.
People | WEEK 3 Apr 21, 2013
Closing time for an old-style watchmaker winding up his career
by Tim Hornyak
As cotton-thick snow falls on St. Catherine Street in the heart of the province of Quebec's largest city, Iwao Tsumura works away in his dingy second-floor shop.
Life | WEEK 3 Mar 17, 2013
Tohoku coast faces man-made perils in wake of tsunami
by Winifred Bird
One day in October 2011, marine ecologist Masahiro Nakaoka donned his scuba gear, paddled into the waters of Funakoshi Bay in Iwate Prefecture, and braced himself for his first glimpse of its underwater communities since a massive tsunami triggered by the Great East Japan ...
Life | WEEK 3 Mar 17, 2013
Ghosts of Cowra breakout haunt Japan to this day
by Nobuko Tanaka
Prisoner A: ” ‘Never live to experience the shame of being taken prisoner by the enemy’ … that’s what the Imperial Japanese Military Regulations say, hence there must be no prisoners. So what’s happening here now are the dreams of ghosts” — from “Cowra ...
Environment | WEEK 3 Feb 17, 2013
Fukushima radiation threatens to wreak woodland havoc
by Winifred Bird
For Yuji Hoshino, mushrooms were a way of life. The 50-year-old farmer grew up watching his father raise shiitake mushrooms on their land at the foot of the mountains in Sano, southern Tochigi Prefecture. Later, he became the one to yearly cut about 15,000 ...
Life | WEEK 3 Feb 17, 2013
Tracing time's passing through faces of Tokyo
by Tomoko Otake
Petri Artturi Asikainen would regularly accost strangers in Tokyo, on the streets, in parks or bars and on trains. With a high-end Nikon D3 digital SLR in his hands, the lanky and bespectacled Finn would ask — somewhat timidly summoning one of the few ...
Lifestyle | WEEK 3 Jan 19, 2013
Turnip-tossing turns up trumps for trader
by Tomoko Otake
Yoshio Otsuka’s years of striving to revive a near-extinct strain of turnip known to have been grown some 400 years ago in the Shinagawa district of today’s central Tokyo recently struck pay dirt in a most unexpected fashion. That’s because, via a little local ...
Life | WEEK 3 Jan 19, 2013
Zen and the cross-cultural art of tree-climbing
by Winifred Bird
In the upstairs meeting room of a camping lodge in Komagane, Nagano Prefecture, two women and about 20 men walked slowly and intently in circles one rainy day last November. At the front of the room, a weathered and wiry Englishman intoned the sort ...
Life | WEEK 3 Dec 16, 2012
Survivor pens 'too painful' 3/11 tale
by Tomoko Otake
‘March 11, 2011 — We will never forget the day. The disaster … After the massive earthquake occurred, the huge tsunami destroyed this area. Many citizens were lost and the survived people also received the deep crack in their hearts. I had a narrow ...