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A monstrous tornado at least 800 meters wide roared through the suburbs of Oklahoma City on Monday, flattening entire neighborhoods and destroying an elementary school with a direct blow as children and teachers huddled against winds of up to 320 kph. At least 91 ...
If you work in an office, you probably spend a fair part of your time sitting at a desk, which, of course, isn’t very healthy. To combat that the Pomodoro technique recommends that you work in intervals with regular breaks — for example, 25 ...
“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
"Outsider art" is relatively new in Japan and, as a genre, works made by self-taught Japanese artists are still not very well known on the category-delineating, label-loving international art scene.
After all these years, Rafael Nadal still knows how to dominate Roger Federer. In the 30th meeting between the two tennis greats, Nadal controlled the final from start to finish to win 6-1, 6-3 Sunday for his seventh Italian Open title. “Rafa was just ...
Being original is crucial to any artist’s survival. In the field of realistic painting, though, there seems little left for artists to explore in an age when anyone with a camera has long been able to capture virtually any image of their choice. However, ...
Actors traditionally wish each other good luck before they go on stage by saying, “Break a leg!” In the not-too-distant future, they may instead be saying — through a voice simulator — “Blow a fuse!” Indeed, as leading Japanese dramatist Oriza Hirata recently wondered ...
Bryan Whitehead redefines what it means to “make something from scratch.” Starting with some silkworm eggs and easily available natural resources, he eventually ends up with rolls of fine and heavy kimono silk. The textiles created by this Vancouver native are not only beautiful, ...
What does Tokyo have as a genuine landmark? Well, there’s 52-year-old Tokyo Tower, but that’s not the draw it once was. Or there’s Tokyo Sky Tree, which, at 603 meters high, is set to be the world’s tallest broadcasting tower when it’s completed soon. ...
“Instead of staying home, I like to meet many people — I like my freedom,” says Chiemi Svensson. It’s a feeling this 57-year-old Japanese resident of Bangkok surely has in common with most of her Harley customers. Born in Shibushi, Kagoshima Prefecture, Chiemi moved ...
Chaine, a friendly husky living in Tokyo, was 5 years old when her owners, Motoko Shiraishi and Yasushi Ishikawa, took her to see a sled-dog race in Gunma Prefecture in the winter of 2003. Although Chaine’s ancestors were from the harsh wilds of Siberia, ...
One sunny Saturday last month, Hitachi Ltd., Japan’s largest electronics maker, made headlines when it hosted a rare tour of its spanking new elevator-testing tower — the world’s tallest — at its sprawling facility in Hitachinaka, Ibaraki Prefecture. The 213.5-meter “G1 Tower,” which took ...
From a distance, Tatsuro Yokoi looks like a pirate clinging to the mast of a sunken galleon. Move closer — sorry, make that swim closer — and you notice he lacks the eye patch, the parrot on the shoulder and the hook for a ...
If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing under ludicrously difficult, not strictly necessary, self-imposed rules. Such was the thinking of 31-year-old Graham Hughes when, stewing on the details of a long-dreamed of plot to visit every country on Earth, he decided to ...
A young Japanese woman in colorful African clothes appeared on the stage at a small club in Tokyo’s central Roppongi district on April 25. She sat down on a low chair in front of an eight-stringed wooden instrument. “Good evening, everyone. I am Anyango!” ...
A series of food-safety scandals in the early and mid 2000s — involving, among other scares, bacteria-infected milk and poisonous Chinese dumplings — have made many more people in Japan aware of the need to know — and the danger of not knowing — ...
London-based chef and TV presenter Silvena Rowe is best-known in Britain as an expert on eastern Mediterranean cuisine. But in Japan last month, she had her compass set entirely elsewhere — promoting the “sex appeal” of sake to Japan’s younger generations. “To me sake ...