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Farmers in the city of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, have begun planting rice in a district once designated a no-go zone because of radioactive fallout ejected by the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Recently I was asked to write a blurb for a new liquid plant-nutrient. As soon as I saw the name of the product, 早根早起 （Hayane Hayaoki), I smiled at this example of linguistic creativity.
Life in Japan just seems tailor-made for certain foreign residents, who slip into the fabric of this society as smoothly as a hand slides into a glove. American Curtis Patterson, a professional koto player and music teacher, is a case in point. Not only ...
Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune “Only Teardrops,” despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Juries and television viewers across Europe awarded the barefoot, ...
One team’s quest for a first title has ended. The other team’s fight will continue next season. The Yokohama B-Corsairs outplayed the Rizing Fukuoka in Sunday’s bj-league championship game, controlling the tempo for larger stretches and making enough timely baskets to fill an instructional ...
Dear Alice, I recently received a gift of some special kind of Japanese salt. If I understood correctly, this particular salt is made from seaweed and by some ancient Japanese production method. It’s beige in color and has a nice, rich taste. But I ...
The government began in February looking into ways to make good use of billions of yen in so-called dormant bank accounts, particularly to help fund reconstruction of areas in the Tohoku region devastated by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. An ...
So-called medical tourism is a growing market worldwide and high-tech Japan hopes to get a piece of the action. Millions of people worldwide travel abroad seeking high quality or cheaper medical treatment. A 2008 report by McKinsey & Co. forecasts the global medical tourism ...
On July 1, a new law takes effect requiring utilities to purchase electricity generated from five renewable energy sources at a fixed price for a set length of time, under what is known as a feed-in tariff system. The law was approved on the ...
Despite reporting a record ¥457 billion annual loss last year, Sony Corp. earlier this month said it would return to the black in fiscal 2012 with a ¥30 billion profit. The Great East Japan Earthquake, Thai floods and strong yen have all been recent ...
The auto and electronics industries have served as the economy’s main locomotives for decades, but now they are being eclipsed by heavier global competition, particularly from their aggressive Asian rivals. To offset the dip in dominance, the government is turning to Japan’s cultural exports, ...
Dear Alice, I love to wander around Tokyo, particularly the older neighborhoods where small shops and little factories are mixed in among homes and schools. Every now and then I spot a strange sort of structure, obviously quite old, that is completely different from ...
Japanese spirits were uplifted recently by the news that three “toki,” or Japanese crested ibis, chicks were hatched in the wild for the first time in 36 years, the culmination of a ¥300 million project that was started in 1999 to breed the endangered ...
Thursday marks the 65th year since the Constitution took effect in 1947. Drafted during the Allied Occupation under the leadership of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the Constitution has remained untouched since its birth, despite years of divided discussions among experts and lawmakers over whether it ...
Although they have similar names and operate Web portals with a variety of services, Yahoo Japan Corp. is in many ways a very different company from Yahoo Inc. Yahoo’s profits have been falling because of competition from Google, Facebook and other popular sites. This ...
Regional utilities have long dominated the power market, but companies and local governments are starting to get interested in new retailers offering much cheaper rates. This rise is especially true since the Fukushima No. 1 crisis erupted last year and its operator, Tokyo Electric ...
Dear Alice,Don’t you think it’s time you did a column on the crazy pet products and services available in Japan? I can’t believe the lengths some dog owners go to — dressing their pets in frilly clothes, pushing them around in baby carriages and ...