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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 ...
Investors are more confident in a Japanese leader than any time since at least September 2010, with optimism about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policies exceeding that for counterparts in the U.S., Europe and China. The number of respondents who are more optimistic than pessimistic ...
Japanese fathers working in Tokyo and nearby prefectures spend ¥591 on lunch on average, down from ¥608 seven years ago, a recent survey by Norinchukin Bank says. The survey in March by the umbrella financial body for Japan’s agriculture, forestry and fisheries cooperatives drew ...
Middle-aged men are quitting paid work to care for elderly parents in increasing numbers, a new study shows. According to the study by the Institute for Research on Household Economics, 13.4 percent of men aged between 40 and 64 living with parents requiring nursing ...
Nearly 80 percent of South Koreans have a negative impression of Japan, while about 40 percent of Japanese have an unfavorable image of South Korea, according to the results of a bilateral poll released Tuesday. The first joint survey conducted by Japanese think tank ...
Many new employees prefer waiting for advice, whereas their superiors want them to think on their own, according to a recent Japan Management Association survey. In the survey on the attitudes of young people who joined the workforce this month, the association asked newcomers ...
One out of about 2,800 people in Sapporo is suffering from gender identity disorder, according to a survey compiled recently by a medical group in Hokkaido. On a national scale, the ratio would translate into about 46,000 patients across Japan, which is more than ...
Radioactive cesium was too low to detect in 99 percent of 22,000 residents examined in Fukushima Prefecture and neighboring Ibaraki, according to a University of Tokyo survey. The team, which included professor Ryugo Hayano, examined internal radiation exposure levels in the two prefectures between ...
Confidence among large Japanese manufacturers improved in the first quarter, the Bank of Japan’s latest “tankan” business sentiment survey showed Monday, offering up cautious optimism from the country’s top firms. The results marked the first improvement in three quarters, with companies expecting a pickup ...
Nearly 60 percent of the nation’s top companies plan to hire the same number of university graduates or more in spring 2014, the results of a survey released Sunday said. The survey said that while the economic rhetoric of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government ...
The Bank of Japan’s quarterly “tankan” survey for March is expected to show that business sentiment among large manufacturers has improved for the first time in three quarters, according to estimates by 17 think tanks. The March survey, due on April 1, will be ...
Average land prices declined in the 12 months to Jan. 1 for the fifth straight year, but the decrease was less on average, and price hikes were seen at far more locations than in the previous year, the government said Thursday. Residential land prices ...
Nearly 12 percent of athletes surveyed by the Japanese Olympic Committee say they have been subjected to violence or sexual harassment while competing in their respective sports.