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.
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Sep 24, 2012
An ominously familiar Japanese contemporary
by Hiroaki Sato
Things do sometimes go backward. This truism hit me recently while I was checking the galleys of “Persona,” my biography, with Naoki Inose, of Yukio Mishima. I was deep in the proofreading when the publisher’s agent asked if I knew of two earlier books ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Aug 27, 2012
Shifting views on the role of the Emancipator
by Hiroaki Sato
Gore Vidal, who died at the end of July, was one writer whose essays I began to read years ago. I then moved on to his novels, though I saw one of his more famous Broadway plays, “The Best Man,” only recently for the ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Jul 30, 2012
U.S. has turned the tables on its old Declaration
by Hiroaki Sato
On Independence Day (July 4), The New York Times printed the Declaration of Independence, as it had done — the daily noted in an article on the preceding day — for 90 years, since 1922. What the announcement the day before did was tell ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Jun 25, 2012
Irony of being in the company of '12-year-olds'
by Hiroaki Sato
In going over my manuscript of the Yukio Mishima biography, my copy editor protested at one point, citing her “liberal Berkeley-influenced sensibilities.” That was where I described Japan as a “backward nation.” Let me explain. In 1958, Mishima dictated an entire book in the ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK May 28, 2012
Unmachinable, unreformable, but necessary
by Hiroaki Sato
One recent topic for The Wall Street Journal’s front-page space set aside for stories other than the daily shenanigans of business, politics and wars was the community in Florida created for retired letter carriers. (“In Florida, These Retirees Deliver a First-Class Protest,” March 27.) ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Apr 30, 2012
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the sakura
by Hiroaki Sato
Until The New York Times pointed it out earlier this month, I had failed to notice, alas, that Tokyo had given cherry trees to this city as it did to Washington, D.C., 100 years ago (“Gifts From Japan, Less Celebrated in Manhattan,” April 12). ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Mar 26, 2012
Costs of a policy of profligacy with foreign lives
by Hiroaki Sato
In the early hours of March 11, Sunday, a U.S. soldier went on a rampage in a village in Panjway, southwest of Kandahar, Afghanistan. He went from one mud house to another, shot, stabbed, and burned 16 villagers. Or so it has been reported. ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Feb 27, 2012
American safety tab in terms of drone deaths
by Hiroaki Sato
Sometimes people make a startlingly mindless argument. One recent example is “Drones for Human Rights” (New York Times, Jan. 31). “Drones are not just for firing missiles in Pakistan,” began Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Mark Hanis, who co-wrote the op-ed. “In Iraq, the State ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Jan 30, 2012
Aggression born of American 'exceptionalism'
by Hiroaki Sato
I thought American exceptionalism was debunked and dying. I was wrong. Most recently, American exceptionalism jumped to the political fore at the start of this century. It did so with a swagger, ironically, because of the 9/11 attacks. In his speech that night, President ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Dec 26, 2011
Strange how isolationist stance can ruin a politician's reputation
by Hiroaki Sato
Perhaps because it’s a round number, the 70th anniversary of Japan’s assault on Pearl Harbor has given me the impression that more articles on it saw print than in the past, except for, as I recall, the 50th anniversary of the same. Back in ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Nov 28, 2011
Learning to live with the builders of America
by Klaus Naumann and Hiroaki Sato
During one week this month, the drivers of four taxis that I took hailed from four different countries. One of them said his was a small country near India when I asked him where he was from, my standard question when I see the ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Oct 31, 2011
Controversy is no stranger to Nobel Peace Prize
by Hiroaki Sato
Earlier this month, when the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced its decision to award its annual Peace Prize to three African women — two Liberians and one Yemeni — Time magazine published online, on the same day, a list of the top 10 among “the ...