Transport authorities launched a full-fledged investigation Sunday into the derailment of a bullet train on the Akita Shinkansen Line in Daisen, Akita Prefecture, on Saturday afternoon.
It's a dangerous, unpredictable world. Twice in January Chinese warships in the East China Sea challenged Japan's Maritime Self Defense Forces patrols in a manner deemed threatening. And on Feb. 12 came North Korea's nuclear test.
Here's an open secret: Japanese men have a bad international reputation on the romance front.
SELLING WOMEN: Prostitution, Markets and the Household in Early Modern Japan, by Amy Stanley. University of California Press, 2012, 282 pp., $49.95 (hardcover) In the vast cultural landscape, Japan fascinates the mainstream with manga and anime, the martial arts, Zen and kimono. Of course, ...
Kenta Maeda shook off worries about his form with five shutout innings as Japan beat China 5-2 in first-round Pool A of the World Baseball Classic on Sunday at Fukuoka Dome. Japan improved to 2-0 following a tough win over Brazil in Saturday evening’s ...
Regarding Ralph Cossa’s Feb. 8 article “Breaking past the tired old plot with Pyongyang“: Cossa rails against North Korea’s attempt, in the face of U.S. threats, to enhance its security by conducting missile and nuclear tests. He then details North Korea’s sins and, in ...
The Jan. 30 Kyodo article “U.K. plan to limit Japanese worries language teachers” reports on a plan to minimize the teaching of Japanese in U.K. schools. As a result, Japanese may disappear from GCSE exams (for 16-year-olds) by September 2014. Have U.K. education authorities ...
Back-to-back tragedies for Japanese abroad, first from the terrorist attack in Algeria and now the stabbing spree in Guam, combined with an out-of-control yen devaluation, risk encouraging an already isolated and isolationist Japan to withdraw deeper into its domestic shell. In an age when ...
My opinion about organized sports is eccentric. I like sports as a recreation, but as soon as they are turned into an organized, competitive activity in which opposing teams play according to rules for the purpose of acquiring points in order to defeat opponents, ...
According to Wikipedia, even Albert Einstein was impressed by the Japanese and their oft-touted modesty. One thing Japanese that is less lovable, however, is honne to tatemae. This translates roughly as “Though I’m standing here before you pretending amicably to believe one thing, I’m ...
Regarding the Feb. 13 article “U.S. agrees: Chinese frigates locked their weapons radar on MSDF units”: This is a very dangerous situation. The Chinese public will be overwhelmingly convinced that Japan is showing lying and treacherous colors familiar to them and that the belligerent ...
In his Feb. 14 letter, “Japan Inc. a dubious liberator,” Richard Wilcox criticizes my Feb. 10 Timeout feature package about Myanmar, but totally misses my main points and invents ones I don’t make. He overlooks the concerns I raise about land grabs and back ...
Regarding the Feb. 11 AFP article “Violent coaching rooted in militarism“: There has been a bit of discussion on the “culture of bullying” in schools and sports but not much deep thought about how to create a healthy and nurturing atmosphere to replace it. ...
I think a warning, with some education about the rubella vaccine, should have been printed for those reading the Feb. 8 front-page article “Rubella outbreak spreading quickly.” Women who may be pregnant but do not yet know they are could have an increased risk ...
The Feb. 3 editorial “Entrance exam change needed” reminded me of Japan’s continuous failure to educate its young citizens. The problem of college entrance exams is directly tied to how the system itself is structured. I was among the last generation to experience the ...
Keeping the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in the spotlight, as Reiji Yoshida has done with his Feb. 6 article, “Abe to meet Obama with hands tied,” is a fine idea. It may help prevent powerful special interest groups from taking advantage of public apathy and ...
Jeff Kingston’s Feb. 10 Timeout article “Gold Rush: Japan Inc. flocks to Myanmar” reads more like an advertisement written on behalf of the Foreign Ministry rather than a piece of critical-minded journalism from a renowned university professor. Kingston equates the flood of foreign intervention ...
