Tag - jeff-kingston

 
 

JEFF KINGSTON

Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 20, 2019
'Japan' by Jeff Kingston: Taking stock of a country in a time of transition and change
Jeff Kingston's 'Japan' is a concise, highly readable overview of Japan's political evolution from 1945 to the present, observed from an overarching historical perspective.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 6, 2017
'Press Freedom in Contemporary Japan': Persuasive and important but incomplete
May 3 marks the United Nations' World Press Freedom Day, an annual reminder of the necessity of unfettered media in the maintenance of healthy societies.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 22, 2016
Nationalism: a long shadow over Asia's precarious future
In 1945, year zero for "Nationalism in Asia", most of the region it describes was impoverished, backward and exhausted. After the calamitous Pacific War, China, India and Indonesia were in a final showdown with the great European colonial powers that had exploited them for decades. Korea had shrugged off Imperial Japan but was sliding toward a civil war that would divide the peninsula into two bitterly opposed, dirt-poor enemies. Japan was humiliated, in ruins and under occupation, brought so low by its defeat in World War II that few believed it could ever rise again.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 29, 2014
Unpersuasive logic for death penalty in Japan
The death penalty in Japan is imposed in cases of murder, and robbery and/or rape leading to death. In such cases, capital punishment is not mandatory and is usually only imposed in cases of multiple killings, though since 2006 this criteria has not been strictly observed.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 25, 2014
Spinmeister Abe: crisis-mongering and distractions
The news media tends to hyperventilate because this generates a buzz that attracts attention.
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Nov 2, 2013
Can Japanese really be such cold sushi in the sack?
Sex in Japan is a knotty issue — even if you're not a fan of tying up your lover with rope, also known as shibari. No matter how you write about it, it raises ire. If you point out that Japan has a vibrant sex industry in which every sexual act other than vaginal penetration can be legally bought and advertised, you're accused of promoting prostitution.

Longform

Historically, kabuki was considered the entertainment of the merchant and peasant classes, a far cry from how it is regarded today.
For Japan's oldest kabuki theater, the show must go on