Hiroaki Sato - The Japan Times

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Hiroaki Sato

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Hiroaki Sato

A Japan Times columnist since 2000, Hiroaki Sato has won prizes for his translation of poetry (PEN American Center, Japan-US Friendship Commission). A paperback edition of his "Legends of the Samurai" has recently appeared. He is now working on a second collection of samurai tales with their origins.

For Hiroaki Sato's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Apr 30, 2007

Tobacco's road from fashion to filth

NEW YORK -- If a recent article in the Science section of The New York Times is any indication, the idea that the history of the tobacco industry in the United States has been nothing less than perfidy has taken hold among the socially conscientious. Titled "Tracing the Cigarette's Path From Sexy to...

CULTURE / Books

Apr 8, 2007

Broadening the literary view of choosing a purposeful death

SUICIDAL HONOR: General Nogi and the Writings of Mori Ogai and Natsume Soseki, by Doris. G. Bargen. University of Hawaii Press, 2006, 289 pp., $42 (cloth) The name of Maresuke Nogi (1849-1912) reverberated through the world twice: when he subdued the Russian fortress at Port Arthur (Luxu) during the...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Mar 26, 2007

Jury system doesn't guarantee justice

NEW YORK -- My U.S.-Japanese business consultant friend John Gillespie dropped by and, upon hearing that my wife Nancy had been summoned to jury duty, said Japan should introduce a similar system.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Feb 26, 2007

Eastwood didn't idealize Kuribayashi

NEW YORK -- Isn't the Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Clint Eastwood's film "Letters From Iwo Jima" idealized? That was a question my poet friend Geoffrey O'Brien asked on New Year's Eve. A dedicated student of film, O'Brien had remembered a poem about the general that I translated three decades ago. Written...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Jan 29, 2007

Same hot buttons a hundred years later

NEW YORK -- What was the world like 100 years ago? That was not the question I had in mind when I idly wondered if I could find exactly how French actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) had described British playwright/novelist Oscar Wilde on one special occasion. As this is the age of the Internet, I quickly...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Dec 25, 2006

Relativity of greatness in a lawless world

NEW YORK -- Americans love to rank their own greats. One recent example is "the 100 most influential Americans of all time" that The Atlantic monthly compiled from the views of 10 historians. The list appears in its December issue, with a brief summary of what distinguishes each person.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Nov 27, 2006

U.S. democracy isn't a suitable export

NEW YORK -- The cover of The New Yorker the week after the Nov. 7 midterm elections showed a giant elephant statue being toppled, with people in the lawn way below jubilant and the White House beyond with the U.S. flag atop it at half mast.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Oct 30, 2006

Erosions of a shaky moral high ground

NEW YORK -- To choose the most bewildering action of George W. Bush since he became U.S. president in 2001 is tough. Is it starting a war without cause? Is it creating a dubious court and prosecuting a man for mass killings while committing even greater mass killings? Or is it concocting legislation...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Sep 25, 2006

Supreme Court ruling doesn't hold water

NEW YORK -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia can't be serious. In a recent decision he penned, he quoted "a famous exchange" in the 1942 movie "Casablanca" and a tale about "an Eastern guru" exclaiming, "Ah, after that it is turtles all the way down." The first quote was intended to deride the...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Aug 21, 2006

Precious wetlands rapidly disappearing

SUNSET BEACH, North Carolina -- Back to the barrier island where my wife and I spend two weeks of every summer, I think of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in June that dealt with the disposition of wetlands. The justices' opinions -- in what was called the most significant environmental case under new...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Jul 31, 2006

America: a democracy and an empire

NEW YORK -- One thing that has receded from public debate as a consequence of the disaster that is America's war against Iraq is talk of the United States as an empire. During the onrush to the invasion and for some time afterward, one popular comparison was with the Roman Empire. Another, of course,...

COMMENTARY

Jun 26, 2006

South Korea and China also stir the pot

NEW YORK -- A friend of mine in Tokyo has sent me two recent proposals to improve Japan's relations with its neighbors. One, by the Japan Association of Corporate Executives, deals with China and is addressed to both the Japanese and Chinese governments; the other, by the Kansai Association of Corporate...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

May 29, 2006

Creeping back toward thought control

NEW YORK -- Why are politicians so often regressive? Several years ago the Japanese government legally ritualized the singing of the national anthem and the raising of the flag. Now it is intent on changing a 60-year-old education law to codify patriotism.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Apr 24, 2006

An unnaturally smooth naturalization?

NEW YORK -- I became an American citizen on March 31. The steps for citizenship were simple and easy, and the process took an unexpectedly short time. I experienced neither "the law's delay" nor "the insolence of office."

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Mar 27, 2006

Ishibashi's 'alternative reality' for Japan

NEW YORK -- A reader of my Jan. 30 column ("Another side to Japanese-Korean history") wrote to comment and, in the course of subsequent correspondence, wondered about an "alternative reality" or a "what if" in Japan's history before World War II. He had in mind, in particular, "Secretary (Cordell) Hull's...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Feb 27, 2006

Criticism of Japan skips the finer points

NEW YORK -- By way of criticizing Taro Aso as "Japan's Offensive Foreign Minister," a Feb. 13 New York Times editorial came up with a sweeping condemnation of the Japanese and their society by asserting that "public discourse in Japan and modern history lessons in its schools have never properly come...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Jan 30, 2006

Another side to Japanese-Korean history

NEW YORK -- Historian George Akita recently sent me a brief essay that appeared in the December issue of the monthly Nihon Rekishi (Japanese History). He had told me of a full-length article he'd written on alternative views of Japan's rule of Korea between 1910 and 1945. The essay, titled "New Currents...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Dec 26, 2005

A Japanese take on 'intelligent design'

NEW YORK -- Why do my compatriots, the Japanese, try to copy Americans -- often on the basis of a most tenuous understanding? The wonderment occurred when I checked the Internet to see if the notion of "intelligent design" (I.D.) was known in Japan and at once found that it was, and more.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Nov 28, 2005

Ishihara fails to measure up to his image

NEW YORK -- Earlier this month Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara gave a speech in New York City, and I went to hear him. That's one thing you do in this city: go hear or see some of the more famous visitors from your home country.

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Oct 31, 2005

Is the American dream now a mirage?

NEW YORK -- Is the American dream just a mirage now? Earlier this year the Wall Street Journal ran a series called "Challenges to the American Dream," casting into doubt the "staple of America's self-portrait" that "a child born in poverty isn't trapped there." If that was putting the matter delicately,...

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Things may look perfect to the outside world, but today's mom is fine with some imperfection at home.

How 'Reiwa moms' are reshaping motherhood in Japan

By Mai Yoshikawa

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

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