Mark Schreiber - The Japan Times

August 24, 2025

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Mark Schreiber

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Mark Schreiber

Mark Schreiber worked as a salaryman in travel, consumer electronics, computer software, advertising and market research before turning to translation and writing full time. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he has lived in Tokyo since 1966.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Aug 17, 2003

Combining the best of two worlds

DRAGON BONES, by Lisa See. New York: Random House, 2003, 368 pages, $24.95 (cloth). THE SAMURAI'S DAUGHTER, by Sujata Massey. New York: HarperCollins, 2003, 304 pages, $24.95 (cloth). It is no coincidence that, besides having Eurasian female authors, both of these books feature female detectives with...

COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST

Aug 12, 2003

Words of advice for the power-hungry

While we've had a few close shaves over the years, Tokyo's power grid has fortunately been spared a major, city-wide blackout. This year, the closure of 17 nuclear power generators for safety inspection led many to fret that there might not be sufficient power over the summer; fortunately demand has...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jul 20, 2003

Summer suspense and nuclear intrigue

PROJECT KAISEI, by Michiro Naito. Indiana: 1stBooks Library, 2003, 321 pp., $19.95 (paper). THE INUGAMI CLAN, by Seishi Yokomizo, translated by Yumiko Yamazaki. Tuttle Shokai Inc., 2003, 300 pp., $14.95 (paper). Unless the dire warnings of electric power shortages that were raised earlier this summer...

COMMUNITY

Jul 20, 2003

Being nasally challenged is nothing to be sniffed at

To be honest, I never gave much thought to noses, ne'er even my own, until my sense of smell departed.

COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST

Jul 15, 2003

Over dinner not long ago, I noticed a friend wasn't wearing one of his prized antique wristwatches.

Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST

Jun 24, 2003

Once upon a time in Asia

As people approach their half-century mark, they tend to get nostalgic. One way they seek to recapture fading memories from childhood is by visiting antiquarian book dealers and scrounging around garage sales, looking for books they enjoyed as kids.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jun 15, 2003

Expressing pathos amid alienation

A GESTURE LIFE, by Chang-rae Lee. Hew York: Riverhead Books, 2000, 356 pp., $14 (paper). UNDERKILL, by Leonard Chang. Hew York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2003, 356 pp., $24.95 (cloth). THE INTERPRETER, by Suki Kim. Hew York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2003, 294 pp., $24 (cloth). For most Americans, until fairly...

Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST

Jun 10, 2003

My mother, the terrorist and other successful families

An old saying in Japanese goes, "Oya no hikari wa nanahikari," literally, "A parent's light is [as good as] seven lights." In other words, children who play their cards right can bask in the glow of their parent's fame.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

May 18, 2003

'Out' of the ordinary

OUT, by Natsuo Kirino. Kodansha International, 2003, 359 pp., 2,500 yen (cloth). Mystery novels and short stories, both original works and translated works, have a huge following in Japan. The flow of translations, however, is not entirely one way, but overwhelmingly favors English to Japanese. A scholar...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

May 18, 2003

From romance to murder

Already an established writer of romantic novels, Natsuo Kirino (nom de plume of Mariko Hashioka, born in 1951), burst onto the mystery scene with "Kao ni Furikakaru Ame" ("The face on which rain falls"). The novel took the prestigious Japanese crime fiction award, the Edogawa Rampo Prize, in 1993.

Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST

May 13, 2003

Off-the-wall fiction feeds weird ideas about Japan

If you review novels set in Asia, as this writer does, it follows that you read a lot of books. To call some of them "terrible" may be putting it kindly.

COMMUNITY

May 13, 2003

Write your own Japanese potboiler

1. Someone falls victim to a horrible murder in a U.S city. The solution lies in a cryptic message written on: a samurai sword; a Satsuma vase; a netsuke; an ancient scroll; a jade amulet; or an Astro-Boy comic book.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Apr 20, 2003

Dancing detectives

A LOYAL CHARACTER DANCER, by Qiu Xiaolong. New York, SOHO Press, 2002, 351 pp., $25 (cloth) Popular fiction can be a fairly reliable indicator of changing public sentiments. One harbinger that the Cold War was beginning to wind down was the appearance of the now-famous police procedural novel. Such novels...

COMMUNITY

Apr 8, 2003

Does Japan really care about its kids?

The people who do care for children seem to be fighting a losing battle.

COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST

Apr 8, 2003

Society fiddles as young get burned

The vernacular media frequently goes tsk-tsk over crimes by juveniles. These days, people's concerns tend to be reflected through two terms: "kyoaku-ka" and "teinenrei-ka," which refer, respectively, to more violent crimes by increasingly younger perpetrators

COMMUNITY

Mar 23, 2003

From ancient to modern

As quintessentially contemporary as manga may seem, the oldest extant manga-style drawings actually date from the eighth-century zare-ga (play pictures), scrawled graffiti-like in the attic of the Horyuji Temple in Nara.

Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST

Mar 18, 2003

Tokyo's immigration bureau gets makeover at new location

"Are you sure this is the place?" our driver inquired.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Mar 16, 2003

Hard-hitting Bangkok PI knows how to Thai one on

ASIA HAND, 1992, 277 pp.; COLD HIT, 1999, 330 pp.; MINOR WIFE, 2002, 297 pp.; by Christopher G. Moore. Heaven Lake Press, Bangkok (all three books priced at $11.95) Canadian novelist Christopher G. Moore, a former law instructor from British Columbia, has been described as "The Hemingway of Bangkok."...

COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST

Feb 25, 2003

Bidding a farewell to arms in Japan

When a bullet strikes the car in which one is riding, the sound -- a sharp, metallic "WHAP!" -- is unmistakable. This writer has heard it twice in his life, and I hope the second time will be the last.

Japan Times

COMMUNITY

Feb 23, 2003

Trade at your fingertips

The Japanese term for "do it yourself" is nichiyo daiku, which literally means "Sunday carpentry," though the usage of the term suggests an activity more related to recreation and leisure than making improvements or doing repairs.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.

From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

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