author

 
 
 Kris Kosaka

Meta

Kris Kosaka
Kris Kosaka, a resident of Japan since 1996, contributes regularly to The Japan Times. She is a lecturer at Meiji Gakuin University in the Faculty of International Studies.
For Kris Kosaka's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 18, 2012
Tireless volunteer Fukuda makes a difference in the lives she touches
Julie Fukuda, 75, is a giver — not financially, but physically — who has tirelessly volunteered for various organizations in her community for nearly 50 years in Japan.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 12, 2012
Stiff drink required for half-measure of multicultural insight
HYBRID IDENTITIES AND ADOLESCENT GIRLS: Being 'Half' in Japan, by Laurel D. Kamada. Mulilingual Matters, 2010, 268 pp., $49.95 (paper) As the American mother of two Japanese-American "hybrids" (yet another moniker for hafu/double/Japanese-plus-another ethnicity), I had high expectations before reading...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 10, 2012
NNTT hopes Generation 2.0 hears 'Silence'
The late classical composer Teizo Matsumura, American film director Martin Scorsese, and playwright/director Keiko Miyata may seem an unlikely trio, but they share a reverence for "Silence," the 1966 novel by Shusaku Endo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 29, 2012
Behavioral patterns in the male
RECREATING JAPANESE MEN, edited by Sabine Fruhstuck and Anne Walthall. University of California Press, 2011. 309 pp., $26.95 (paper) Debate on the how, when and why of mankind's creation brims over mere academic study. Sabine Fruhstuck and Anne Walthall, professors of Modern Japanese Culture and...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 21, 2012
Aussie takes slippery slope to Hokkaido
Matt Dening, 44, grew up on sunshine in a small beach town south of Sydney. Like most Australian youths, Dening played "all the regular sports — swimming, cricket, rugby — but not really well."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jan 10, 2012
Paper artist Gannon cut his own niche
Patrick Gannon admits he loves puzzles. As a literature major and aspiring writer in university, he delighted in deconstructing ideas and consciously pulling together disparate pieces to make a whole. Twenty years later, as a "cut paper" artist in Japan, Gannon, 40, employs the same intellectual techniques,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 18, 2011
Laughs from the past still hitting the spot
Any well-aimed dart of wit depends upon accurate release. Timing is all, and at first glance a collection of 1990s humor from "The Alien," a popular Nagoya-based ex-pat magazine featuring irreverent satire and visual gags, may seem dated. That the compilation still makes the reader laugh aloud, while...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 16, 2011
Tokyo Ballet's top principal readies a final dance
On his second-ever professional tour in Europe, dancer Naoki Takagishi fought through injuries as he worked with modern-dance choreographer Maurice Bejart for the first time.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 3, 2011
A graceful hand to help elderly Japanese in Holland
In 1941, in the then Dutch East Indies, thousands of people were forced into internment camps by the invading Japanese army. It is a slice of history almost forgotten today, along with so many other wartime atrocities. It is something Chieko van Santen remembers every day, as the Japanese widow of a...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 12, 2011
Searching for connections drives young documentarian
Megumi Nishikura, a young documentary filmmaker in Tokyo, consolidates her goals under one main theme: "I want to remind us of our common humanity, to remember that we are all humans with the same hopes and desires and we all deserve to be respected.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 5, 2011
Hokkaido roots spur woman to bring folk tales to masses
For Deborah Davidson, Hokkaido is not only home, it is a door to other worlds. As a child, she played with Ainu children and watched them care for the frolicking cubs of the "iomante" (bear ceremony). As a translator, she now focuses on bringing Ainu folk tales to an English-speaking audience.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 29, 2011
Longtime Kyoto resident relishes Irish music scene
Jay Gregg, a resident of Kyoto since 1980, starts each day with a "bowl of matcha and a few tunes." The music drifts through his living space, across his Kano School art collection, and brings back memories of his banjo-strumming university days at Colorado State.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 16, 2011
The hills of Kotsubo hide the tombs of fallen samurai
No matter how warm and sunny the day, there's always a chill in Mandarado Yagura, a samurai graveyard in Kotsubo, right at the boundary between Kamakura and Zushi in Kanagawa Prefecture just south of Yokohama.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 9, 2011
Hymns for human potential
March and After, by Jon Mitchell. Printed Matter Press, 2011, 34pp., ¥1,000 (paperback) "March and After" brims with pithy song, but it is not merely a collection of poetry. The slim volume cuts with journalistic economy and biographical precision.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 8, 2011
Communication skill, beyond language, called key necessity
When Mark Rubiner drove tens of thousands of kilometers from Arizona to Mexico and through South America when he was only 21 years old, his high school Spanish skills became a key tool for survival.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 7, 2011
Helping Japan with a dance
Take any teenager nearly 10,000 km (6,000 miles) from home on their first-ever overseas trip and you are bound to reap wonder. For 16-year-old French ballerina Sylvie Guillem, who came to Tokyo with the Paris Opera Ballet School in 1981, that wonder grew into 30 years of mutual admiration.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 10, 2011
Swiss tries to bring foreign tourists back to Japan, a step at a time
The undulating sea observes the solitary walker. A triangular bamboo farmer's hat shades his face as the infinite horizon stretches ahead, marking out his path.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 20, 2011
Fate's path led Canadian to Kamakura
Rarely does life offer a clear-cut crossroads, but Heather Willson, a 34-year resident of Japan, faced one squarely when she was 22 years old.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 13, 2011
Young dancers reap fruits of choreographer's expertise
Kimiho Hulbert danced before she could talk. Crawling backstage between dressing rooms of her Japanese mother and British father, both professional dancers in Belgium where she was born, Hulbert even disdained her first official ballet class at 2 years old as "too babyish."
CULTURE / Books
Jul 31, 2011
Literary sludge insults child abduction issue
IN APPROPRIATE: A Novel of Culture, Kidnapping, and Revenge in Modern Japan, by Debito Arudou. Lulu Enterprises, 2011, $10, 149 pp., (paper) That prickly gadfly of gaikokujins, Debito Arudou, has done it again, diminishing a worthy topic — in this case, international child abduction —...

Longform

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