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May 17, 2024
 

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Roger Pulvers

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Roger Pulvers
Roger Pulvers is an author, playwright, theater director and translator who divides his time between Tokyo and Sydney. He has published more than 40 books. His latest book in English is "The Dream of Lafcadio Hearn."
For Roger Pulvers's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 11, 2006
Can art be judged apart from its creator?
Last month the Comedie Francaise, France's sole state theater, made a momentous decision. "Voyage to the Sonorous Land, or the Art of Asking" by Austrian playwright Peter Handke had been scheduled for production in January 2007 at their second venue in the Latin Quarter. But in early May, theater administrator...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 4, 2006
Will ghostwriters face 'treachery' from post-Koizumi Japan?
A recent news item in The Japan Times really shocked me. It concerned what a former political heavyweight once said in private.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 28, 2006
Japan sleepwalks by design toward peace-renouncing poll
The Japanese people may soon be asked to make a momentous decision in a nationwide referendum. As I write this, the major political parties are at loggerheads over conditions under which that referendum will be conducted. Behind the closed doors of the Diet, but barely touched on in the media, this debate...
LIFE / Language
May 23, 2006
Opening up to difference: The dialect dialectic
Many people in Japan lead a double life -- linguistically speaking, that is. In their community, they speak the hogen (dialect) of their city, town or village, while outside it they may be accustomed to use hyojungo (standard Japanese). Their native language, in the true sense of that word, is their...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 21, 2006
Will Japan's 'positive influence' persist as it didn't before?
Well, the news is out, and it's good news.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 14, 2006
Beware the muted enemy within remilitarizing Japan
On April 30, the Asahi Shimbun reported on the results of a Cabinet Office survey of public opinion regarding the Self-Defense Forces (SDF). The telephone survey was conducted between Feb. 16 and 26, with 1,657 of the 3,000 people contacted replying. Overall, 84.9 percent of respondents indicated they...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 7, 2006
Japanese being ensnared in ill-suited U.S. trappings
Back in the 1960s and '70s, the Japanese people were being raked over the coals from West Virginia to the Ruhr Valley and beyond for, chiefly, two things.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 30, 2006
When in doubt . . . dust off a fervor so infamously fatal
Agreat debate is raging in Japan, and it is not about economics or politics . . . well, not ostensibly so. It is about semantics. And yet, the outcome may have as much impact on the future of this country as many more seemingly concrete issues.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 23, 2006
'Folkways' school ban puts 'stateways' to democratic test
The essential argument about how to create a democratic society that is tolerant of difference revolves around an old and simple question: Do stateways make folkways?
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 16, 2006
'Conspiracies of silence' feign sympathies largely unfelt
Japanese people are known for their sense of propriety and decorum. Reserve and self-restraint are fine Japanese virtues, and they have afforded the society an enviable harmony and level of personal safety unparalleled in the developed world. Putting a damper on people's self-assertive instincts, and...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 9, 2006
Who out there cares about 'Cool Japan'?
These days the government is jumping on the bandwagon. The Foreign Ministry is singing in tune. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has hopped on, with a conductor's baton in his hand and a spring in his step that you don't even see when he's ascending the stairs to pay his public-private respects at Yasukuni...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 2, 2006
A torso squeaks -- but what does it say about the media?
OK, this is confession time. Even though I have lived in Japan for decades, there is something that still absolutely drives me up the wall -- so high up the wall, in fact, that I feel like Spiderman on a Shinjuku skyscraper.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 26, 2006
One nation's icon carries a torch of conscience for all
...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 19, 2006
Stirring time spent among rebellious free spirits
I have just returned from a remarkable trip to Dresden, Berlin, Warsaw and Krakow, a trip made all the more remarkable for three commemorative events that took place in Poland while I was there.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 12, 2006
California dreamin' and the way the world's wheels could now be
Earlier this year it was widely reported that Toyota is soon likely to overtake General Motors as the world's largest car manufacturer.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 5, 2006
Doomed voice of truth screams out still against evil
Among the writers who most astutely characterized the morality of the 20th century, none may have been more accurate than the Norwegian novelist, essayist and playwright Jens Bjorneboe. His was a powerful voice of truth, and we need now, more than ever, to listen to it.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 26, 2006
Has America's conscience fallen victim to 9/11?
On the 15th of this month, the Australian television station SBS broadcast one of the most awful and horrendous programs I have ever seen. The images aired -- many for the first time anywhere -- were still photographs and raw videos of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. These were abuses committed...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 19, 2006
Winners are losers, too, in the lingering ledger of war
Ex-soldiers, dressed entirely in white hospital-like attire, some without an arm or a leg, stood or sat in the precincts of a shrine. Some played plaintive tunes on concertinas. Others had a little dog beside them to garner the sympathy of passersby. Often the dog wore a little beanie or sported cheap...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 12, 2006
Building scandals expose society's uncaring foundation
Japan is in the throes of two scandals that highlight a stunning flaw in the social order. For all its much-trumpeted national cohesion and the lip service paid in Japan to the people's sense of nasake (compassion, sympathy, mercy), these scandals are stark reminders that public welfare and the common...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 5, 2006
Rule of the people, by our people, for our people
There is a specter haunting the world. The specter is democracy. As U.S. President George W. Bush never fails to remind us: Democracy is on the march and there is no stopping it.
Japanese stripper bids to have her porn movies taken off internet
Plaintiff Miyuki Ariga (left) speaks at a news conference along with her lawyer, Yoshitomo Morohashi, after filing a lawsuit at the Tokyo District Court on Monday.
Kishida defends planned rule to revoke foreigners' residency
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a meeting of the Lower House Judicial Affairs Committee on Wednesday.
Human bone-like objects found at Nippon Steel plant’s molten iron pot, with one worker missing
Police believe it’s highly possible that human bones found in a molten iron pot at Nippon Steel's Oita factory belong to a missing male employee.
Was Onosato's defeat of Terunofuji an era-defining bout?
Onosato (right) defeats Terunofuji at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo on May 12. While nothing in sumo is guaranteed, it seems almost inevitable that Onosato is destined for the top of the sport's pyramid.
Man suspected of using smart glasses to cheat on Waseda University exams
The Waseda University campus in Tokyo. An 18-year-old male test-taker is suspected of using smart glasses to cheat during the university's entrance exam.
Japanese rap creates its mecca in Pop Yours
Tokyo-based artist Jumadiba says he forgoes the label of simply “rap” for his music because the Japanese rap scene isn’t confined to a particular sound.
Who’s toughest on China? Biden’s tariff tactic ups ante as election looms.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks about new actions to protect American workers and businesses from China's "unfair" trade practices, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on Tuesday.
Was Onosato's defeat of Terunofuji an era-defining bout?
Onosato (right) defeats Terunofuji at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo on May 12. While nothing in sumo is guaranteed, it seems almost inevitable that Onosato is destined for the top of the sport's pyramid.
Ishin struggles to set itself apart from other parties
Nippon Ishin no Kai Secretary-General Fumitake Fujita (right) speaks beside Yui Kanazawa, the party's candidate in the Tokyo 15th district by-election on April 28. Nippon Ishin lost in this by-election as well as another in Nagasaki held on the same day.
In Japan, 68,000 people over 65 projected to die alone at home this year
As Japan grapples with its population's rapid aging, supporting people who live and age alone is looming larger on the policy agenda.

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