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April 30, 2024
 

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Adam Minter
For Adam Minter's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 24, 2014
Kenny G runs afoul of Xi's artist crackdown
Chinese President Xi Jinping has launched a Maoist campaign against art and artists whom he judges as having 'negative social impact.' Saxman Kenny G, who is super popular in China, ran afoul of the authorities this week when he tweeted images of himself visiting protesters in Hong Kong.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 21, 2014
Uneaten food threatens China's environment
Despite the fact that 11.5 percent of the China mainland's population was undernourished between 2010 and 2012, Chinese still manage to waste more food grains than Americans on an annual basis.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 12, 2014
Asteroid-mining race starts with few laws in place
Nobody is expected to start mining asteroids this decade, but the U.S. Congress is to hold hearings on the Asteroids Act, legislation that takes a simple line: If you extract a resource from an asteroid, it's yours.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 30, 2014
California ban on plastic bags is full of hot air
California legislators' efforts to impose America's first statewide ban on single-use plastic bags smack of an easy way to demonstrate concern for the environment without requiring too much of their constituents or local businesses.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 28, 2014
Xi using drug campaign as new political tool
The highly publicized arrests and confessions in President Xi JInping anti-drug use campaign play an important propaganda role, contrasting Xi's administration against the supposedly more permissive governments that preceded it.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 24, 2014
Topping the pops not as hard as it used to be
Disney's almighty Marvel Entertainment Group musters its superpowers to transform a motley collection of AM radio hits from the 1970s into the No. 1 pop music album in the U.S.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 22, 2014
Can the Chinese help save Africa's elephants?
Over the last two years, restaurants in Shanghai have dropped shark fin from their menus amid an awareness campaign against the shark-fin trade. Could a similar campaign curb the Chinese public's demand for ivory and help to save Africa's elephants?
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 15, 2014
China outsourcing its dirty work to U.S. military
There's little that the Chinese government likes less than the projection of U.S. military power, yet Beijing offers grudging support for U.S. efforts to safeguard Iraqi sovereignty with airstrikes against Islamic State jihadists.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2014
Communist roots of China's capitalist corruption
Official voices and microbloggers are becoming more comfortable discussing the broad and entrenched nature of corruption in China. Meanwhile, personalities remain at the heart of President Xi Jinping's current anti-corruption purge.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 29, 2014
Why I'll be flying again on Malaysia Airlines
Despite losing its second airliner in four months, Malaysia Airlines says its generous refund policy for 2014 has not resulted in a surge in requests for refunds. There is good reason for that.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2014
Coca-Cola pays expats to breathe China's air
It's hard to believe that the 15 percent bonus Coca-Cola is said to be offering will do much to help it attract or retain expatriate employees to breathe China's polluted air.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 12, 2014
Is China really set on another Olympics?
One would have expected some civic joy at Monday's news that Beijing is listed as one of three candidate finalists to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. Curiously, though, that news has been hard to find in China.
COMMENTARY
Jun 18, 2014
China's mixed messages to Taiwan, Hong Kong
China has released a document that fundamentally alters the meaning of its promise of 'one country, two systems' to both Hong Kong and Taiwan.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 14, 2014
Chinese World Cup woes provoke self-doubt
China's long-suffering soccer fans keep looking for proxies at World Cup time, all the while grumbling under their breaths about the government's control-freak approach to choosing athletes for the national team and a lack of youth developmental leagues outside of the official system.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 4, 2014
China wields history as weapon, except on June 4
For China, history is a weapon to use against other countries, but it keeps a curtain of silence drawn around the events that transpired in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.
COMMENTARY / World
May 19, 2014
Trash troubles pile up in China's Garbage Era
Chinese consumers, as much if not more than industry or the government, are at the root of the country's solid-waste problem. Yet protests over garbage incinerators, as an alternative to landfills, are turning violent.
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2014
China starts, loses unprovoked Twitter war
China loses an unprovoked war on Twitter after a semi-retired Twitter account of mostly Sinophiles suggests that a solemnly worded Twitter message fron the People's Daily, the Chinese Communist Party's official mouthpiece, is a parody.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 26, 2014
Chinese who chicken out over duck blood
No matter how weird or disgusting the food scandal in rural China, it'll almost certainly happen again if profitable. The latest involves a 'mom and pop' duck blood counterfeiting ring.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 21, 2014
China wages media war around missing jet
A 'news media war' has broken out in China over the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, as loyal local news outlets face an abstract entity commonly known in China as the 'foreign media.'
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 4, 2014
China gives U.S. ambassador a racist send-off
What could've ignited the state-owned China News Service to bid farewell to the ethnically Chinese, outgoing U.S. ambassador with a pseudonymous news item referring to him as a 'yellow-skinned, white-hearted banana man'?
When will Japan intervene to support the yen?
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki has reiterated the government's readiness to take an appropriate action as the yen continues to slide against the U.S. dollar.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Raising kids in Japan as a single parent? It takes a village.
Making things work as a foreign, single mother in Japan isn't easy, but these tips and tricks can help you through the hardest parts.
Yen rebounds strongly after first slide past ¥160 since 1990
The yen dropped to ¥160.245 per dollar on Monday before heading into the other direction to ¥155.01 amid speculation of an intervention by Japanese currency authorities.
JAL cancels international flight after captain gets drunk at Dallas hotel
A Japan Airlines' flight from Dallas to Tokyo was canceled last week after its captain got drunk at a local hotel.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.
Casa del Cibo: A thriving jewel born from Tohoku’s harsh past
When chef Ryohei Ikemi moved to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and opened Casa del Cibo in 2011, it was the first proper Italian restaurant in the city.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.

Podcast

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

Longform

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.
Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

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