After a decade running an executive training program dedicated to Japanese female leadership, philanthropist Atsuko Fish has had many takeaways, but the biggest was that she had not pushed women anywhere hard enough to achieve social change. The Japanese Women's Leadership Initiative executive four-week training ...

To people who might question Adam Altar's credentials as an ordained Christian minister licensed to perform weddings in Japan, Altar would respond by turning the other cheek. For young Japanese couples who may value pageantry over religion, Altar believes that he provides a more meaningful ...

Few instruments are as integral to a nation's traditional culture as Japan's shamisen, whose evocative sound accompanies a range of performances from kabuki and puppet plays to folk songs and geisha entertainments in teahouses. But in the 21st century, the three-stringed instrument is facing something ...

What were the odds of coming across a man who was a torchbearer for the 2016 Rio Olympics on a morning hike to the top of the Morro do Leme, the site of Forte Duque de Caxias, at the east end of Copacabana Beach? Having ...

Documenting the severe consequences of the human tragedy that unfolded in the so-called Fukushima "no-go zone" following the March 11, 2011, disaster is an undertaking that would evoke raw emotions under ordinary circumstances. But for photographers Carlos Ayesta and Guillaume Bression, shining a light on ...

With a multitude of complex issues being tackled by the Group of Seven nations, it is difficult if not impossible to ensure that the agenda being discussed at the two-day talks will actually bear fruit. But the G-7 Research Group, a global network of scholars, ...

When I arrive at the entrance of Hachiman-kamado, a women divers' hut in the village of Osatsu along the jagged coastline of the Ise-Shima region in Mie Prefecture, matriarch Reiko Nomura and three of her junior female free divers welcome me with beaming smiles. The ...

On a short walk south of Nishiojima Station past the Ario Kitasuna shopping mall in Tokyo's Koto Ward you will find Sunamachi Ginza, a traditional shopping street. A commercial district where people walk or ride their bicycles through a narrow strip of shops looking for ...

The opening to the novel "Karei naru Ichizoku" (The Glorious Family) by the late Japanese author Toyoko Yamasaki describes the splendid twilight descending upon Ago Bay in the Shima Peninsula, when the sun begins to tilt and the tide is full. And in a brief ...

Centuries ago millions of pilgrims trekked to Japan's spiritual home in Mie Prefecture, especially to celebrate the cyclical dismantling and rebuilding of Ise Grand Shrine — the embodiment of Japanese shrines. Along with being ranked among Japanese as the number one "power spot" travel destination, ...