Language | BILINGUAL Nov 12, 2018
Don't worry about slipping up in spoken Japanese, you're only carrot after all
Come commiserate with perpetual learners of the language over a shared ability to fill an everyday conversation with gaffes.
David McNeill
David McNeill is a Tokyo-based writer from Ireland. He writes for several international publications and teaches political science at Sophia University. His new co-authored book is "Strong in the Rain: Surviving Japan's Earthquake, Tsunami and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster."
For David McNeill's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Books Feb 10, 2018
'Liv': The truth of war in a pair of cornflower-blue eyes
In the landmark Western "The Searchers" (1956) directed by John Ford, John Wayne plays embittered Civil War veteran Ethan Edwards, in obsessive pursuit of Comanche Indians who have kidnapped his niece. Such is Edward's hatred for Native Americans we spend the movie convinced he ...
Issues | THE FOREIGN ELEMENT Oct 22, 2017
Defiant Cambodia Daily is down but not out
Tokyo-based publishing family hopes to resurrect paper that was forced to shut last month amid claims it owes Cambodia a huge tax bill.
National / Politics Jul 29, 2017
Strategic approach: Washington's shifting nuclear policy in the Asia-Pacific region is putting Japan in a difficult position
A global ban on nuclear weapons was approved earlier this month at the U.N. headquarters in New York. A total of 122 countries signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. None of the signatories, however, possesses a nuclear bomb. The world's nuclear club ...
National / Social Issues May 13, 2017
In Fukushima, a land where few return
The evacuation orders for most of the village of Iitate have been lifted. But where are the people?
Books / Reviews Oct 22, 2016
Nationalism: a long shadow over Asia's precarious future
In 1945, year zero for "Nationalism in Asia", most of the region it describes was impoverished, backward and exhausted. After the calamitous Pacific War, China, India and Indonesia were in a final showdown with the great European colonial powers that had exploited them for ...
More Sports / Horse Racing Aug 20, 2016
Inside Japan's racehorse breeding empire
Harry Sweeney has his hand up a horse's backside. The mare looks put out by this intrusion. Her eyes dart about nervously and she shifts her weight before accepting five thick human digits probing her insides. After feeling the uterus and the swelling of ...
National / Media May 28, 2016
Shooting the messenger: journalism under siege in Japan
Journalists who refuse to toe the official line are under pressure, experts say
National / Crime & Legal Jan 16, 2016
Travesty of justice: legal reform unlikely despite erroneous convictions
Two elderly men fighting for decades to clear their names are poised to receive high-profile retrials in 2016 and yet their ordeals are unlikely to trigger wide-ranging reform to the country’s justice system, experts say.
National / Politics Aug 15, 2015
Growing influence of Japan Conference reflects resentment at Tokyo's postwar settlement with Washington
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in April delivered a speech to the U.S. Congress — the first by a Japanese leader — that lauded deepening trade ties and the military alliance with the United States. The speech, carefully tuned for his U.S. audience, cast Abe as ...