For Sayo Sasaki's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
The life of 25-year-old Ayaka Tanaka is busy, to say the least. As head of a fast-growing organic rose producer, Tanaka routinely checks her farms on the outskirts of Tokyo, picks rose petals herself at harvest time and meets prospective clients during her days in ...
Experts say new government policies to facilitate the integration of foreign workers into Japanese society will be necessary if the new visa system is to succeed.
The scene: Tokyo. The plot: An Australian fan of Shakespeare with Down syndrome sets out on a solo adventure to escape the watchful eyes of his domineering older brother and discover the city. "Shakespeare in Tokyo" is the latest film by Australian director Genevieve Clay-Smith, ...
Listening without watching — that is what Chihoko Hiratsuka describes as essential for understanding the concept of her tiny movie house in Tokyo. The theater, Cinema Chupki Tabata, opened last September near JR Tabata Station in Kita Ward as a "universally accessible theater," allowing people ...
"Polka-Dot Princess" Yayoi Kusama illuminated the links between creativity and mental illness with her arrival on the New York pop art scene in 1957. More recently the wave of artistry, called art brut, is catching on in Tokyo, where a number of artists with intellectual ...
In modern times joining the fascinating yet cloistered world of a geisha — even for young Japanese girls — is rare indeed. But if you weren't born Japanese and still harbor aspirations of becoming one of the traditional teahouse entertainers, though it's probably easier than ...
A 41-year-old working father of two recalled the frustration he felt when he was unable to get his younger daughter into any of the nursery schools his family applied to since moving to Tokyo's Koto Ward last year. While the family found a nursery school ...
Babies were crying as their mothers limbered up for something unusual at Tokyo's Yoyogi National Stadium in November. There was good reason for the unease: Five thousand people were in the audience. Over 70 women in red T-shirts cautiously pushed their babies in strollers to ...
The 12 Pacific Rim countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade negotiations declared they have made significant progress as they wrapped up a series of meetings Tuesday in Bali, Indonesia, but whether they can meet their target of concluding a deal by the end ...
As a major economy with considerable influence in the Asia-Pacific region, Japan has a key role to play in setting the rules in multiple regional free trade agreements, the head of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation secretariat said. In a recent interview in Tokyo, APEC Secretariat ...
