General Nov 25, 2013
Competition: How would you get the most out of the ¥500 coin?
Come up with weird and wonderful ways to use the ¥500 coin for a chance to win meaty treats worth ¥5,000 or a tasty Jamaican Christmas Cake.
General Nov 24, 2013
Language-learning app mixes study and manga
by Jun Hongo
For those who came to Japan for the anime but are stuck instead studying flash cards for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), an Osaka-based company has made it possible to kill two birds with one app. The JLPT Prep N4&N5 application by Wao Corp., ...
General Oct 20, 2013
School aims to give biracial kids a place to 'be themselves'
by Michael Bradley
Melissa Tomlinson doesn't have very happy memories of elementary school. As an 8-year-old, she "never had a chance to eat lunch normally — the other kids put something in it, or they mixed the milk and soup and orange together and told me to ...
General Sep 9, 2013
A friend to kanji learners worldwide
by Louise George Kittaka
Mary Sisk Noguchi helped readers unravel the complexities of Chinese characters, adding an element of fun to a process often fraught with frustration for many learners of Japanese.
General Jun 25, 2013
Western men, on Japanese women: book excerpts
• From "Understanding Japanese Women: Taking the Mystery Out of the Mysterious Women of Japan" by David J. Radtke: A few years back, while deeply entrenched in running a private English school here in Japan, I had the opportunity to work with a very unique ...
General Jun 1, 2013
ASIJ student helping women rebuild community
by Mami Maruko
Sophia Slater, 17, felt she couldn't just sit back and do nothing when the monster earthquake and tsunami hit northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011. So she tried to find a way a teenager like her could help, apart from giving money or donating ...
General Apr 13, 2013
Tokyo Brits gear up for three-day charity cycle ride to Fukushima
by Morichika Nakamoto
"Ten Brits, 10 Bikes, 300 km, 3 days . . . !" — a group of British expats living in Tokyo will saddle up for a charity cycle ride this month to the disaster-stricken city of Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, in the sort of fundraising ...
General | OUR MAN IN TOKYO Apr 9, 2013
British ambassador laments his two 'lost decades'
by Mami Maruko
Tim Hitchens, the new British ambassador to Japan, has observed with his own eyes the country's economic transition since he first visited here as a teenager back in the 1970s. But even as Japan stumbled through economic turbulence — from the oil crisis of the ...
General Mar 30, 2013
A son of Lyon brings his native conviviality to the heart of Tokyo
by Michael Kleindl
When Lyon-born French chef Christophe Paucod arrived in Japan in 1998, he came on a one-way ticket with no job prospects and no idea of what he would do.
General | OBITUARY Mar 25, 2013
Plummer regaled us with tales of lost seafarers
by Kathleen Morikawa
Katherine Plummer, a longtime Tokyo resident and a leading expert on the history of Edo-era Japanese sea drifters, passed away on March 11 in San Francisco at the age of 91. Born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Plummer taught at the Tokyo YWCA and Kyoritsu Women's University ...
General Mar 9, 2013
Power of poetry penned by survivors of 3/11 is showcased by ASIJ project
by Kris Kosaka
Kathy Krauth, a social studies teacher at the American School in Japan, admits she was never a huge fan of tanka, traditional Japanese poetry. "Tanka never really spoke to me. I dismissed it as early Japanese history with cherry blossoms." That all changed when ...
General Aug 7, 2012
American photographer recounts childhood in wartime Karuizawa
by Mami Maruko
Hungarian-American photographer Tom Haar, 71, who spent several years of his childhood in wartime Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, says he wants to help promote the resort area once again "as an international cultural community." Haar returned to Karuizawa this summer and is holding an exhibition featuring ...