Japan was slow to drive its pigs to the market
Ancient Japan appears to us as a land of warriors, priests, aristocrats, artists, poets, lovers, peasants — but one group is missing. Where are the traders, and the makers of tradable goods?
Hiroshima mom waited three decades before she shared her A-bomb experience
Ren Taoda couldn't get over the regret she felt about denying her badly burned son water as they fled the ...
Ogasawara Islands: Remote witnesses on the front lines of Japanese history
The Ogasawara Islands, also known as the Bonin Islands, have faced a number of unique — if not bizarre — ...
Japan Times 1918: Captain Yoshita Masaki saved after insisting on going down with his ship
Capt. Yoshita Masaki is said to have remained aboard his ship until the last moment, apparently determined to share her fate, and paying no heed to the officers and men who besought him to leave while there was yet time.
Defining the Heisei Era, part 2: Hangover
The Japan Times presents the second installment of a monthly 12-part series that looks back at the leading issues of the past three decades.
U.S. sailors honor Pearl Harbor survivor during one last visit
Ray Emory survived the early morning surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that killed nearly 2,400 servicemen nearly 80 years ago. The 97-year-old never forgot those who died that day, spending the past few decades doggedly pushing for the remains of those buried as unknowns to ...
How early 20th-century Japanese rice breeders shaped the future of the staple food in Taiwan
Rice has been grown in Taiwan for centuries, but many modern varieties of the island's staple food have their origins in Japan. While the earliest written record of rice being cultivated on the subtropical island dates back to 1602, archaeologists have found evidence that aboriginal ...
Japan's gods: More benevolent than fearsome
The most violent episode in Japanese mythology is the rampage through the Sun Goddess' rice fields by her unruly brother Susano'o, the Storm God.
Hiroshima hibakusha, 86, kept horror of A-bombing to himself, until now
For more than 70 years, Hiroshima resident Tokuo Shimizu kept the gruesome memories of the hellish scenes he saw at ground zero the day after the atomic bombing to himself. But at the age of 86, Shimizu has decided to share his A-bomb memories with ...
Japan Times 1918: Teacher's house stoned after racial epithet
Twenty-three students of the Odate Middle School in Akita Prefecture in northwestern Japan attacked the house of Mr. Kishida, instructor of natural history in the school, twice on the night of June 2, throwing stones and destroying the windows and paper slides of the ...
After 75 years, 'forgotten' hand-to-hand WWII battle of Attu still haunts vets
William Roy Dover's memory of the World War II battle is as sharp as it was 75 years ago, even though it's been long forgotten by most everyone else. His first sergeant rousted him from his pup tent around 2 a.m. when word came the ...
Defining the Heisei Era, part 1: Excess
The Japan Times presents the first installment of a monthly 12-part series that looks back at the leading issues of the past three decades.
Postcards written by Soseki Natsume in the U.K. found after 100 years
Three postcards written by the Japanese literary legend Soseki Natsume (1867-1916) over 100 years ago during his studies in Britain have been found, the prefectural government of Fukui said Wednesday. The postcards were sent to his Japanese friends studying in Germany. In one of the ...
Watanabe Kazan: Too open-minded for Edo
Imagine living in a "closed country." Japan was such for over two centuries, from the anti-Christian hysteria of the 1630s to the incursion in the 1850s of the American "Black Ships."
New memorial to victims of Japanese merchant ship sunk in WWI to be unveiled in Wales
A new memorial commemorating those who died in the German sinking of a Japanese merchant ship in the final days of World War I will be unveiled later this year in Wales. More than 200 sailors and passengers died when the Hirano Maru was torpedoed ...
