It has been a brutal summer in Japan. The country has been battered by natural catastrophes one after another. The earthquake that shook Osaka on June 18 took several lives and injured many. The intensity of a downpour not seen in the last 30 years ...
"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" goes the couriers' creed, and you can add typhoons to that list of hazards if you are a Domino's Pizza courier. When the ...
Regarding the story "Jebi highlights vulnerability of Kansai airport" in the Sept. 7 edition, for instances of negligence and incompetence resulting in adverse consequences to the traveling public and public finances, it's necessary to apply rigourous investigative journalism. This would include finding answers to the ...
Regarding the opinion piece "How much damage was done?" in the Sept. 11 edition, the author writes that Naomi Osaka "speaks primitive Japanese." I was troubled by use of the term primitive. I wonder why rudimentary, basic, limited or some other neutral, rather than a ...
Regarding the Big in Japan column in the Sept. 9 edition, "Losing sleep over modern-day issues," as a busy emergency doctor in Australia that finds satisfactory sleep elusive, I'd welcome scheduled naps in a workplace sleep pod like those at capsule hotels in Japan. ...
Regarding the front-page article headlined "Firms want skilled foreign workers: poll" in the Aug. 21 edition, the author states that the number of foreign workers in Japan "more than doubled in the past decade to 1.3 million," but that is simply untrue. The trend he ...
I was disappointed to read in The Japan Times that Prime Minister Abe wants to increase the number of foreign visitors to Japan to 40 million. Firstly, Kyoto, where I live, is already swamped with tourists, and many places in this city have lost ...
Regarding the story "Facility to offer kids a hands-on taste of English" in the Aug. 28 edition, TESOL is for speakers, so speaking not testing is the aim, but the education ministry is bent on enforcing spoken testing as part of college entrance exams ...
Passing through Tokyo's Harajuku neighborhood I glimpsed a view of the new train station that is taking shape. Echoing throughout the corners of my mind were those famous words, "We shape our buildings and thereafter they shape us." The quaint brick and mortar building that ...
The editorial "Kofi Annan, an African Lion" in the Aug. 21 edition led me to ponder the life of this man. The world is saddened at the death of the former United Nations secretary-general. All his works were to "bring peace to troubled areas." He of ...
As a student of senryu, I was very much interested in "Salaryman slog/ gets satirized in senryu" in the Bilingual section of the Aug. 21 edition. When I was a university student, I was encouraged to compose haiku by an American teacher. But my haiku ...
On Aug. 17, The Japan Times published an article titled "Seeking justice for Kim Jong Nam," about the killing of the half-brother of the North Korea's ruler. Below that article was a news item headlined "Libya militiamen get death for 2011 killings." I see ...
