Search - people

 
 
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 4, 2017

Envy, Mono and Downy devise a dream lineup for After Hours music festival

It's no secret that the Japanese music industry has a hollowing-out problem; you are either a pop act on a major label with high levels of exposure or an obscure underground act for whom not losing money on a show is a major success. Guitarist Nobukata Kawai of hardcore band Envy knows the latter reality...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Apr 2, 2017

Temporary disaster housing has an unforeseen permanence

The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake left 110,000 people in three prefectures without shelter. Most of these people moved into emergency evacuation centers while the authorities prepared temporary housing for them.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Apr 1, 2017

Matohu: Observing tradition in modern design

Design duo Hiroyuki Horihata and Makiko Sekiguchi have been making the case for the inclusion of Japanese aesthetics in contemporary fashion for more than a decade.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 28, 2017

Scientists gear up for a battle against fake news

New forms of social media help deceivers reach a far larger audience than they could find using traditional outlets, prompting scientists to search for solutions.
EDITORIALS
Mar 23, 2017

Penalizing uncommitted crimes

The government needs to convince a skeptical public why proposed legislation that could compromise privacy rights through increased surveillance activities is necessary.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 23, 2017

May threatening mayhem

Theresa May's vision for post-Brexit Britain is 50 years too late in its official articulation, and 150-200 years too late in having the means of accomplishment.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Mar 19, 2017

Black Women in Japan group gears up for its first big bash

Back in the summer of 2015, I did a series of articles where I profiled black women married to Japanese men, discussing the highs and lows of building and maintaining such relationships, as well as the rewards and challenges of raising biracial children here in Japan.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 18, 2017

False sense of security? Experts weigh the threat that terrorism poses Japan

Widely regarded as a safe place to live, Japan currently sits in ninth position on the Global Peace Index's list of the most peaceful nations on the planet. The East Asian nation is generally believed to be an orderly society that has incredibly low homicide and assault rates, and it certainly doesn't...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Mar 15, 2017

Finding a family in Japan's foreign drag scene

Western drag queens living in Tokyo, Kansai and Nagoya discuss the differences between the scene in Japan and back home.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 15, 2017

Millennial movers revive Japanese mountain towns amid depopulation

High-speed broadband. An award-winning brewpub built with recycled materials as part of a "zero waste" mission. An artist-in-residence program. Organic pizza from a wood-fired oven.
EDITORIALS
Mar 13, 2017

A humanitarian crisis is imminent

More than 20 million people in four countries in Africa and the Middle East are at risk of starving to death.
WORLD / Society
Mar 13, 2017

To encourage more births, Chinese lawmaker proposes lowering nation's high marriage age

China should further ease population controls by lowering one of the world's highest marriage ages to encourage more births as the nation grows old, according to a lawmaker.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Mar 12, 2017

Seeing Ainu as they want to be seen

Portrait project on show in Tokyo is the result of months spent living as part of Hokkaido village community.
EDITORIALS
Mar 10, 2017

Six years after the 3/11 disasters

Efforts to reconstruct the lives of people thrown out of their homes by the 3/11 disasters remain woefully uncompleted.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 9, 2017

India's democracy is strained by illiberalism

India continues to be robustly, even chaotically, democratic. But its freedom is under growing threat.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Mar 8, 2017

New Zealander is on a mission to turn Japan green, one balcony at a time

Quakes of 2011 in Christchurch and Tohoku put Kiwi on the path to self-reliance and sustainability.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 7, 2017

When spies are out of control

U.S. top spies should go back to doing their real work instead of inventing fairy tales.
EDITORIALS
Mar 4, 2017

70th anniversary of '228 Incident'

Remembering the '228 Incident' provides a timely reminder of the intricate subtleties that affect Taiwan-China relations.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Feb 27, 2017

Tax break for OTC drugs seeks to get Japanese managing their health, not swarming clinics

Buying medicine at a drugstore can now save you taxes.
EDITORIALS
Feb 26, 2017

Sagamihara killings indictment

It's now up to the courts to unravel the motives behind the Sagamihara stabbing spree, and the government to come up with an improved system for dealing with potentially dangerous mental patients.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 26, 2017

Out of the shadows: Manila's meth dealers back on the streets as cops pull back

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs had until three weeks ago driven the trade in crystal methamphetamine underground, according to residents and drug users in some of the slum areas of the nation's capital city.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 21, 2017

Migrants exploiting refugee applicant loophole to work in labor-scarce Japan

Sayaka Hirose is a Tokyo-based immigration lawyer specializing in assisting Indonesians coming to Japan. She says that in the past two years her clients have been seeking legal advice on an issue she had never encountered before.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 21, 2017

The Japan-United States alliance of despotism

In both Japan and the U.S., the governments are retreating from the rule of law and guarantee of people's freedom under the cause of national security.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2017

Japan's health care system edges foreign care in expat survey

Just over half of non-Japanese residents feel Japan's health care system is generally better than that in their home countries, a trend particularly pronounced among U.S. citizens, with 3 out of 4 rating it more highly, an informal Japan Times survey has found.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Feb 19, 2017

For African-American ‘idol’ Amina du Jean, difference is a double-edged sword

Amina du Jean been in Japan for only 2u00bd years, but in that time has become a bona fide idol, joined a J-idol group and even branched off into a bit of gravure (bikini) modeling.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Feb 19, 2017

Hard to detect, deadly China bird flu virus may be more widespread

Bird flu infection rates on Chinese poultry farms may be far higher than previously thought, because the strain of the deadly virus that has killed more than 100 people this winter is hard to detect in chickens and geese, animal health experts say.
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 16, 2017

Comedian Jimmy Carr talks about sensitivity, universal jokes and the best sound he can hear at a stand-up show

"OK, let's kick off with a question for you, in time-honored tradition," Jimmy Carr says to me at the outset of our interview. "Do many comedians make it over to Japan?"

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past