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CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 7, 2007

The first and last foreigner to see Laotians as they were

TRAVELS IN LAOS: The Fate of the Sup Song Pana and the Muong Sing (1894-1896), by Dr. E. Lefevre, translated with an introduction by Walter Tips. Bangkok: White Lotus Press, 1995 (orig. edition), 224 pp., with contemporary photos and map, 725 Bahts (paper) During that late 19th-century feeding frenzy...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 27, 2007

Beijing museum unveils bust of Japanese who inspired Lu Xun

A bust of a Japanese anatomy teacher who was Chinese author Lu Xun's mentor was unveiled Tuesday in a Beijing museum dedicated to modern China's best-known and most important author — 103 years after the two first met in a medical school in Sendai.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 16, 2007

Is it right to judge creativity by its 'correctness'?

"Brute! You brute! You beast!" Gloria exclaimed. "You haven't changed, have you? You haven't changed a bit. You're still the little Jew who sold rags and scrap metal in New York, from a sack on your back."
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Sep 7, 2007

Booking uphill in Bunkyo

Walkers in Bunkyo Ward won't get far before their legs let them know the place has hills — lots of them. A Bunkyo Civic Center official concurs: "We've named 113 slopes, but there are even more."
COMMENTARY
Sep 2, 2007

Asian Americans building a key bridge

LOS ANGELES — A funny thing happened to Tokyo's Masahiro Kohara after he arrived in Los Angeles almost 2 1/2 years ago: He felt right at home.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Aug 7, 2007

"The Boyhood of Burglar Hill," "Little Rabbit's New Baby"

"The Boyhood of Burglar Hill," Allan Ahlberg, Puffin Books; 2006; 181 pp.
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 22, 2007

TETRAPODS

Ah, tetrapods!
CULTURE / Books
Jul 15, 2007

Dive into the lower depths

PIERCING by Ryu Murakami. Penguin Books, 2007, 185 pp., $13 (paper) While his wife sleeps contentedly, a father hovers over the crib of his baby daughter, a penlight in one hand, ice pick in the other. Pressures are banking up inside the nervous system of a man who gets goose pimples while soaking in...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 22, 2007

Four Stories rises in Osaka's 'cultural desert'

OSAKA — For the Kansai region's foreign residents, a night out in Osaka has not usually meant a literary experience. Unlike neighboring Kyoto, with its reputation as a mecca for foreign artists, writers and poets, one did not usually walk into an Osaka bar or restaurant expecting to hear quality short...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 10, 2007

Japan and Germany: worlds apart and yet so similar

CULTURE AND POWER IN GERMANY AND JAPAN: The Spirit of Renewal, by Nils-Johan Jorgensen. Global Oriental, 318 pp., 2006, £50 (cloth) The author of this interesting and thought-provoking study was a Norwegian diplomat who served in both Germany and Japan. He acquired a good knowledge of both countries...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 10, 2007

Bunroku Shishi: Finding humor in a recovering postwar Japan

SCHOOL OF FREEDOM, by Bunroku Shishi, translated and with an afterword by Lynne E. Riggs. Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan: Ann Arbor, 2006, 256 pp., $29.95 (cloth). Bunroku Shishi (1893-1969), who was born as Toyoo Iwata, had two occupations, just as he had two names. He was...
Reader Mail
May 2, 2007

Blogger editorial disappoints

I was excited to see an editorial about the ascendancy of blogging in Japan . . . until I actually read all of it ("Japan as number-one blogger," April 22). While it could have been an engaging celebration of this boom in people's media, it ended up being a lame and quite bizarre attempt to downplay...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 22, 2007

The man behind the woman

AN AMERICAN DIARY OF A JAPANESE GIRL, by Yone Noguchi, with an introduction by Laura E. Franey, an afterword by Edward Marx and illustrations by Genjiro Yeto. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007, 202 pp., $23.95 (paper) Yonejiro Noguchi (1875-1947) adopted the pen name of Yone when he left Japan...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 18, 2007

From profession to prostitution

Selling Songs and Smiles: The Sex Trade in Heian and Kamakura Japan, by Janet R. Goodwin. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007, 208 pp. with maps, $48 (cloth) Prince Genji was apparently among the few to resist the charms of those bands of young women who made a living by offering themselves....
CULTURE / Books
Feb 25, 2007

Upstairs, downstairs and inside old Japan

Companions of the Holiday by Donald Richie, with an introduction by Timothy Harris and an afterword by the author. Tokyo/New York: Printed Matter Press, 181 pp., $15 (paper) Donald Richie is known to readers of The Japan Times for his regular reviews of books dealing with Asia, and more particularly...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 28, 2007

Why apologize profusely as a woman, when you can insult like a man?

A CULTURAL HISTORY OF JAPANESE WOMEN'S LANGUAGE by Endo Orie. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, 2006, 140 pp., $38 (cloth) When I was first studying Japanese back in 1947, I went to a local language school where the teachers were mostly older ladies, born in the Meiji...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 28, 2007

From the truth comes some strange fiction

Homunculus by Hugh Paxton. Macmillan New Writing, 2005, 256 pp., £12.99 (paper). The grotesquely fanged monster armed with a spear and an assault rifle that comes hurtling out of a rising sun on the cover of "Homunculus" should be fair warning to readers that something a tad disturbing is to be found...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 22, 2006

Exploring the cobwebs and exposing some dirt

ISTANBUL: Memories of a City, by Orhan Pamuk. Faber & Faber, 2006, 348 pp., £8 (paper). Turkey it seems has always inspired fear. The memory of advancing Turkish units camped outside the gates of Vienna haunted the European mind for centuries. "Where the Turk treads, no grass grows," ran one saying...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 20, 2006

Japan: Never quite closed and still opening now

THE OPENING OF JAPAN 1853-1855: A Comprehensive Study of the American, British, Dutch and Russian Naval Expeditions to Compel the Tokugawa Shogunate to Conclude Treaties and Open Ports to Their Ships, by William McOmie. Folkestone: Global Oriental, 505 pp., 2006, £65 (cloth). The assertion that Commodore...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 23, 2006

Dark chronicler of a dubious Jewish uniqueness

Who are the Jews? What do Jewish writers have in common with each other? What, strictly speaking, is a "Jewish" writer . . . and, for that matter, what is meant by "strictly speaking"?
CULTURE / Books
Jul 2, 2006

Journeys across turbulent waters

MAD ABOUT THE MEKONG: Exploration and Empire in South-East Asia, by John Keay. HarperPerennial, 2006, 294 pp., £8.99 (paper). The long-lasting conflict in Vietnam made the name of the Mekong familiar to people in other countries, but to those who live along its banks and tributaries it is known simply...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 18, 2006

The lore and legend of Asian lawmen

"The Calf Strung Up beneath The Cart" will cause you agony profound; "The Ass tied tightly to The Post" will make you scream and leap around; "The Phoenix drying both her Wings" to death itself will bring you near; "The Boy who Sits and Contemplates," the stoutest soul will cause to fear; And if "The...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 21, 2006

Yukio Mishima's prequel to the end

YUKOKU (Patriotism), 1966, produced, written and interpreted by Yukio Mishima, associate producer Hiroaki Fujii, associate director Masaki Domoto, photographed by Kimio Watanabe. Tokyo: Toho DVD, 2006, Disc One: 28 minutes, Disc Two: 175 minutes, 6,300 yen. In 1961 Yukio Mishima published a short story,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Mar 7, 2006

"How the Hangman Lost His Heart," "Fish"

"How the Hangman Lost His Heart," K.M. GRANT, Puffin; 2006; 192 pp.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 26, 2006

Memoirs of a foreigner

JAPANESE JOURNEYS: Writings and Recollections, by Geoffrey Bownas. Kent: Global Oriental Ltd., 2005, 264 pp., with b/w photos, £30 (cloth). One late evening in 1970, the scholar Geoffrey Bownas was working with the writer Yukio Mishima on their anthology "New Writing in Japan." The noted author excused...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Feb 7, 2006

"Firebird," "Thor's Wedding Day"

"Firebird," Susan Gates, Puffin; 2005; 212pp.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 8, 2006

Unsparing view of Indonesia past

IN THE TIME OF MADNESS by Richard Lloyd Parry. London: Jonathan Cape, 2005, 315 pp., £12.99 (paper). This firsthand account of fin de siecle Indonesia, an era of widespread chaos and violence, takes us into the heart of darkness, searing our consciousness with images of deprivation, fear and mayhem...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Nov 1, 2005

"Chasing Vermeer," "How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare"

"Chasing Vermeer," Blue Ballietta, Chicken House; 2005; 272 pp.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 28, 2005

The face of joy and happiness

OTAFUKU: Joy of Japan, by Amy Sylvester Katoh, photographs by Yutaka Sato. Singapore: Tuttle/Periplus, bilingual (English and Japanese), 2005, 192 pp., many illustrations, 1,700 yen (cloth). Most of us know Otafuku without knowing her name. She is the full-faced folk figure we see all around us in Japan,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 21, 2005

A new kind of film history

A NEW HISTORY OF JAPANESE FILM: A Century of Narrative Film, by Isolde Standish. New York/London: Continuum, 2005, 414 pp., 18 illustrations, $39.95 (cloth). Early in this account of Japanese film, the author says that prior histories have tended to follow one of two trajectories. One, which she calls...

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji