Search - discrimination-in-japan

 
 
JAPAN / Science & Health
Sep 24, 2015

Japan far from confronting hereditary breast cancer, but Jolie effect is helping

For years, Makiko Dazai had nagging questions about her sister's death from ovarian cancer in 2008.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Aug 2, 2015

Claiming the right to be Japanese — and more

If Japan cannot get over the conceit of having to 'look Japanese' to be treated as one, then it cannot make 'new Japanese,' and the country will continue to sink into an insolvent economic abyss.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 19, 2015

Politicizing personal beliefs will invite distrust of Japan

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will invite distrust of Japan as well as create a big risk for himself if he insists on politicizing his personal beliefs.
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2015

Outrage grows over Sono 'apartheid' column

Public outrage over what is widely seen as a pro-apartheid column penned by conservative author Ayako Sono shows no sign of abating more than a week after its publication.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 6, 2015

Amputee women in Japan proudly step forward

Japan isn't the easiest place to live for people with disabilities. Buildings and transportation aren't always accessible; people are apt to regard disabilities as shameful; and a societal tendency to turn away from anything unpleasant makes it difficult to effect change. Nevertheless change is possible,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Jan 14, 2015

African-American community gets a voice in Tokyo

The African American Youth Travel Program NPO, which organized a recent demonstration in Tokyo in response to the Ferguson case, brings black U.S. youths to Japan to broaden their horizons.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jan 12, 2015

Filipinos in Japan call for acceptance with new film

Documentary presents stories of women helping in Tohoku, working in health and education — and putting down roots.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 13, 2014

North Korean schools in Japan soldiering on despite tough times

Like many students in Japan, Kim Yang Sun cycles to school each morning. Unlike most, she then changes into a traditional Korean outfit and studies under portraits of the late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Oct 19, 2014

DeafJapan opens up the world to the hearing-impaired

DeafJapan provides opportunities for hearing-impaired people in Japan to enjoy activities in English while also linking them up with the global community.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jan 24, 2014

Don't let ANA off the hook for that offensive ad

If ANA had really wanted to 'change the image of Japan,' it should have avoided racializing its product. Instead, it's just business as usual.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Oct 25, 2013

Entrepreneur touts power to the people as cure for Czech ills

Tomio Okamura — whose mother is Czech and whose father hails from Niigata Prefecture — ranks as the third-most-popular politician in the country. That's hardly surprising, though, given his near-omnipresence in Czech life.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 28, 2013

Nothing is clear about court ruling on illegitimate kids

Evidently I was wrong.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 17, 2013

Pluralism Japan's answer: immigration expert

Japan's leaders need to confront the reality of the rapidly thinning labor force and acknowledge that a more ethnically pluralistic society can help ward off the looming demographic crisis, a British expert on immigration policy says.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
May 23, 2013

Nationalism rearing ugly head with greater frequency

Angry protesters took to the streets Sunday in Tokyo's Shin-Okubo district, home to many Korean shops and restaurants, describing the Korean residents there as 'cockroaches' and calling for their immediate 'extermination.'
JAPAN
May 2, 2013

60,000 sign petition in one week for fired Prada employee

As many as 60,000 people signed a petition in just a week to urge the Japanese arm of Italian fashion house Prada to withdraw its countersuit against a former employee who sued the company for firing her based on appearance.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 5, 2013

Gender equality key to Japan's future prosperity

The queen's grandson Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, is second in line to the throne after his father Prince Charles, Prince of Wales. His wife, Katherine, Duchess of Cambridge, is pregnant. Under the present rules, if her first child were to be a daughter and they subsequently had a boy, the boy...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 5, 2012

Much ado, but micro-important

A few weeks ago, as a panelist at a symposium on Japan's accession to the Hague Convention on international child abduction, I found it hard to disguise my ire. One of the speakers was a lawyer opposed to Japan joining the convention, and who refused to even use "abduction" to discuss what she called...
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Dec 6, 2011

For the sake of Japan's future, foreigners deserve a fair shake

These past few columns have addressed fundamentally bad habits in Japanese society that impede positive social change. Last month I talked about public trust being eroded by social conventions that permit (even applaud) the systematic practice of lying in public.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Aug 2, 2011

World needs lessons in dealing with difference; Japan needs an education in attracting students

Following are three more readers' mails in response to both Gerry McLellan's May 24 Hotline to Nagatacho column "Japanese adults need an education in dealing with difference" and other letters published on the subject on June 28.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 26, 2010

Foreigners victims, perpetrators of sekuhara

When "Tracy," an American then in her late 20s, started her career in Japan as a JET instructor at a high school in Kagoshima nearly 20 years ago, nothing in her training could have prepared her for what she witnessed.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 26, 2010

Judges fill the gaps in Japan's family law

First in a two-part series
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jul 14, 2009

'Discontinuous minds' and discrimination: some responses

Following are some readers' views on Dan O'Keeffe's June 16 Zeit Gist article " 'Discontinuous minds' block progress on discrimination":
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2009

Discrimination claims die hard in Japan

As the United States welcomes its first African-American president, Japan is still struggling with prejudices that are preventing it from breaking ancient taboos and installing a minority as its leader, some say.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 16, 2008

Young 'Zainichi' Koreans look beyond Chongryon ideology

Imagine attending school with portraits of the late North Korean dictator, Kim Il Sung, and current leader Kim Jong Il hanging on the classroom walls. This is a reality at schools operated by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 16, 2008

The expatriate whiner: fond of the homeland but lost abroad

E xpatriates can be the source of many positive things. They are contributors to the welfare of their host nation. They are often agents of trenchant criticism, perceiving things in their new nation that natives either do not, or refuse to, see. They educate and enrich.
Reader Mail
Dec 6, 2007

Japan risks becoming extinct

Regarding the Nov. 29 article "Workforce may shrink by millions by 2030: study": I was surprised to read that among the various methods for increasing the workforce, such as expanded use of women, immigration was not mentioned. For Japan, immigration is the future and a necessity. It is not a "luxury"...
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2007

U.N. special rapporteur challenges Ibuki's 'homogenous' claim

The U.N. special rapporteur on racism countered Education Minister Bunmei Ibuki's claim over the weekend that Japan is a homogenous country.
Japan Times
LIFE / DISABILITY IN JAPAN
Aug 27, 2006

Is 'disability' still a dirty word in Japan?

Mainstream society is slowly, but slowly, opening up to the physically ormentally impaired, as officialdom appears happy with a 'steady' approach
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
May 7, 2006

May Shigenobu: A life less ordinary

In November 2000, May Shigenobu stood speechless in front of her TV set in Beirut, staring at crackly satellite images of her mother, Fusako Shigenobu, giving the thumbs-up and smiling as she was led away by police in Osaka, half a world away.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?