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Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 27, 2019

'China and Japan': Facing off across the aeons, two giants of East Asia

Ezra Vogel's 'China and Japan' is a timely reminder of how public perceptions are shaped by political expediency, how new leaders and propaganda can efface existing goodwill.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 1, 2019

Reiwa: Japan reveals name of new era ahead of Emperor's abdication

In a much-awaited moment that heralded the approach of a new chapter in Japan's history, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga announced Monday that the new Imperial era will be named Reiwa, in one of the final steps toward initiating the nation's first Imperial succession in three decades.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues
Sep 29, 2018

At the Kyoto dorm that time forgot, Japanese students dig in

The reception area at Yoshida Dormitory, a 105-year-old student residency in Kyoto University, is reached via a short lane lined by tall gingko trees and rows of bicycles, some of which look like they have been stationary for as long it would take to complete a Ph.D. The classic wooden entrance is a...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
Jul 6, 2018

Warren Cromartie featured in new series on YouTube

Warren Cromartie was a star for the Montreal Expos and a league MVP and Japan Series champion (both in 1989) with the Yomiuri Giants.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Jul 23, 2017

Filling the void: Disseminating 'blackness' in Japan

I decided it was time to find out about the true state of scholarship in Japan pertaining to Africans and the African diaspora, and the people behind it.
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jun 9, 2017

In case you missed them: a year of responses to Community stories, part 2

The second in a series of selections of unpublished letters about Community stories from the previous year.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 15, 2017

Abe's self-inflicted statue wounds fester in Seoul

Abe face-planted by sending back Japan's ambassador to Seoul without resolving the statue issue, one that should never have been made into such a big deal in the first place.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 17, 2016

Memories of 1931 Mukden Incident remain divisive

Today marks the 85th anniversary of the 1931 Mukden Incident (also known as the Manchurian Incident), when Japanese troops staged a bombing of their own railway by placing explosives near the train tracks. Even though the explosion did minimal damage and a train managed to pass the damaged section soon...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 19, 2016

Battle of Sekigahara: a war set in stone

The open valley basins of Gifu Prefecture at the very center of Honshu, where the town of Sekigahara lies, were easily co-opted as theaters of war. It's no coincidence, given the martial history of the region, that the town of Seki was once known as the premier sword-making spot in the country.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Aug 9, 2015

Is Japan equipped to handle historic decisions that cost lives, limbs and loved ones?

Perhaps calendars should indicate not just holidays, but the dates on which important people in our collective pasts made decisions that caused tremendous harm.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 6, 2015

Abe advisory panel cites wartime 'aggression' but fails to address recent revisionism

A key advisory panel to Shinzo Abe published its report Thursday on Japan's modern history and postwar reconciliation, strongly criticizing the wartime "aggression" against other Asian countries but touching little on recent controversies over what is widely regarded as the prime minister's revisionist...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 3, 2015

Taiwan school textbook row highlights antipathy to 'one China'

Protests in Taiwan over textbook revisions that students say aim to brainwash them into accepting a "one China" view of history underscore the island's growing sense of independence from its vast neighbor and geopolitical foe.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues
May 31, 2015

U.S. greenlights Japan's march back to militarism

As I've often written, I'm a big proponent of the historical record — if for no other reason, so we can look back at the past and learn from our mistakes.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2015

'Selma' and the biopic perversion of history

The Ava DuVernay-directed film 'Selma' is at the center of controversy due to its semi-snubbing by the Oscars and correct observations that it plays loose with history.
EDITORIALS
Jan 7, 2015

Don't duck war responsibility

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe must carefully consider the impact of his upcoming war anniversary message to avoid damaging ties with China and South Korea.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 15, 2013

Auschwitz boss' daughter lives secret life in U.S.

Brigitte Hoss lives quietly on a leafy side street in Northern Virginia. She is retired now, having worked in a Washington fashion salon for more than 30 years. She recently was diagnosed with cancer and spends much of her days dealing with the medical consequences.
Reader Mail
Sep 14, 2013

No 'correct' view of history

Regarding the Sept. 5 article "South Korean text lauds Japan colonial rule": The call for Japan to accept the "correct" view of history is routinely heard from South Korean politicians and most alarmingly, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. This is the rhetoric of the uneducated or the autocrat.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 17, 2013

Japan must re-learn its militarist past

Japan's conservative rulers will need a more capacious sense of history if they are to succeed in building new bridges with the country's Asian neighbors.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 16, 2012

Izumo: The myths and gods of Japan's history

"Shinkoku is the sacred name of Japan — Shinkoku, 'The Country of the Gods'; and of all Shinkoku the most holy ground is the land of Izumo," wrote Lafcadio Hearn more than 100 years ago in his book "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan." For Hearn, it had been an ambition to visit Shimane Prefecture's Izumo,...
Japan Times
LIFE
May 9, 2010

Children of Japan

Childhood. We all know it, we've all been through it, we've all lost it. Memory retains traces of it. We recall facts, incidents, fragments — but not what it felt like to be a child. Childish feelings are nameable to the adult, but not recoverable. They are on the other side of an impassable boundary...
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Mar 9, 2010

For academic pair, viva art, history

Junko Kume and Isaac Ait Moreno moved to Tokyo last September for work, but they say it does not matter where they live as long as they can be together.
COMMENTARY
Jun 17, 2009

Rewriting history in Russia

In the Soviet Union, the future was always certain; only the past could change without notice. The signal that it had changed was often the publication of a pseudo-scholarly article that denounced the "falsifications" of the existing version of history.
CULTURE / Books
May 3, 2009

Beijing: history of a forbidding city

Reviewed by Stephen Mansfield Ancient Chinese history is as inseparable from myth as today's official retelling of the past is indivisible from propaganda. In "Beijing: The Biography of a City," Jonathan Clements makes an admirable job of disentangling truth from elaboration, finding historical foundations...
COMMENTARY / World
May 14, 2008

The Jews' return to history

TEL AVIV — Ten years ago, on Israel's 50th anniversary, the peace process begun by the 1993 pathbreaking Oslo accord — reached by Israel and the Palestinian Authority — established the legitimacy of two peoples' existence in their shared homeland on the basis of territorial compromise. There was...
JAPAN
May 10, 2008

Japan-China relations rest on the young learning modern history: Hu

Visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao and Kanagawa Gov. Shigefumi Matsuzawa agreed that the future of relations between the two countries lies in teaching modern history to young people, the governor told reporters Friday.

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic