Search - discrimination-in-japan

 
 
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 18, 2016

Lawmaker draws rebuke, silence after describing Obama as 'slave descendant'

A day after calling U.S. President Barack Obama a 'descendant of black slaves,' Diet member Kazuya Maruyama is accused by the black community, if not his party, of flirting with racism.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Feb 17, 2016

Third Japanese municipality recognizes same-sex unions

The city of Iga, Mie Prefecture, has announced it will start issuing certificates recognizing same-sex partnerships starting in April, Japan's third municipal government and the first outside Tokyo to take such a step.
Japan Times
JAPAN / GENERATIONAL CHANGE
Jan 31, 2016

NPO founder fights to reverse plight of Asia child sex victims

When Sayaka Murata visited Cambodia while in university, she was shocked to see a little girl around 5 or 6 years old among those who had been rescued after being tortured by electric shock and forced into the sex trade.
EDITORIALS
Dec 19, 2015

No place for Islamophobia

Donald Trump's comment to block all entry for Muslims is so blatantly discriminatory that it marks a new low in the worsening political atmosphere in the United States.
EDITORIALS
Dec 9, 2015

Misguided indictment by Seoul

South Korea's indictment of a professor with nonconformist views on the 'comfort women' issue is a wrongheaded and dangerous encroachment on academic freedom.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Nov 7, 2015

Heart of darkness: Nostalgic Tokyo disappearing amid construction boom

The Shinagawa neighborhood of Musashi-Koyama — a vibrant maze of tiny alleyways that once housed dozens of small eateries, tapas restaurants and bars — is now a virtual ghost town.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 31, 2015

U.S. sea patrols fuel war of words in print

As this column went to press, the Japanese media had their collective attention focused on a potential hot-spot in the disputed South China Sea, where the destroyer USS Lassen, in a modern-day show of "gunboat diplomacy," took an in-your-face drive-by (or sail-by if you prefer) past Chinese encamped...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Sep 22, 2015

Site of 1930s activism, Kyoto cafe is steeped in heritage

Nestled away on a side street just south of the busy intersection of Shijo and Kiyamachi streets, the Western facade of the Salon de the Francois cafe stands out amidst the traditional machiya wooden townhouses.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Sep 8, 2015

Supreme Court rules hibakusha overseas are entitled to full medical expenses

A landmark decision means thousands of atomic bomb survivors living outside of Japan will get full health coverage.
Japan Times
JAPAN / TELLING LIVES
Sep 4, 2015

Patrick Harlan, an American who can make the Japanese giggle

Japan's entertainment business is a come and go affair. Hundreds of local and foreign talents have entered the spotlight with a joke or two, only to vanish a year or two later when their gags ran out of chuckle.
EDITORIALS
Jul 28, 2015

Stepping up the war on poverty

The emphasis on Japan's national interests in aid policy raises doubts if the nation can make meaningful contributions to eradicating poverty in the recipient countries.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 25, 2015

Growing up to the idea of fighting back

Psychologist Toshio Kawai has an interesting hypothesis. We may, he says in an article written for the Asahi Shimbun's Globe, be entering an age when "becoming an adult will not be necessary."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Jul 8, 2015

Late marine's message lives on in Okinawa and Vietnam

U.S. Marine Allen Nelson first visited Okinawa in 1966 when the entire island was under American control and functioned as its springboard for the war in Vietnam. For two weeks, Nelson and his fellow new recruits spent their days practising guerilla warfare at Camp Hansen, central Okinawa, then in the...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 31, 2015

Sexism no barrier for Japanese exile building India subways

A daring civil engineer blocked from working in Japan is giving Indian women not only a role model, but safe transportation in the city known as the rape capital.
Japan Times
JAPAN / GENERATIONAL CHANGE
May 31, 2015

Karuizawa boarding school touts international diversity, hard truths

One tiny experience in your life may floor you and open the door to an entirely new world. Though rare, it sometimes happens when one stumbles upon a totally different culture.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 2, 2015

Progress is slow when it comes to societal views on adoption

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction went into effect here on April 1, 2014, but there is another Hague treaty that Japan has yet to sign.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 26, 2015

LDP fails to live up to its name

The Abe administration and the Liberal Democratic Party have gone too far in their abuse of power.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Mar 12, 2015

Conservatives lash out at Shibuya Ward initiative to recognize same-sex relationships

Conservatives are protesting a proposed initiative by Tokyo's Shibuya Ward to acknowledge same-sex partnerships as equivalent to marriage, claiming it would upset traditional family values and hurt the nation's birthrate.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Mar 7, 2015

Battle scars: Okinawa and the Vietnam War

On March 8, 1965, the first U.S. combat troops landed in Da Nang, South Vietnam. Their arrival significantly escalated American intervention in the war which, by its end a decade later, left more than 1 million dead and countless others suffering from the legacy of post-traumatic stress disorder, unexploded...
Reader Mail
Feb 21, 2015

Remember why you came here

Regarding the Feb. 12 article by Eric Johnston and Tomohiro Osaki titled "Author Sono calls for racial segregation": Ruthless Japan-bashing has become a style statement for many foreigners. The recent furor in criticizing the country shows some foreigners to forget that, outside the peaceful boundaries...
JAPAN
Feb 12, 2015

Shibuya Ward plans vote on same-sex marriage

One of the capital's 23 wards proposes issuing certificates that would declare same-sex relationships 'equivalent to marriage.'
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Dec 6, 2014

Obscenity arrest may be hiding dirty politics

What constitutes obscenity in Japan? The term, both legally and morally, has different meanings in Japanese, just as it does in English. In a strictly legal sense, the Japanese word for obscenity, waisetsu, refers to something that maliciously stimulates sexual desire in an inappropriate and immoral...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 17, 2014

Hate speech law faces uphill battle as snap poll may derail debate

Over the past few months, hate speech in Japan and efforts to address the situation with legislation have drawn domestic and international attention.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 13, 2014

Social media aids rehashing of historical hate

After rain caused deadly mudslides in Hiroshima Prefecture last month, rumors spread over the Internet about burglaries of evacuated homes by "foreigners," including Zainichi (ethnic Korean residents of Japan). Such rumors tend to accompany disasters, so Tokyo Shimbun talked directly to police in the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 9, 2014

Okinawa: pocket of resistance

The battle over Henoko Bay looks set to challenge the power of the archipelago's protest movement.

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