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Japan Times
JAPAN / History / Defining the Heisei Era
Jan 26, 2019

Defining the Heisei Era: The fragmentation of the family in Japan

Hatsune is Akihiko Kondo's dream wife.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Nov 2, 2018

George Foreman went from juvenile delinquent to world champ

George Foreman's boxing career defied logic. To be heavyweight champion of the world in his 20s and to repeat the feat in his 40s, was unexpected — and historic, too.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Markets / FOCUS
Aug 22, 2018

Bank of Japan's threat to global bonds fizzles as Japanese insurers stay put

For all the frenzy over the Bank of Japan's first policy tweak in almost two years, little seems to have changed for the nation's insurers.
Japan Times
Figure Skating / ICE TIME
Jul 3, 2018

Takahashi's return rocks skating world

One of the great aspects of covering skating in Japan is you never know what is going to happen next.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Jun 22, 2018

Conservative U.S. commentator Charles Krauthammer, a Fox fixture, dies at 68

Pulitzer Prize winner Charles Krauthammer, who gave up a psychiatric career to become one of the leading conservative political commentators in the U.S. media, died on Thursday at the age of 68, the Washington Post and Fox News said.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 31, 2018

Newborns in China will enjoy longer 'healthy lifespan' than those in U.S. for first time, WHO data shows

China is now expected to offer newborns a longer period of health during their lifetime than the United States, overtaking the U.S. for the first time, data from the World Health Organization shows.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
May 3, 2018

Urban nomads: Mongolian herders migrate to cities as climate change erodes the steppe's abundance

With about 100 sheep and goats Jugder Samdan makes just enough to scrape by as a nomadic herder in Mongolia, basking in the sun as he watches over his animals. But he worries about the future.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Apr 21, 2018

LGBTQ voices: Embracing progress

Ahead of Tokyo Rainbow Pride week later this month, we hear from from people in the LGBTQ community about recent moves to raise awareness of sexual minorities in Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / GENERATIONAL CHANGE
Mar 13, 2018

Kanagawa computer programmer, 82, recognized worldwide for efforts to keep seniors digitally engaged

People say it is never too late to start new things. No one would object to that. But in reality, not many people have the guts to tackle things that are totally unfamiliar to them as they get older.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Feb 17, 2018

Heroism and the changing state of morality

Every age breeds its own morality. One era's good is another's evil. Today's virtue is tomorrow's vice, today's wisdom tomorrow's stupidity, today's sanity tomorrow's madness.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 11, 2017

On the quest for the holy grail for as long as we live

Is death inevitable? True, everyone born before Aug. 4, 1900, has proved mortal (the world's oldest-known living person, a Japanese woman named Nabi Tajima, was born on that date). But the past is only an imperfect guide to the future, as the effervescent present is ceaselessly teaching us.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / Japan Pulse
Oct 14, 2017

Shared experiences in the capital fuel interest in @BeingTokyo account

In July 2016, I handled @BeingTokyo, an account on Twitter that allows residents of the capital a week to give followers a taste of what their life in the city is like. My seven days were a little different from the norm as I was part of a group of people posting from Fuji Rock Festival in Naeba, Niigata...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?
Aug 19, 2017

Dancer Ayako Kato finds beauty of being, purpose in U.S.

Based in Chicago with her American musician husband and their young daughter, Ayako Kato is an award-winning contemporary dancer, choreographer, curator, and teacher, promoting fu016bryu016b in her multidisciplinary collaborations and improvisations with national and international musicians.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Mar 22, 2017

Author returns to China civil war siege that haunts her, still seeking honor for its dead

Scarred by her childhood ordeal in Changchun, Homare Endo channeled her energies into helping Chinese students in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 31, 2017

Naoki Ishikawa: the full picture

Naoki Ishikawa does not seem to want to take fantastically dramatic photographs. He has travelled from the North to South Pole, climbed "The Seven Summits," the highest mountains of every continent, and traveled the length of the Japan, but his images are remarkable for their restraint and subtlety....
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jan 7, 2017

Heavy metal in Japan: Love of craft runs deep

Although 2017 is the Year of the Fire Rooster, fire is not the only element destined to influence the next 12 months. Each of the 12 Chinese zodiac years is governed by one of five elements: wood, fire, earth, water and metal, resulting in 2017 taking the element of fire. According to the Five Elements...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Nov 30, 2016

American residents of Japan: dealing with Trump from a distance

Americans on both sides of the political divide interpret the presidential election through the prism of their lives in Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 5, 2016

The unbearable burden of 24/7 work

There was no nonsense about the 1990s in Japan. The economy had crashed, the bubble had burst. "The age of human relationships is over," declared a corporate executive to Aera magazine in 1996, defending the cost-cutting layoffs then gathering speed. "This is the era of the discount store. The only sales...
JAPAN / Society
Sep 24, 2016

The future looks bleak for Yokohama's day laborers

Once a bustling town of casual workers, Kotobukicho is now a community of aging welfare recipients.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 3, 2016

Momoi is on fire in her new indie film 'Hee'

In her four-decade acting career Kaori Momoi has always been a free-spirited stand-out, indifferent to convention. But beneath her easygoing attitude and signature drawling delivery (which used to make me wonder what she had been ingesting before the cameras started rolling) was a thorough professionalism...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Mar 20, 2016

Playwright brings voices of America's enslaved to the Tokyo stage

Follow-up show to an upcoming Huck Finn musical grapples with how to strike a balance between relating the true horror of slavery and telling the whole story.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Sep 26, 2015

Masaki Matsunaga: 'We should enjoy all the emotions we feel'

Japanese entreprenuer on dialects, parents and using balloons to make people float
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Aug 12, 2015

Surai Sasai: a Buddhist monk battling the caste dragon

Japan-born monk's lifelong mission to convert millions of India's Dalits has won him legions of followers, but also led to threats to his life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 25, 2015

'Here Comes the Sun' traces one woman's spiritual journey through Japan

With the success of last year's popular NHK drama, "Massan" — a dramatization of the life of Scotswoman Rita Cowan in early 20th-century Japan — it was inevitable that interest in foreign wives in this country would surge.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jun 20, 2015

The true cost of fertility treatment in Japan

An increasing number of couples nationwide are relying on fertility treatments to conceive without adequately understanding the financial, physical and emotional toll such therapy takes on participants.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 6, 2015

Inspiring story of 'the only woman in the room'

"My father came to Tokyo from Karuizawa to meet me," wrote Beate Sirota Gordon in a message to me, which she sent several years before her death in 2012 at age 89. "He looked gaunt and undernourished. ... My mother did not come because undernourishment had caused her to swell up, and she was ill in bed....
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 11, 2015

Takuboku Ishikawa: engaged observer

The society of Takuboku Ishikawa's era was in dramatic political flux, and its complex issues became his personal obsessions. After his death, Takuboku's preoccupations came to be seen as a symbol of the social and emotional upheavals of his times.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami