Olympic snub: Dance of Japan's indigenous Ainu dropped from opening ceremony
Olympic organizers have dropped a dance by Japan's indigenous Ainu people from the opening ceremony of this year's Summer Games, a representative of the minority group said on Friday. "Ainu dancers will not be included in the opening ceremony in Tokyo," said Kazuaki Kaizawa, an ...
Prayers grow for snow in Sapporo after dire shortage threatens annual sculpture festival
Every year, tens of thousands of tourists flock to the Sapporo Snow Festival, attracted by some 200 large but intricate ice sculptures. But this year, there was a problem: no snow. With high temperatures that festival-goers put down to climate change, organizers were forced to truck ...
New Ainu culture complex generating little buzz outside Hokkaido
Upopoy, a new national facility intended to revitalize and develop the culture of Japan's indigenous Ainu people, is facing challenges attracting attention ahead of its opening on April 24 in Shiraoi, Hokkaido. The new complex may miss the annual goal of 1 million visitors set ...
Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso again courts controversy with remarks about Japan's ethnic identity
Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso apologized Tuesday for saying Japan has been unified under a single language and ethnic identity for the past 2,000 years, a comment viewed as ignoring the country's ethnic minorities including the indigenous Ainu. "If I made a remark that has ...
National Ainu Museum in Hokkaido to exhibit over 700 artifacts
A national museum dedicated to the Ainu ethnic minority in northern Japan will exhibit more than 700 artifacts, an official said Thursday, as the facility offered a preview to the press ahead of its official opening in April. The museum, which together with a park ...
Hokkaido Ainu association sues University of Tokyo to have remains returned
An Ainu indigenous rights association in Hokkaido has filed a lawsuit against the University of Tokyo, seeking the return of remains of their ancestors stored at the university. In the suit filed Friday at the Kushiro District Court, the Urahoro branch of the Ainu Association ...
Japan's shrine meant to celebrate Hokkaido's Ainu divides them
On a wooded lake shore in southwest Hokkaido, the government is building a modernist shrine that has divided the indigenous Ainu community whose vanishing culture it was designed to celebrate. At a cost so far of ¥20 billion, the Symbolic Space for Ethnic Harmony is ...
Tomoko Keira's 'The Spirit of Huci': A year of living with an Ainu elder — review
One part Ainu cookbook and three parts a cultural record of Ainu values and beliefs, Tomoko Keira's "The Spirit of Huci" offers, for the first time, the voices of Ainu women in English.
Hokkaido’s ethnic minority will get a promotional boost, but not the rights to education and self-determination spelled out in the U.N’s 2007 declaration on indigenous people.
'Empty words': Rights groups say Japan's bill recognizing Ainu as indigenous group falls short
Rights groups criticize the government over a recent bill recognizing the Ainu people for the first time as “an indigenous group.”
Japan's Ainu recognition bill: What does it mean for Hokkaido's indigenous people?
In a first for Japan, a bill to legally recognize the Ainu as the indigenous people of Japan is about to be submitted to the Diet. The bill includes clauses that oblige the government to adopt policies to support and protect the cultural identity of ...
Hokkaido celebrates 150th anniversary of its naming with a plug for ethnic diversity
Hokkaido formally celebrated the 150th anniversary of its name Sunday in Sapporo, with the Emperor and Empress in attendance and Ainu representatives performing traditional dances. The island prefecture was officially named Hokkaido on Aug. 15, 1869, and formally put under the control of the government. ...
