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July 17, 2025
 

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AINU

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 7, 2022
I know Japanese. Why can’t I read signs in Hokkaido?
A lot of the readings for kanji on Japan's northernmost island are connected to the language and culture of the Ainu, who are indigenous to Hokkaido.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
May 1, 2022
Japan Times 1947: Japan hails new Constitution
A meeting of female political speakers meets with heckling from men 100 years ago, while Japan marks the arrival of a new Constitution, welcomes back Okinawa.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 20, 2021
Yukar: The timeless oral tales that are our window on Ainu life
Civilization overwhelmed Japan's indigenous population about 100 years ago.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Hokkaido
Jun 28, 2021
Discrimination and inertia slow use of Ainu grants, two years after launch
The first law recognizing the Ainu ethnic minority as an Indigenous people took effect in May 2019, with that legislation designed to protect and promote their culture through subsidies.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Jun 6, 2021
Japan Times 1971: Japanese believe they are 'superior'
As witnesses took to the stand at the 1946 Tokyo trials, they addressed the propaganda campaign that led the Japanese to think they were superior. Attitudes hadn't changed 25 years later.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
May 17, 2021
When Japan's pioneers migrated north to Ezo
As Japanese discovered the vast northern part of their lands, a pioneer spirit took hold. How long would the Ainu tolerate them?
Japan Times
PODCAST / deep dive
Nov 11, 2020
Episode 72: Preserving the endangered Ainu language
The Ainu language has been declared critically endangered by UNESCO, with few people left alive today who speak it.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Oct 25, 2020
The Ainu language and the global movement for indigenous rights
With the Ainu language considered to be on the brink of extinction, global connections are breathing new life into revitalization efforts.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 21, 2020
‘Ainu Mosir’: A coming-of-age tale, respectfully told
Takeshi Fukunaga's film centered on the indigenous people of northern Japan tells the story of a 14-year-old boy learning to appreciate his heritage.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2020
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.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 3, 2019
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.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Nov 1, 2019
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.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / RECENTLY PUBLISHED BOOKS ABOUT JAPAN
May 11, 2019
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.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Feb 25, 2019
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.
JAPAN
Aug 5, 2018
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.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 25, 2018
Japan's indigenous Ainu sue to bring their ancestors' bones back home
Activist group's hardball tactics expose rifts in the Ainu community over the fate of bones held at universities.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Jun 2, 2018
Japan Times 1918: Teacher's house stoned after racial epithet
Twenty-three students of the Odate Middle School in Akita Prefecture in northwestern Japan attacked the house of Mr. Kishida, instructor of natural history in the school, twice on the night of June 2, throwing stones and destroying the windows and paper slides of the house.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 7, 2017
'Kotan Chronicles: Selected Poems 1928-1943': Translating poetry about the Ainu and frontier life in Hokkaido
Poetry can be a vital record of the past. Anarchist and poet Genzo Sarashina (1904-1985) was the son of first-generation Japanese settlers in Hokkaido. Later he became an expert on Ainu culture, working tirelessly to conserve the language, fables and songs of Japan's indigenous peoples and publishing...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
May 20, 2017
Hokkaido's ancient place in the modern world
"Even the birds do not fly to Ezo," went a popular 19th-century saying about Japan's northernmost island. "Ezo" means "land of barbarians." Settlement tamed it into "Hokkaido" — "north sea road." But it was a rough passage.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Mar 12, 2017
Seeing Ainu as they want to be seen
Portrait project on show in Tokyo is the result of months spent living as part of Hokkaido village community.
Japan researchers identify gut bacteria strain that boosts anticancer drugs
Researchers at the National Cancer Center Japan say a new type of gut bacteria named YB328 could help unlock the potential of cancer immunotherapy.
Japan team finds ancient ocean full of squids
The ancient ocean was full of squids, whose population exceeded that of fish or ammonites, a Japanese research team mainly from Hokkaido University has found through a new method using technology.
Students in Japan struggle with Japanese language and math sections on national exam
The correct answer rate for the Japanese language section on a national test dropped to 67.0% from 67.8% the previous year among elementary school sixth-graders.
Japan launches government body to address concerns over foreign nationals
The new administrative body would serve as a cross-agency "control tower" to respond to issues such as crime and overtourism involving foreign nationals, according to the government.
Tens of millions of yen found at home of Aum Shinrikyo founder's wife
The house of the wife of the late Chizuo Matsumoto, the now-defunct Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult's founder, in Koshigaya, Saitama Prefecture, in July
Craig Mod's life in motion in a disappearing Japan
Mod's memoir “Things Become Other Things” chronicles his walking trips across the Kii Peninsula, surveying “a graceful end to a certain life cycle.”
With China and Trump, Japan defense report says world entering ‘new era of crisis’
A senior member of a Self-Defense Forces honor guard inspects a formation before the arrival of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba for a visit to the Defense Ministry in Tokyo on June 30.
Tokyo stocks hit by a perfect storm of tariffs, politics and budget worries
Tokyo stocks are underperforming shares in other large markets globally.
Japan researchers identify gut bacteria strain that boosts anticancer drugs
Researchers at the National Cancer Center Japan say a new type of gut bacteria named YB328 could help unlock the potential of cancer immunotherapy.

Podcast

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Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

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How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan
By Megha Wadhwa

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