U.S.-China trade tension affecting foreign nationals in small Japanese city
Trade tension between the United States and China is casting a shadow over the livelihoods of foreign nationals living in Izumo, Shimane Prefecture, with dwindling employment opportunities and linguistic barriers forcing them to pack up and leave. In 2018, the prefecture's foreign population experienced the ...
Small Korean airline cancels charter flights to Shimane amid frayed ties
Korea Express Air, a small South Korean airline, has decided to cancel charter flights to Izumo, Shimane Prefecture, because of falling demand for package tours as Tokyo and Seoul find themselves increasingly at odds over wartime issues, local officials said Friday. Six round-trip flights scheduled ...
Night train to Shimane's land of the gods
The 10th month of the lunar calendar is known throughout most of Japan as Kannazuki, or the "month of no gods." During this time, Okuninushi, the kami (Shinto god) enshrined at the renowned Izumo Taisha shrine, summons myriad deities to decide the fate of ...
Princess Noriko marries son of Izumo Taisha priest, relinquishes royal status
Princess Noriko becomes the latest woman to leave the Imperial family after marrying the eldest son of the head priest of Izumo Taisha shrine.
While there are many "yuru-kyara" mascots created to promote prefectures and municipalities nationwide, the one for Shimane Prefecture has grabbed public attention as rice-paddy art. Shimanekko, a cat mascot with the roof of the renowned Izumo Taisha shrine on top of its head, has been ...
Forget about the birds and the bees. If you really want to learn how babies are made, you need to know about Juno, Izumo and their proteins.
No shotgun necessary. In a friendly "arranged marriage," two cities — Makurazaki in Kagoshima Prefecture and Wakkanai in Hokkaido — united their local delicacies in a Shinto-style wedding ceremony at Izumo Shrine in Shimane Prefecture Wednesday. The union of dried kelp ("rishiri kombu") harvested from ...
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, ...
MATSUE, Shimane Pref. (Kyodo) Jobless people from all walks of life are finding work as drivers of Velotaxis, the pedal-driven vehicles popular in the sightseeing spots of Shimane Prefecture. Linus-One, a Velotaxi operator in Ohda, has eight drivers, half of them in their 40s and ...
Discriminating professor takes provincial view of Izumo
IZUMO-JIN: The People of Izumo, by Daisetsu Fujioka, translated by Caroline E. Kano and Toshiko Yamakuse. Matsue: Harvest Publications, 2002, 138 pp., with maps. 1200 yen (paper). This curiously provincial investigation sets out to discover the qualities of the inhabitants of the province of Izumo ...
