Aussie envoy a student of Japan
Bruce Miller, Australia's ambassador to Japan since August 2011, has been interested in Japan since he was a boy of 11. At an early age, Miller said, his father, though an accountant who rarely traveled abroad, advised him to learn an Asian language instead of ...
The number of elementary and junior high school students attending the two Japanese schools in Shanghai has dropped by 260 to 2,791 in the new academic year that started Monday, school authorities said. Local Japanese trade officials say the reduction was partly the result of ...
Group addresses growing old in U.K.
Aging throws up many challenges, but the problems can often be compounded if you choose to spend your final years thousands of miles away from your home country. This is the situation faced by a growing number of Japanese — often women who have married ...
Japanese woman grieves over husband's death in attack on honeymoon in Ecuador
A Japanese woman severely wounded in a shooting that killed her husband on their honeymoon in Guayaquil, Ecuador, expressed her sorrow Tuesday. "I only feel grief after my beloved husband was killed," Mariko Hitomi, 27, said in tears in an exclusive interview with Kyodo News ...
A South Korean high school student has won the top award in a Japanese-language speech contest in Okayama. Kim Nae-yong, 17, defeated 11 other foreign contestants Friday with a speech in which she expressed her desire to "act as a bridge between South Korea and ...
The Okayama Prefectural Nature Conservation Center in the town of Wake, known for having the nation's largest population of Japanese cranes, has been wrestling with overcrowded breeding facilities as the birds age. Officials say that the unexpected longevity of the Japanese cranes, also known as ...
Non-native teachers of Japanese growing among Brazil's immigrants
A growing number of people in Brazil's large Japanese community are studying Japanese under non-native teachers. "I would like to go out on a date with you this weekend," one student practiced saying in Japanese during an entry-level class in Sao Paulo's Liberdade district, which ...
Apple on Wednesday launched Japanese-language electronic books in Japan, a move likely to further intensify competition with online retailer Amazon.com Inc. E-books purchased via Apple's website iBookstore can be read on such devices as iPad tablet computers and iPhones. Users will be able to download ...
Mastermind moves on, American Apparel is at home in Japan and Primitive London takes a trip to Tokyo
It's a bittersweet finale for the famed Japanese fashion brand Mastermind, as it officially ends its 15-year run with the release of its 2013 spring/summer — and final — collection.
Can-can dancers, tea-time snacks and katakana confusion
In last month's column, I looked at the origins of several famous Japanese product brands. Thinking back, perhaps the very first brand I noticed here was a confectioner named 文明堂 (Bunmeido). The company, a 老舗 (shinise, well-established shop), was founded in Nagasaki in 1900, ...
Algeria confirms Japanese hostages killed
An unknown number of Japanese taken hostage at a gas drilling complex were killed or are missing, Algeria tells Tokyo after terminating the Islamic attackers.
