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July 12, 2025
 

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JAPANESE GARDENS

Drawn to tea ceremony while volunteering at a Japanese garden in Phoenix, Arizona, Michele Laudig (right) came to learn a “common language of movement and ritual” that brought her into new communities in New York City and Tokyo.
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
May 26, 2025
A moving meditation: Finding serenity in tea ceremony across space and time
After an American writer ventured into the world of tea ceremony, its lessons transformed her relationship to Japan and brought her into communities bonded by movement and ritual.
Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
LIFE / Style & Design / Longform
May 4, 2024
The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces
Once an exotic curiosity, Japanese gardens have gone on to inspire green thumbs around the world.
Japan Times
LIFE / Longform
May 29, 2023
In a Japanese garden, you’re never under the weather
As the rainy season approaches, the excess water is set to bring life to green spaces across the nation.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health
Feb 26, 2023
Kanazawa sets an example for badly needed biodiversity policy in Japan
Japan’s cities may be typically clad in concrete, but there is one reliable source of verdant life: shrines and temples.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / Longform
May 2, 2022
Reworking utopia: Contemporary Japanese garden design
Modern gardens have moved away from seeking to mirror nature and instead function as mediums for self-expression.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / Longform
Jun 28, 2021
Basics of bonsai: How miniature trees from Asia have transcended frontiers
Originating in India before spreading to China and Japan, bonsai art forms can now be found all over the world.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 13, 2021
How to truly define a Japanese garden
Japanese gardens come in many forms that are each interpreted differently, redefining what such spaces represent in the first place.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Mar 7, 2020
Altered perspectives: The 'interactive' Okinawan garden
If Japanese landscape gardeners looked toward mountains and river valleys for inspiration in creating the rock arrangements that form the power grids of their gardens, infusing natural elements with Taoist and Buddhist principles, it is likely that Okinawans cast their eyes over the seas that surround...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
May 18, 2019
Shifting landscapes: The state of traditional Japanese gardens
My neighbor's garden is a wonder to behold. Where you might expect to find trim box hedges, bamboo fences, subtle rock arrangements, junipers, conifers and pine, there are garden gnomes, an ornamental concrete wheelbarrow, pots of begonia, hanging baskets of pansies and an iron rose trellis. At the end...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 18, 2019
'Cutting Back': The collected wisdom of an aesthetic pruner
Breezy, frequently humorous and self-scolding, Leslie Buck's 'Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto' is a poignant look at the storied Japanese world of professional gardening.
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
May 18, 2019
'The Art of the Japanese Garden': Green-fingered insight into Japanese garden spaces
By delving into the history, development and intricate details of Japanese gardens, 'The Art of the Japanese Garden' brings new appreciation and awareness to the art form.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 30, 2017
This no garden variety book on Zen practice
The over-application of the term Zen to describe everything from interior design to restaurant menus pored over by celebrities and fashionistas to the expression a "Zen moment" can be tiresome.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 15, 2017
Leave ordinary life behind at a Japanese garden in Oregon
Visitors to the Portland Japanese Garden are invited to engage their senses in the subtleties of nature.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 20, 2017
'Japanese Garden Notes': An informative photo book
"Japanese Garden Notes" is a gorgeous photo book that introduces aspects of traditional Japanese garden design. It walks the reader through the philosophy of "space and passage," "function and art" and "intent and time," explaining why certain details recur and the emotions they are meant to inspire....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 21, 2015
The Hiroshima art triangle: a space to get lost in thought
'It's Tokyo minus the stress." That's how one Japanese colleague described Hiroshima to us shortly after my wife, Angeles, and I arrived here, near the end of the last millennium. So, what's its secret? Well, there's its size for a start. And having six rivers flowing through it certainly helps. But,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 29, 2014
Mirei Shigemori: at home with stone
Between the years 1924 and 1975, Mirei Shigemori (1896-1975) designed more than 180 gardens in Japan, an extraordinary creative output by any standard.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jun 28, 2014
Forget the world in a peaceful Okinawan island garden
First came the Ishigaki-teien, a mass of soaring limestone rocks, judiciously placed cycads and two lines of highly concentrated fukugi, the closely-matted leaves of the trees traditionally used in Okinawa as typhoon barriers. Owned by the Ishigaki family, who have lived on the island of the same name...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 28, 2013
Stroll through 1,000 years of history in one Nikko garden
Even before seeing the great sights of Nikko, the visitor cannot fail to be impressed by the luxuriance of the area's moss. Towering cryptomeria trees, allowing filtered light to penetrate ground cover, provide ideal incubation zones and levels of exposure and protection for the flourishing of moss in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 3, 2013
Revealing the landscaped gems of North America
North America is not a land mass one immediately associates with gardens. China, Japan, Britain and France, perhaps, lay claim to the mind's strongest landscape associations.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 17, 2013
Toddler-toting invaders no match for this castle's defenses
Most visitors are awed by Kumamoto Castle's imposing walls; myself, I am more preoccupied with the stairs. According to the map board just inside the Hazekata Gate, there are many of them, tracing a convoluted path up to the raven-black donjon.
Tokyo hit by torrential rainfall at rush hour
People line up at Shibuya Station in Tokyo as they try to avoid the heavy rain on Thursday.
Foreign drivers in Japan to face tougher license conversion rules from October
According to the National Police Agency, there were 75,905 people who converted their foreign driver’s license to a Japanese one in 2024, up from 48,885 in 2019.
Chinese fighters came within 30 meters of Japanese spy aircraft, Tokyo says
A Chinese JH-7 fighter jet makes an near an Air Self-Defense Force YS-11EB surveillance aircraft over the East China Sea this week in this image released Thursday.
Air India crash report to offer peek into last seconds
Members of the Indian Army's engineering arm prepare to remove the wreckage of an Air India aircraft in Ahmedabad on June 14.
What Japanese politics could look like after Upper House election
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who heads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (center) waves to attendees as he departs after delivering a campaign speech in Yokohama on Sunday.
New IG Arena set to dial down temperature at Nagoya Basho, in a good way
With IG Arena getting glowing early reviews as the Nagoya Basho’s replacement venue, it may be a while before fans wax nostalgic about the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium.
Once a niche, anime is now mainstream content for Netflix and other streaming services
Though Netflix remains the dominant choice globally for anime viewers, Amazon Prime Video has also invested heavily in anime, steadily adding titles to their catalogue.
NGOs condemn rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric ahead of Upper House vote
Sanseito head Sohei Kamiya holds a board that reads "Japanese First" in Tokyo on July 2. In a joint statement on Tuesday, eight human rights nongovernmental organizations described the far-right party's stance as "hate speech."
Japanese dancers find a home abroad at Houston Ballet
“Giselle” lead Yuriko Kajiya (center), performing with Connor Walsh as Albrecht, is one of six Japanese dancers at Houston Ballet.
From the Abes to the Ohtanis: How siblings shape athletic development
Olympic judoka Uta Abe (second from left) and Hifumi Abe (second from right) with their brother Yuichiro (center) and their parents. “I’m always consciously trying to be a good older brother,” Yuichiro said.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

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What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji
By Alex K.T. Martin

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