Is Japan a strange country? What a strange question for a country to ask itself! The question implies the answer. Merely to raise it is to invite an affirmative reply, as Shukan Gendai magazine this month is by no means the first to prove. "Strange" is ...
Once upon a time, not so long ago, it was unusual for a Japanese woman to aspire to be anything other than a "good wife and wise mother"— an aspiration so predominant that the Japanese for it, ryosai kenbo, is a set phrase in ...
A quarter of a million bedbound elderly people are kept alive in Japan, often for years, by a feeding tube surgically inserted into their stomach. A few months ago, my 96-year-old grandmother became one of them. Feeding tubes are so common in Japan that ...
What should a Japanese expat say to a mixed-race couple in New York who wonder how their children would be treated if they raised them in Japan?
