Language | NEWS IN NIHONGO Jul 9, 2018
UNESCO has decided to add 12 sites in southwestern Japan linked to the history of the country's persecuted Christians to the World Heritage list.
Language | NEWS IN NIHONGO Jan 15, 2018
Kumamoto Prefecture announces that it will lift a ban that prohibits overseas companies from making and selling products using the official prefectural mascot, Kumamon.
Baseball / Japanese Baseball Apr 18, 2017
A little more than a year after earthquakes rocked Kumamoto, Tomoyuki Sugano had local fans rocking as he pitched the Yomiuri Giants to a 3-0 Central League win over the Tokyo Yakult Swallows on Tuesday. Submarine right-hander Hirofumi Yamanaka (0-1), a native of Kumamoto Prefecture, ...
Soccer / J. League Sep 9, 2016
JFA makes ¥30 million donation to quake-hit Kumamoto Prefecture
The Japan Football Association on Thursday donated over ¥30 million ($295,000) to Kumamoto Prefecture after it has been struck by two massive earthquakes in April, leaving about 50 dead. Money from the JFA has been presented, along with donations from the Japan national team players ...
Travel May 14, 2016
A landscape of life and death in Kyushu
by Mandy Bartok
Despite my short stature, I have to bend nearly in half to enter the underground chamber of reconstructed fifth-century tomb in the Kumamoto Prefecture Decorative Tumulus Museum. The entire tomb is modeled after an actual mound in the nearby city of Yamaga, and inside ...
Voices | FOREIGN AGENDA May 8, 2016
Media show Kumamoto was woefully ill-prepared for disabled evacuees
by Michael Gillan Peckitt
It was heartening to see newspapers focusing on the difficulties disabled people face when disaster strikes, but far less heartening to hear what they had to say about the facts on the ground in Kumamoto.
Issues | THE FOREIGN ELEMENT May 1, 2016
Foreign volunteers helping to rebuild lives in Kumamoto
by Shaun O'dwyer
The truth is, as many volunteers are needed as can help the many homeowners who want possessions recovered from destroyed homes, or who need trash and heavy broken appliances pulled out of their otherwise intact dwellings.
Issues | THE FOREIGN ELEMENT Apr 20, 2016
Dispatches from the Kumamoto quake zone
by Sean Michael Wilson, Noel Vincent, Daisuke Kikuchi and Liam Nolan
Personal accounts relate tales of kindness and resilience after the initial confusion and panic of last week's deadly temblors.
Voices | VIEWS FROM THE STREET Apr 20, 2016
Views from Kumamoto: What were your experiences of the quakes and their aftermath?
by Liam Nolan
Residents of Kumamoto describe their ordeals as the region continues to suffer aftershocks in the wake of last week's earthquakes.
Travel Aug 2, 2014
Slow food and fast water in a rural corner of Kumamoto
by Mandy Bartok
It starts off as a dull roar, prompting those of us sitting in the rice paddies to look skyward in anticipation. Then it builds, in the same way an orchestra tunes its instruments: first discordantly out of key before reaching a crescendo of perfect ...
Travel Dec 21, 2013
Hot times in the realm of Mount Aso
by Mandy Bartok
I used to think that only Mount Fuji was massive enough to have its own weather patterns, but 1,592-meter Mount Aso in Kyushu proved me wrong. The clear skies and perfect late-September temperatures we were reveling in at the base of the hill dissipated quickly ...
Travel Mar 17, 2013
Toddler-toting invaders no match for this castle's defenses
by Mandy Bartok
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.