Tag - the-foreign-element

 
 

THE FOREIGN ELEMENT

Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jul 2, 2013
The LDP constitution, article by article: a preview of things to come?
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pushing for constitutional change. Yet he is playing the political huckster by proposing to first only fiddle with the amendment procedure in Article 96, lowering the threshold for the process to move forward from the approval of two-thirds of both houses of the Diet, as...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 25, 2013
Authors take polar-opposite tacks as they try to decipher Japanese women
It's an all-too-familiar story: On the romantic front, foreign ladies living in Japan have it bad while the guys do unbelievably well. For every woman who complains about Japanese men's aloofness and lack of communication skills, there is a man who boasts about all the local chicks he's had.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 25, 2013
'Yellow fever' and the fantasy of the Asian female
Here is a dumb thing you should never do: watch the 007 caper "You Only Live Twice" with your feminist American girlfriend — a woman of color to boot. In a series renowned for its sexism, the Japan entry takes the biscuit.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 25, 2013
Tweak the Constitution now, think later?
Whether it happens or not depends heavily on the results of the upcoming House of Councilors elections, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has clearly announced his intention to make amending the Constitution a campaign issue.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 18, 2013
Chatting about Japan with Snowden, the NSA whistle-blower
Edward Snowden, the fugitive former CIA employee and NSA contractor who leaked secrets about America's spying operations, often hung out online with foreigners in Japan who shared his interests in anime, video games, martial arts, the stock market and the expat lifestyle.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 18, 2013
Democracy, interrupted: How local voices were silenced in Tokyo's first referendum
On Sunday, May 26, something quite remarkable happened in Kodaira city, western Tokyo: Over 50,000 citizens voted in Tokyo's very first local referendum (jūmin tōhyō) on the issue of whether a 50-year-old plan to construct a road should be reviewed or not.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 11, 2013
Japan's Nigerians see symbol of change in masquerade
Anyone wandering the back streets near Omiya Station at 7:20 a.m. on Sunday, June 2, might have passed a particular office building, unremarkable except for two African men standing on a 2nd floor balcony, rope in hand, lowering a car-sized Ugo (eagle) costume down to the parking lot. One of them was...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 11, 2013
Hague Convention on child abduction may shape Japan's family law — or vice versa
Giant Hello Kitty-emblazoned kudos to Japan for finally signing the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. Now comes the hard part: actually making it work.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 4, 2013
'Okinawa bacteria' toxic legacy crosses continents, spans generations
Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City houses one of Vietnam's busiest maternity clinics, but hidden in a quiet corner, far from the wards of proud new mothers, is a room stacked floor to ceiling with every parent's nightmare.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 4, 2013
As evidence of Agent Orange in Okinawa stacks up, U.S. sticks with blanket denial
In April 2011, these Community pages published the first accounts of sick U.S. veterans who believe their illnesses were caused by exposure to Agent Orange on Okinawa during the Vietnam War era.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
May 28, 2013
As Japan reeled from disaster, three men went cycling
In 1977, British author and long-term Tokyo resident Alan Booth made a journey on foot from the northernmost point in Japan, Cape Soya, to Kyushu's southernmost tip, Cape Sata.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
May 28, 2013
Want more out of Japan but face doesn't fit? Be TOFITR
I recently served as a "private sector representative" in a panel discussion before an audience of foreign graduate students at the University of Tokyo. Many of the students will soon be seeking employment in Japan; because I have spent 25 years living in or traveling to Japan, the last 10 or so running...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues
May 21, 2013
Fear and incarceration, from Kampala to Nagoya
"I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, where two men lay. I couldn't tell if they were dead or alive. They had been...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
May 21, 2013
Ambivalent Japan turns on its 'insular' youth
Japan's decision to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade negotiations shows that at least some in government have accepted the fact that 'opening up' Japan is in the nation's best long-term interests.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
May 14, 2013
Turks in Kansai fear Inose gaffe indicative of wider ignorance about culture
'Stupid', 'shockingly provincial' and 'a sign of how little Japanese people really understand that part of the world' were among the reactions of Turkish residents in Kansai to Tokyo Gov. Naoki Inose's comments about Turkey and the wider Muslim world.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
May 14, 2013
Inose's slurs anger, bemuse Turks in Tokyo but may boost Istanbul's Olympic bid
It's prayer time at Tokyo's biggest mosque and the congregation is pondering God, community and Naoki Inose, the city's governor, who many here say has revealed himself to be, well, a bit of a bigot.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Apr 30, 2013
Samurai moms and the art of brood maintenance: a mother from the West's lessons from the East
May in Japan is the perfect month for mothers. Wreathed in the fertile blooms of spring, bolstered by days of absolute perfection, May is also a month of muddy contradiction.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Apr 23, 2013
Student seeking Kyoto flat told: No foreigners allowed
After spending 2u00bd years living the quiet life in Shiga Prefecture, Ryukoku University student Victor Rosenhoj was looking forward to moving to Kyoto, where things promised to be more lively and international.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Apr 23, 2013
Renter guarantor system a headache for foreigners
Things were going well for Patrick after a year in Japan. He had found a job he liked, met a girl he planned to marry and was ready to move out of the small room his older brother, a longtime resident, was letting him use.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Apr 16, 2013
Mad court rush could brake or bless Abe's vision
As Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Cabinet rush to diminish the Bank of Japan's bothersome independence, join the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations (sort of . . .), start pouring lovely, popular concrete before the summer House of Councilors elections and (sotto voce) maybe even amend the Constitution,...

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Dul Saroth (left) and Soeum Samrach, deminers with the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority, practice using the Advanced Landmine Imaging System in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province in August.
The Japanese tech that could one day make Southeast Asia landmine-free