Tokyo Station, the sprawling red brick landmark with a main entrance facing the Imperial Palace, is being restored to Kingo Tatsuno's original design. This is ironic. It is ironic because the nearly century-old station is the focal point of two modern, glitzy office building complexes, one in the...

I had never seen a 'kubariya,' but I knew they existed. For me the kubariya was an unidentified mysterious animal (UMA) in which I fervidly believed, just as some Japanese believe in the existence of the 'kappa,' a mischievous water sprite with a saucerlike object on its head. It was perhaps 10 years ago...

Yes, today is Broadcast Day. It marks the day in 1925 when the Tokyo Central Broadcasting Corporation (NHK's predecessor) began broadcasting from a temporary radio studio in Shibaura, Tokyo. Broadcast Day was established by NHK in 1943. On March 22 NHK awards the 'Broadcast Culture Prize' at NHK Hall. Can't make it to NHK Hall? Well...

The previous JIN advocated the impaneling of a multinational commission to investigate the facts concerning Japanese government involvement in the sexual exploitation of Asian women during the Second World War, the so-called comfort women. The day after JIN was posted, Prime Minister Abe endorsed an investigation into the historical facts. I'm not suggesting the Prime Minister reads JIN. For one thing...

Chewing the cud with the two European friends in the car the other day the conversation turned to the comfort women controversy. One friend, a Brit, remarked Europeans seldom talk about the war, and wondered why it still simmered as an issue in East Asia. I can think of two reasons. One is...

My son is a fourth grader at a local school in Yokohama. I've been eager he learn the father tongue, but have been frustrated in this regard, because I've precious little time to teach him and can't afford to send him to an international school, where annual fees can rival those of a private university in the US. So I was pleased to hear of a plan to make English a compulsory subject from the fifth grade at public grade schools. The timing was perfect...

Got up this morning and was struck by a headline in the paper: 'Diet Adopts Resolution Calling for US Apology for Enslavement of Blacks.' I nearly spilled my coffee. Nevertheless, I plunged into the article: 'On February 20 the Diet adopted a resolution calling for the US President to make an official apology to America's 35 million blacks for violation of their ancestors' human rights by the system of slavery.'...

On a recent trip to Hakone we got off the bus at the graves of the Soga brothers, Juro and Goro. Their father was killed by one Ito Sukechika over an inheritance dispute. Eighteen years later the brothers avenged their father by killing Sukechika during a hunt near Mt. Fuji in 1193...

Yubari City, on Hokkaido, northernmost of the main Japanese islands, is known for its orange-fleshed melon. Film buffs will recognize it as the partial setting for the 1977 film 'Shiawase no kiiro hankachi' (The Yellow Handkerchief), which won the Japanese Academy Award for Best Picture. Now it is notorious as a symbol of...

Sunlight pours into the room as I tap out this newsletter. I'm hot and slide open the picture window to let in air. A tiny fly wheels in lazy circles above my desk. It is January 30, midwinter in Tokyo.
Fuyu Shogun, the Winter Shogun, is a Japanese phrase for the rigors of the coldest season. This year...