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December 21, 2024
 

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Thomas Dillon
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Nov 11, 2006
The overrated and the underrated
Several months ago I devoted a column to aspects of Japanese life that I felt received too much or too little attention in the eyes of foreign visitors.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Oct 28, 2006
Once upon a crow hunt weary
This story is true. Most of it.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Oct 14, 2006
Exorcising the untrained brain
Once at a Japanese hospital -- after first camping in the outer waiting room for an eternity and then sitting in the inner waiting room for half an eternity more -- I heard the nurse hold the following conversation with the doctor, whose desk was parked around the corner, just beyond my sight.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Sep 30, 2006
Look what they've done to my food, Ma
It is a marriage made in hell's kitchen.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Sep 16, 2006
A train chock full o' nuts
They're not my family, they're not my friends. They're . . . my "famuters" -- those familiar commuters who ride the train with me each and every day.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Sep 2, 2006
Quiet on the set. Ready . . . Action!
"All I need is the backing," says the man. "Then I've got a surefire hit."
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 26, 2006
In the heat of the city
My son calls it "air you can wear."
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 12, 2006
The ghost of a summer past
A catch of breath, a creak of wood and a shadow going thump in the night. . . . Fascination for the spooky and inexplicable perhaps bubbles more intensely in Japan than anywhere else, even in Amityville -- especially during Japanese ghost season, the hot month of August. Is what follows a "Flactured...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jul 29, 2006
When Crete meets NEET
An unholy union with an unholy result -- a monster!
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jul 15, 2006
Me and me: those extraordinary twins
On his deathbed in 1910, Mark Twain supposedly mumbled about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jul 1, 2006
A mite louder than mice: city gaijin vs. country gaijin
OK, so it's not the greatest conflict of all time. It's not Pepsi vs. Coke, Tom vs. Jerry or even Freddy vs. Jason. Plus it's not Japan-specific. The following swords of debate can be crossed in any nation at any time by anyone.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jun 17, 2006
Those were the good old days
The other day I spied a foreign couple across the room in a Japanese restaurant. They were so new to Japan they bore an aura of green. Bright green. So bright, I had to squint.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jun 3, 2006
Just say it ain't so, Joe
At times in my life I have been vain enough to imagine my name up in lights, embossed upon a novel or even typed beneath the head of a newspaper column. A good one, I mean.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 20, 2006
How sweet it is -- or isn't
My wife bakes in flurries and when the storm hits hardest, our kitchen becomes a virtual hurricane of flour and dough, not to mention Category 5 aromas.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Apr 29, 2006
A boom time for Japanese electronics
Recently the day that my wife had long been predicting finally arrived -- sort of.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Apr 15, 2006
When rankings go rank
One symptom of a society addicted to quick information is the popularity of lists.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Apr 1, 2006
A few gestures of renown -- really
A non-Japanese-speaking friend of mine was telling me a story of how he once tried to talk his way onto a dinner cruise, even though he knew all the seats were booked. Persistence, he figured, plus his clumsiness with the language would work its "gaijin" spell on the English-burdened clerk, who he just...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Mar 18, 2006
Confessions of a priest . . . sort of
Meet "Father Smith" -- silver hair, gentle smile and a voice so mellow that it flows with a grace from beyond. Maybe there is a God and maybe there isn't, but when you're with Father Smith, you tend to believe that maybe there is.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Mar 4, 2006
What would the village hugger do?
Eons ago in an America light-years away, my wife and I stopped at the only eatery available in a town that hit the bull's-eye in the middle of nowhere. As we ordered coffee and toast, an old man shuffling past suddenly stopped and spoke to my wife. She may have been the first Oriental he had ever seen....
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Feb 18, 2006
Winesburg, Japan, and the will of God
Sherwood Anderson once charmed America with a collection of short stories focused on the fictional town of Winesburg, Ohio. The stories portrayed normal people in the normal agony of their normal lives, tales that made Winesburg a hometown for everyone. One story in particular told of a modest clergyman...
Mother hopes for reunion with daughter ensnared by Tokyo host clubs
The Kabukicho district in Tokyo, where the daughter of a woman in her 60s fell deeply into the host club culture.
A year after going private, structural reforms bearing fruit for Toshiba
Toshiba's Corporate Senior Executive Vice President Koji Ikeya speaks during an interview in Tokyo on Monday.
Taiwan lawmakers brawl over bills that would 'damage democracy'
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party and opposition party Kuomintang brawl in parliament in Taipei on Friday.
Record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, government survey finds
The public opinion survey on people's lives, conducted by the Cabinet Office, found that 28.1% of respondents think that their standard of living is at a lower-middle level among the general public — the highest percentage to give that response in 35 years.
Police raided suspect's home to arrest him after fatal Kitakyushu stabbing
Broken window glass is seen at Masanori Hirabaru's house in Kitakyushu's Kokuraminami Ward.
Japanese officials inspect Yokota Air Base over PFAS concerns
The Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo in September 2019. An inspection of the base by Japanese government officials on Friday came amid public pressure to investigate suspected links between the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foam by the U.S. base and contamination of soil and groundwater in western Tokyo.
Crime numbers rise in Japan for second straight year
A police officer stands in front of the residence of a man alleged to have stabbed two junior high school students in Kitakyushu.
A year of Oscar wins and a quiet push for diversity
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” released in Japanese theaters in April, sharply dramatizes the clash between rural and urban values. The film won five awards at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, including the second-place Silver Lion prize.
Curiosity didn’t kill the meme: Why cats still rule Japanese YouTube
A screen shot from YouTube user @lagelda shows the simplicity of going viral in Japan in 2024: A cat dancing to EDM in front of a green screen.
With rare Asia carrier deployment, France seeks greater interoperability
The flight deck of the French Navy's Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier during a stop at Changi Naval Base in Singapore in May 2019

Podcast

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

Longform

Yasuyuki Yoshida stirs a brew in a fermentation tank at his brewery in Hakusan.
The quake that shook Noto's sake brewing tradition
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono
The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono

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