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September 17, 2024
 

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Sumiko Enbutsu
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Dec 19, 2002
An oasis on a trail of luck
Winter sees Shinobazu Pond in Ueno come alive with winged visitors from the North. Pintail and wigeons arrive early in September, followed by shovelers, mallards, pochard and tufted ducks arriving by November. Along with the resident gallinules, spot-billed ducks and cormorants -- and the perennial sea...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Nov 21, 2002
Marriage of East and West
About a kilometer south of Oji in Tokyo's present-day Kita Ward, there used to be a pond called Naga-ike, from which a small river ran southeast about 6 km to feed Shinobazu Pond in Ueno. Named the Yata, the short but abundant flow was usefully exploited to support horticulture and rice-farming in its...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Oct 17, 2002
A proud town founded on ferries
The Ara River rises in the Chichibu Mountains of Saitama Prefecture, from where it flows southeast for some 140 km to reach the capital and discharge itself into Tokyo Bay. As its name (which means "rough") implies, it used to be a violent river, swelling after heavy rains and raging across the wide...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Sep 19, 2002
Watching the river's flow
In the best-selling 19th-century guidebook, "Edo Meisho Zue (Famous Places of Edo)," there are many prints showing the picturesque scenery and ancient shrines in the vicinity of Oji in present-day Kita Ward. Robert Fortune, the Scottish botanist who was in Japan in 1860 and 1861, enjoyed his visit there,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Aug 15, 2002
History still alive on the old Nakasendo
Of the five highways (gokaido) built in the early years of the Tokugawa Shogunate to radiate through the country from its capital at Edo (present-day Tokyo), the best-known nowadays is the Tokaido coastal route to Kyoto. Hardly less used during the Edo Period (1603-1867), however, was the mountain route...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Aug 11, 2002
Old Edo's many-splendored glories
The Tokugawa Shogunate may have been crumbling, and Commodore Perry's "Black Ships" may have been tearing aside the veil behind which Japan hid from the world for more than 200 years . . . but the commoners of eastern Edo were preoccupied with other matters: A craze for potted plants was sweeping the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Jul 18, 2002
An oasis beckoning on the shogun's hill
This 1830s woodcut print by the Edo artist Hasegawa Settan shows people chasing fireflies on broad rice paddies early in the evening. Men and boys are swishing around long bamboo brooms trying to catch high-flying males, while women and less nimble hunters are wafting fans around to trap low-hovering...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Jun 20, 2002
Where 'Green Peach' blossomed
The woodcut print shown here depicts a rural idyll northwest of Edo. A meandering river nourishes an expanse of rice paddies on the left-hand side. Two men are crossing a bridge, and more people are walking by the riverside. On the rising ground behind them, a cluster of thatched houses identified as...
COMMUNITY
Jun 16, 2002
Building for a rainy day
The most welcome visitor to the Suzuki house is, quite possibly . . . rain. The three-story building on a hillside in Asaka, southern Saitama Prefecture, is like a theater designed for the enjoyment of performances by that most versatile player from the sky, as it dances and sings and soothes on its...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
May 2, 2002
Are you going to Kayabacho plant fair?
Yakushi-in Temple in Kayabacho, Edo, is hosting a bustling plant fair, and people of all ages and every walk of life are there. In this woodcut print (right) by Hasegawa Settan (1778-1843), we can see tonsured monks, geisha, a senior samurai holding the hand of a little boy, a young woman under an umbrella...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Apr 4, 2002
Savor the sights that Settan did
Edo, as Tokyo was called until the Meiji Restoration in 1868, was a large but verdant city whose population of more than a million lived in harmony with nature. The greenery deeply and favorably impressed European diplomats and botanists who were accorded the rare privilege of entering the city of the...
COMMUNITY
Mar 24, 2002
Living national treasures
Three is an auspicious number. Things grouped in threes are believed to acquire prestige by virtue of the number's magic. Likewise, a ritual action repeated three times is considered to bring good luck.
LIFE / Travel / FLOWER WALK
Mar 7, 2002
Childlike delight amid a forest of flowers
Camellia, or tsubaki in Japanese, has always been integral to this country's culture. Mentioned in ancient chronicles and legends, it is also used as a design motif for noh costumes, is highly regarded in ikebana arrangements and was prized by Tokugawa shoguns. Without the flamboyance of sakura, tsubaki...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 27, 2002
When the gods come down to earth
Next month, a taste of one of Japan's oldest folk arts comes to Tokyo's National Theater -- a two-day program of Shiiba Kagura, a colorful and profoundly religious dance that hails from a remote region of Kyushu.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / FLOWER WALK
Feb 7, 2002
Bloomin' good fortune in winter
A Greek myth tells of the beautiful youth Adonis, beloved of Aphrodite, who was killed by a wild boar while hunting. A flower growing on the spot where he fell was stained crimson by his blood and was named Adonis aestivalis.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / FLOWER WALK
Jan 3, 2002
A short trip way back to Shinto's arcane roots
In the depths of winter, when their barren fields yielded no blooms to adorn their altars, Japanese farmers traditionally fashioned flowers of wood to celebrate the New Year. To make their festive flora, they cut leafless branches and carved the white wood inside in a variety of ways. Tangled curly slivers...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / FLOWER WALK
Dec 6, 2001
Stroll under pines where shoguns took their ease
Pines belong to the traditional Japanese landscape, as olive trees belong to the Mediterranean.
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 28, 2001
Playing 'The Mikado' in the 'Town of Titipu'
At a handsome old farmhouse turned coffee shop in Chichibu, western Saitama Prefecture, Yasuichi Tsukagoshi, 58, anxiously awaits March 10 when his cherished dream will come true.
COMMUNITY
Jul 1, 2000
Homage to the morning glory
If asked to name one flower that best symbolizes Tokyo's shitamachi, I would say asagao (morning glory). The energetic vine that shoots up fast, roof high, with simple flowers that fade before noon has always been favored by Edokko, the children of Edo. Looking just right as it cools their modest houses,...
ENVIRONMENT / FLOWER WALK
Jun 3, 2000
Just a-flowerwalkin' in the rain
No one would regret getting wet in the rain while admiring irises. Any complaints would melt away before the array of dainty flowers saluting you above crisp green leaves.
Japan's elderly population grows to record 36.25 million
The proportion of people aged 65 and over has risen since the 1950s and is expected to hit 34.8% by 2040, when the second baby boomers (born 1971-1974) will join that group.
'Shogun' becomes first non-English-language winner of best drama Emmy
Japanese actress Anna Sawai, winner of the outstanding lead actress in a drama series award for "Shogun," and Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, winner of the outstanding lead actor in a drama series award for the show, pose in the press room during the 76th Emmy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday.
Japan jumps to No. 2, from sixth place, in Best Countries index
Pedestrians cross an intersection in the Shibuya district of Tokyo. Japan has experienced a postpandemic travel boom, with tourists pouring back in after restrictions closed the country’s borders to travelers.
South Korea is facing deepfake porn crisis
Activists hold up symbolic eye masks during a protest against deepfake porn in Seoul on Aug. 30.
Second assassination attempt on Trump is latest jolt in chaotic campaign
U.S. Secret Service and Homeland Security agents check a former home of a Ryan Routh, a suspect in an alleged assassination attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump, in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Sunday.
‘Shogun’ and the painstaking art of ‘getting it right’
Hiroyuki Sanada and the cast and crew of "Shogun" accept the award for best drama series at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, California.
Japan’s schools battle to keep kids cool, with or without AC
Students sit under a misting system during recess at Hikarigaoka Haru no Kaze Elementary School in Nerima Ward, Tokyo, on Sept. 6.
Chris Broad's new bar puts cocktails first, YouTube second
A self-proclaimed lover of great cocktails, YouTuber Chris Broad says his new Shibuya watering hole is more a place to get yourself a solid drink than it is anything related to his social media career.
In LDP presidential poll, three kingmakers hold all the cards
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks at the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters in Tokyo in January as former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga (left) looks on.
How China’s dominance of solar and batteries is impacting Japan’s energy transition
Solar panels and wind turbines at a power plant in Hami in China's Xinjiang region. The U.S. and other countries have described China’s actions against Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region, a key cog in the cleantech supply chain, as a genocidal campaign aimed at erasing an entire culture.

Podcast

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

Longform

A store clerk tries to cool things down in front of their shop by spraying a hose.
Is extreme weather changing the way Japan shops?
By Alex K.T. Martin

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