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November 22, 2024
 

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Jeff Kingston
Jeff Kingston lives in Tokyo, teaches history at Temple University Japan and has been contributing to The Japan Times since 1988. "Contemporary Japan" (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) is his most recent book.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 29, 2006
Is the sun setting on the future of Japan?
SHUTTING OUT THE SUN: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation, by Michael Zielenziger. New York: Doubleday, 2006, 352 pp., $24.95 (cloth). The strength of this book lies in its sensitive and poignant portraits of hikikomori, Japan's recluses. Their stories of withdrawal are etched with pain and anomie....
CULTURE / Books
Oct 15, 2006
The first steps to rapprochement
JAPAN'S FOREIGN POLICY 1945-2003: The Quest for a Proactive Policy, by Kazuhiko Togo. Leiden: Brill Academic, 2005, 484 pp., $49 (paper). Kazuhiko Togo, one of Japan's leading strategic thinkers about foreign policy, wrote an article in the June issue of Far Eastern Economic Review calling for a moratorium...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 1, 2006
Salarymen: a dying breed of worker?
21ST-CENTURY JAPANESE MANAGEMENT: New Systems, Lasting Values, by James C. Abegglen. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, 194 pp., $80 (cloth). Japan is back and its companies are leading the charge. The process of reinventing corporate Japan continues apace, but does not mean a repudiation of core values....
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 24, 2006
Koizumi's Shake, Rattle & Roll
Elvis impersonator? Japan's Thatcher? Faction buster? Nah, as the curtain falls on the Koizumi show, he will be remembered above all for his missed opportunities and self-indulgent gestures at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo -- that, and steamrollering the Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9 into oblivion....
CULTURE / Books
Aug 13, 2006
Arguing over history, memory and politics
THE MAKING OF THE "RAPE OF NANKING": History and Memory in Japan, China and the United States, by Takashi Yoshida. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006, 265 pp., $55 (cloth). Since Iris Chang published "The Rape of Nanking" (1997), the Japanese have taken a beating about their alleged collective amnesia...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 23, 2006
Fear and loathing in Tokyo today
THINK GLOBAL, FEAR LOCAL: Sex, Violence and Anxiety in Contemporary Japan, by David Leheny. New York: Cornell University Press, 2006, 230 pp., $35 (cloth). Otto van Bismarck quipped that the crafting of laws, like sausage making, does not bear watching. Certainly both can be messy and disillusioning,...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 23, 2006
Faces of terrorism
The Richman's Cafe seemed an unlikely place to meet a terrorist, but at least it was well lit and public.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 23, 2006
Democracy falters as underworld forces flourish
Kyrgyzstan is referred to as a faltering state, meaning that it is not quite failing.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2006
Magic touch in East Timor
Dr. Jose Ramos-Horta, 56, is the $14 billion man. During 2005, while serving as foreign minister, he is credited with playing a crucial behind-the-scenes role in rescuing Timor Sea resource negotiations between Australia and East Timor. Talks had hit an impasse, partly owing to the abrasive style of...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 9, 2006
A bumper-car experience in Toyota-land
NOTES FROM TOYOTA-LAND: An American Engineer in Japan, by Darius Mehri. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2006, $26 (cloth). Toyota is booming, but its PR department has had its hands full with a high-profile sexual harassment lawsuit in the United States -- and now this damning insider's revelations...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 24, 2006
Japan heats up whaling wars
The battle over whaling has grown more acrimonious in recent years principally because Japan has become a more vociferous and belligerent advocate for a resumption of commercial whaling. In the recently concluded meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), Japan's representative browbeat and...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 30, 2006
Could the fortress have been saved?
SINGAPORE BURNING: Heroism and Surrender in WWII, by Colin Smith. London: Penguin, 2006, 512pp., £9.99 (paper). Winston Churchill called the fall of Singapore, "The worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history." This inglorious surrender to Japan on Feb. 15, 1942, came about largely because...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 9, 2006
Could the U.N. have done more?
A NOT SO DISTANT HORROR: Mass Violence in East Timor, by Joseph Nevins. New York: Cornell University Press, 2005, 273 pp., $18.95 (cloth). This is a gripping and powerful saga rooted in the horrible atrocities and deprivation endured by the East Timorese following Indonesia's invasion in 1975. Indonesian...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 2, 2006
Accepting apologies is not so easy
JAPANESE APOLOGIES FOR WORLD WAR II: A Rhetorical Study, by Jane W. Yamazaki. London: Routledge, 2005, 256 pp., £65 (cloth). POLITICS, MEMORY AND PUBLIC OPINION: The History Textbook Controversy and Japanese Society, by Sven Saaler, Munich: Deutsches Institut fur Japanstudien, 2005, 202 pp., 28 euro...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 12, 2006
Money laundering and global debt
CAPITALISM'S ACHILLES HEEL: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free-Market System, by Raymond W. Baker. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons, 2005, 438 pp., $27.95 (cloth). Reviewed by JEFF KINGSTON The scandalous tolerance of massive money laundering by global financial institutions contributes to poverty...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 5, 2006
Japan's social norms shaped by law
LAW IN EVERYDAY JAPAN: Sex, Sumo, Suicide, and Statutes, by Mark D. West. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005, 279 pp., $19.95 (paper). This is a superb book that explores the interaction of law, society and culture over a range of intriguing topics. In seven captivating case studies, Mark West...
Japan Times
Features
Feb 26, 2006
Tales of two cities
The seeds of political tension in Xinjiang are not hard to find.
Japan Times
Features
Feb 26, 2006
Dateline: Xinjiang
Our plane looked new and well maintained, but as we headed off into the void on the atlas far, far to the northwest of Shanghai, I still wondered if I had made a mistake by not buying some of the "Air Unexpected Insurance" on offer at the airport.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 19, 2006
Decades of peace have yet to heal Vietnam's wounds
VIET NAM AT PEACE, by Philip Jones Griffiths. London: Trolley, 2005, 312 pp., £39.95 (cloth). This is the final volume in Philip Jones Griffiths' epoch trilogy on Vietnam spanning 40 years. His classic "Vietnam, Inc" (1971) and "Agent Orange" (2003) focus on war and its consequences. Here, we are given...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 8, 2006
Unsparing view of Indonesia past
IN THE TIME OF MADNESS by Richard Lloyd Parry. London: Jonathan Cape, 2005, 315 pp., £12.99 (paper). This firsthand account of fin de siecle Indonesia, an era of widespread chaos and violence, takes us into the heart of darkness, searing our consciousness with images of deprivation, fear and mayhem...
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

Podcast

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

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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