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November 24, 2024
 

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Stephen Mansfield

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Stephen Mansfield
Photojournalist and author Stephen Mansfield's work has appeared in over 70 publications worldwide, on subjects ranging from conflict in the Middle East to cultural analysis, interviews and book reviews. A longtime Japan Times contributor, his latest book is "Japan's Master Gardens: Lessons in Space & Environment."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 19, 2015
The ink-stained road: ‘age of innocence’
The idea of the journey is as old as the literate world. If we read the Old Testament as an edifying travelogue through the Levantine, the great Indian epics as picaresque fables, tales of wanderlust, the descriptive passages contained in these texts are not so far removed from the unfettered writings...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 12, 2015
Food for thought: A traditional Okinawan diet may help prolong life
The view that, if there is a Garden of Eternal Life, it is likely located in Okinawa, may be a touch exaggerated but few places offer better models for the correlation between food, health and longevity than Japan's southern islands.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Nov 28, 2015
'Glory in a Line' reveals the complicated life of Tsuguharu Foujita
Arguably Phyllis Birnbaum's best biography to date, "Glory in a Line" examines the life of Japanese painter Tsuguharu "Leonard" Foujita.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Nov 21, 2015
'The Power of Okinawa' is the most authoritative study of Ryukyu folk music
Of all the varieties of folk-music in Japan, Okinawa's is arguably the most vibrant and self-evolving. Astute listeners soon realize that each island group in the region has its own distinct microculture and musical traditions.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 14, 2015
Nishinoshima: Oki's island of sanctuary
Were it not for the well-nourished faces of the passengers suffused with keen expressions of expectation and purpose, the supine bodies, unpacked food, luggage and blankets strewn across the hard flooring of the ferry's modern equivalent of steerage class resembled those of a migrant ship.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Nov 14, 2015
Critic Donald Richie reflects on Asia in 'Travels in the East'
The writer Donald Richie wore many hats: film curator and director, critic, essayist, writer of fiction, composer, cultural commentator extraordinaire and inveterate traveler.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Nov 7, 2015
'The Book of Tea' is a transcendent view of life, art and Japan
To those unfamiliar with his name, Okakura Kakuzo was a pivotal figure in trying to make sense out of the clash between Western innovation in Japan and Oriental tradition. Self-exiled from the emerging modernism of the Meiji Era (1868-1912), Okakura traveled to India, China, Europe and, not without a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 17, 2015
'Base Nation' reveals the destructive tentacles of U.S. hegemony
People are often only aware of what is in their own backyard: the intrusiveness of a radar tower here, an ammunition dump there. David Vine's new book, "Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World," succeeds in shaking us out of our provincialism.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Oct 3, 2015
'Halo of Golden Light' reveals how Japan's ancient leaders harnessed Buddhist rituals
Like Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, the current Japanese emperor represents royalty in unbroken perpetuity, reformulated today into a fusion of timeless tradition and progressive democracy. And yet, the case of Japan is more complex, opaque and, at times, divisive.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Sep 26, 2015
'The Art of Setting Stones' reflects on the beauty and meaning in Japanese gardens
Appropriating the Japanese garden as a vehicle to explore nature, beauty, relationships and death, the author begins with the premise that people "form the world around them into the shape of their philosophies," taking "mass and space, material and void" as content for their social structures, spiritual...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 26, 2015
'Sea of Opportunity' charts the history of immigrant Japanese fishermen in Hawaii
The common image of Japanese immigrants toiling in the sugarcane fields of Hawaii and — through years of sheer gumption — rising in the social ranks of the island is well established. Like the account I came across some years ago of Japanese pirates looting Mekong River villages in Cambodia, the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 22, 2015
The experience of a 'Japanese Buddhist Pilgrimage'
The pilgrimage experience is not singular. It can be a journey of enlightenment, a chance to improve your health or to expiate for a wrong deed. And there's also the more mundane business of administering to blisters.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 8, 2015
Still waters run deep in Shizuoka's ancient town of Mishima
It was no coincidence that my custard tart, known locally as a Fujisancho cake, had been fashioned in the form of Japan's most sacred mountain.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 8, 2015
Memories of those marked by nuclear war
August, 2015. This is a month of great testimonials: outpourings of guilt, grief, consternation, remorse, atonement and, for those whose ends are not served by an honest reckoning of the past, evasion.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 4, 2015
Nothing is too bright for Ikuchijima Island
Islands can quickly lose their charm when they become attached to land masses. This, mercifully, has not happened to Ikuchijima Island in Japan's Geiyo archipelago, a cluster of islets in the Seto Inland Sea that, despite its two connecting bridges, feels defiantly detached.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 4, 2015
On mountain peaks and tourist trash
Discussing Mount Hayachine, ethnologist Kunio Yanagita observed that it stood on, "a somewhat different plane from the normal world." This could be a description of mountains in general, a landscape where we may experience nature in the raw, and even at times, a numinous presence.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 6, 2015
War and peace on Okinawa's Iejima Island
Beside their coastlines, there are other insistent geographical features that identify islands. In Okinawa, there is the great escarpment of Tindahanata on Yonaguni-jima Island, while Ishigaki Island has the strangely occult form of Mount Maapee, shaped like a sorcerer's hat.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 30, 2015
Breaching the secretive sects of Shin-Buddhism
The tendency to perceive covert groups as reticent conspirators rather than curators of hidden knowledge is universal.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 9, 2015
Sound waves: the music of Okinawa
How is it possible that a people who have experienced poverty, famine and discrimination, outlasted efforts at cultural annihilation and suffered the indignities of occupation can manage to celebrate life in song and dance with a passion and joy that belies everyday reality?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 2, 2015
Investigating 'impurity' in Tokyo's marginalized leatherwork districts
Because of irrational fears of contamination, Japan's hibakusha — the survivors of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — suffered discrimination. Try to imagine having an atom bomb dropped on you by a foreign enemy, then to have your own people turn against you. There is another group...
U.S. aircraft carrier returns to Japan carrying navy’s ‘most capable fighter’
U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Fred Kacher speaks to reporters shortly after the arrival of aircraft carrier USS George Washington at Yokosuka naval base in Kanagawa Prefecture on Friday.
Tokyo police care for lost umbrellas, keys and flying squirrels
An employee at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Lost and Found Center in the Iidabashi area of central Tokyo bags, tags and organizes thousands of items.
After Shohei Ohtani bump, Iwate ironware maker sees brighter future
Kaito Kikuchi's decision to send superstar Shohei Ohtani one of his company's traditional ironware tea kettles has paid off with a surge of interest from general consumers.
Japan approves ¥21.9 trillion stimulus plan
The policy chiefs of the Democratic Party for the People, Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito — Makoto Hamaguchi (left), Itsunori Onodera (center) and Mitsunari Okamoto — shake hands after reaching an agreement on an economic stimulus package on Wednesday.
Woman dies after train collides with car in Tochigi
A Moka Railway train car
133-year-old Kyushu railway station remains to be partially preserved
The remains of the original Moji Station in Kitakyushu
After Shohei Ohtani bump, Iwate ironware maker sees brighter future
Kaito Kikuchi's decision to send superstar Shohei Ohtani one of his company's traditional ironware tea kettles has paid off with a surge of interest from general consumers.
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.

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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