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November 22, 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
LIFE / Travel
Jun 10, 2012
Matsue: 'City of Water ' with a history set in stone
The train from Okayama to Matsue took nowhere near as long as the one the English writer Sacheverell Sitwell boarded in 1959 to the same destination: "Nine hours from Osaka, into a remote and little-visited part." The region still feels faintly remote, the train carriages clickety-clicking over rivers...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 3, 2012
Making a life after surviving the war
My Postwar Life: New Writings From Japan and Okinawa, edited by Elizabeth McKenzie. Chicago Quarterly Review Books, 324 pp., $19.95 (hardcover) The first entry in this new anthology begins with the blackened image of a watch, its hands stalled at 11:02 a.m., the precise moment of atomic implosion in...
CULTURE / Books
May 20, 2012
A tour de Japan
Japan on Foot, by Mary King.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Apr 29, 2012
Kamakura's historic 'flowering garden'
When I meander through the gardens of Zuisen-ji Temple, I'm always reminded of a particular haiku by the 17th-century poet Matsuo Basho, which goes: Fading temple bell / The fragrance of flowers strikes / At evening.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 22, 2012
Chinese National Army and the Golden Triangle
The Secret Army: Chiang Kai-shek and the Drug Warlords of the Golden Triangle, by Richard M. Gibson with Wenhua Chen. Wiley, 2011, 384 pp., $32.95 (paperback) Anyone who has stared into the devitalized eyes of an opium addict will know how grave the legacy of the narcotics trade continues to be in the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 1, 2012
Yonaguni: Japan's most westerly isle
A colossal, dark-skinned man rides along the sidewalk on a motorbike: no helmet, two small children aboard — a vision of life in the laconic Tropics. There are times here too on Yonaguni, the westernmost land mass in Okinawa Prefecture, when you see a curvaceous island woman in a vivid, flower-patterned...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 1, 2012
Fiction that binds: Japan's hope after disaster
Kizuna: Fiction for Japan, edited by Brent Millis. CreateSpace, 2011, 228 pp., $15.99 (e-book) It's no coincidence that the Chinese character chosen to represent the most expressive sentiment of the year in Japan, one that signifies hope after disaster and misery, was kizuna, meaning a bond of fraternity....
CULTURE / Books
Feb 26, 2012
Fuji-san: reflections on Japan's iconic mother mountain
MOUNT FUJI: Icon of Japan, by H. Byron Earhart. The University of South Carolina Press, 2011, 238 pp., $40 (hardcover) It is significant that in a country where nature has long been transfused with the numinous, that Japan's most iconic image is neither a building nor a monument, but a mountain — Fuji-san....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 12, 2012
A glint of copper hints at Fukiya's mining past
Sitting in sublime obscurity in a raised valley one hour by bus from Bitchu-Takahashi, Fukiya Furusato Mura in Okayama Prefecture must surely be one of Japan's most under-appreciated rural destinations. Mention the name even to Japanese travelers and you are likely to draw blank expressions.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 29, 2012
Naha gardens within a garden
Amere 10-minute walk across busy Route 58 from the polyglot sidewalks, hotels and souvenir shops of Kokusai-dori, the faintly grubby, undulating Chinese boundary walls of a green enclosure announce the presence of a garden known as Fukushu-en.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 22, 2012
'Art Seto' bringing islands back to life
INSULAR INSIGHT: Where Art and Architecture Conspire with Nature, edited by Lars Muller and Akiko Miki. Lars Muller, 2011, 453 pp., $70 (hardback) Islands lend themselves to introspection, rebalancing, a yearning for independence and equipoise. They may not be the solution to all our anxieties, but their...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 25, 2011
Celluloid celebration of Tokyo story
On my first trip to Cuba, I was delighted to find that not only was the city structure intact but that individual edifices could be matched with my memory of the 1959 film "Our Man in Havana."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 18, 2011
Education for all from '60s Tokyo tale
J-BOYS: Kazuo's World, Tokyo, 1965, by Shogo Oketani. Stone Bridge Press, 2011, 211 pp., $9.95 (paperback) Like an affliction that allows you to function in an apparently normal manner but seditiously disables the sufferer, the dark legacy of war, never far from the minds of the adults in the story,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 18, 2011
Cultures mingle amid Atami's hot springs
She was on a train from Tokyo to Atami in the summer of 1959 when the English travel writer Ethel Mannin "saw what I had read about and been told about but felt unable to accept until I had seen it for myself."
CULTURE / Books
Nov 20, 2011
Beauty and purpose in design
NEW JAPAN ARCHITECTURE, by Geeta Mehta and Deanna MacDonald. Tuttle Publishing, 2011, 224 pp., $49.95 (hardcover) There are fewer contiguous architectural zones in Japan — areas where we can follow the accumulated contours of a set of perfectly integrated buildings — than there are in Europe. Instead,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 13, 2011
Kyuyoh's monochrome masterpieces
The highly intricate ink flows that grace archaic clerical scripts and decorative art, the illuminated plates of medieval European manuscripts, may be aesthetically pleasing, but are essentially skillfully beautified elaborations of simplistic lettering.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 6, 2011
Words for all seasons
THE UNDYING DAY: Poems by Hans Brinckmann. Trafford Publishing, 2011, 131pp., $14.50 (paperback) In person, Hans Brinckmann is a dapper European gent with the patrician manner of the well-practised host or master of ceremonies. Reading this book of time-seasoned verse, one suspects that he would be equally...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Nov 1, 2011
Designs that come out of the blue
Reflecting on Okinawa's natural pigmentations, one thinks instinctively of the red of its hibiscus, the pinks and mauves of bougainvillea, the green of ripening shikuwasa limes and fukugi trees. The strongest association, though, is blue.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 30, 2011
Canada's hanging garden of stone in Japan
Nobody appears to object as you step onto the covered elevator that ascends to the fourth floor of the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo's well-heeled Aoyama-Itchome district. Formalities are waived for the occasional visitor coming to see one of Japan's finest and most daring contemporary stone gardens.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 25, 2011
The helping hand of travel
Travel Guide To Aid Japan. WAttention, 2011, 159 pp. ¥1,000 (paper) Tourism is the world's foremost industry, one that Japan, until very recently, has been rather slow to take advantage of. Sophisticated travel writing has never been a significant component of Japanese literature, the country failing...
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.
Russia launched intercontinental ballistic missile during attack on Ukraine, Kyiv says
A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is launched during a test from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in Northern Arkhangelsk region of Russia, in this still image captured from video released on Oct. 29.
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.
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.
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By Kathryn Wortley

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