Stephen Mansfield - The Japan Times

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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."

LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO

Feb 5, 2002

Where past and present tracks cross

Stepping off the shinkansen at Okayama Station and crossing over to the iron rails and worn stone of the city's aged streetcar system, you experience an abrupt transition in time and space.

Japan Times

Events / Events Outside Tokyo

Feb 5, 2002

Faith in a tropical Gethsemane

When the Spanish arrived in the Philippines in the 16th century, they found a lush tropical garden ripe for replanting. King Philip II had commanded his soldiers, administrators and religious zealots that there were to be no repetitions of the atrocities committed in the name of the cross throughout...

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO

Jan 1, 2002

Discovering the traditional spirit of Arima

Peel away the suppurating clutter, the shabby, postwar surface of construction that is often passed off as modernity, and there is at the center of most Japanese towns a historical kernel, a core essence waiting to be discovered. Finding these places is a quest of sorts, requiring patience and a cultivated...

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO

Dec 25, 2001

Marketplace of religion and commerce

Where there are shrines, temples and other places of worship in Asia, invariably there are markets. Japan is no different. Commerce flows in through the temple gates and then back out -- a cordial division of profits ensuing, generally to everyone's satisfaction.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Nov 18, 2001

Revealing the soul of an ancient land

MOTHER'S BELOVED: Stories from Laos, by Outhine Bounyavong. Hong Kong University Press, 1999, 163 pp., $14.95 (paper) It's unlikely that even the most generous evaluation of Lao literature would rank it among the world's great cultural legacies. Part of the problem has been a lack of visibility: Buddhist...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Nov 18, 2001

Aiming for the heart

ONE FOOT IN LAOS, by Dervla Murphy. Overlook Press, 2001, 284 pp., $27.95 (cloth) Dervla Murphy's journeys as a travel writer, usually in the remoter, poorer parts of the world, are made, appropriately enough, in the old manner -- on foot, by donkey or mule, or on decrepit trucks or buses on their last...

LIFE / Travel

Oct 30, 2001

Where conflict meets contemplation

There is much to be said for Japan's provincial towns. As they rarely host more than a trickle of visitors, the spoils from tourism are never quite enough to disfigure them or completely vulgarize their heritage.

LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO

Oct 8, 2001

Adventures in wine country

For many years, Hakushu village, tucked away in Yamanashi Prefecture, was the venue for a colorful international festival featuring avant-garde performances by musicians, dancers and other artists.

LIFE / Travel

Aug 28, 2001

Whither the mighty Mekong?

"The boat moves off, the river banks remain." -- Old Khmer proverb

LIFE / Travel

Aug 28, 2001

Lower-basin aquaculture: fishing in troubled waters

"Once nature is victimized, so are the people dependent upon it."

LIFE / Travel

Jul 17, 2001

Peak experiences hiking the Japan Alps

KAMIKOCHI, Nagano Prefecture -- In his novel "The House of Nire," Morio Kita writes, "In the already fading light the linked peaks of the Alps were solid and harsh, all ranged there in the early dusk like a huge folding screen."

LIFE / Travel

Jun 26, 2001

Down the Devil's Washboard

When evening falls on Miyazaki, a scarlet and indigo sky drops behind the phoenix palms that line many of the city's roads. You might think you were strolling through a middle-class quarter of Cairo or Marbella.

LIFE / Travel

Jun 12, 2001

Fujiya Hotel: At ease in a Miyanoshita time capsule

Most visits to the Hakone area of Kanagawa Prefecture begin at the heavily touristed town itself, from where numerous well-trodden routes head off through the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park of which it is the official center.

LIFE / Travel

May 29, 2001

France's last wilderness

"No one is born in the Camargue, and no one dies in the Camargue." -- Rhone Delta saying

LIFE / Travel

May 29, 2001

Playing with bulls

T he "course Camarguese," held in local village bull rings throughout the spring and summer, are events unlikely to upset even animal-rights groups.

LIFE / Travel

May 29, 2001

Feeling festive in the company of Gypsies

Pilgrimages provide an extra dimension to the Camargue and a chance to see and participate in some of its surviving spectacles. Many of these events are more popular than religious in character, as the number of tourists attending them testifies. Christian, pagan and secular elements are the ingredients...

LIFE / Travel

Feb 28, 2001

Potholes on the road to preservation in China

China's former communist radicals and today's capitalist developers appear, in some respects, to have much in common. During the Cultural Revolution, with its almost visceral hatred of tradition, Red Guards were instructed to destroy anything "bourgeois," or tainted by the past. A decade earlier, Chairman...

LIFE / Travel

Feb 28, 2001

Asia's heritage boom

Call it nostalgia or call it a self-awakening, but Asians are rediscovering the value of their architectural heritage. From ancient police courts in Shanxi, China to forest temples in Thailand, from colonial quays in Singapore to the brick kilns and iron smithies of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward, the...

LIFE / Travel

Jan 3, 2001

Tickets here for Asia

By the time the lunch gong sounded in the great hall of the Heng Yang monastery, I had already placed generous votive offerings at a shrine in the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy, watched a flour-doll and knot maker at work, witnessed minor grievances being aired at the Ancient Courthouse and met a talking...

LIFE / Travel

Jan 3, 2001

Japan in miniature: Edo Period stroll gardens were the original amusement parks

The Japanese tourist, unlike the overseas visitor, may be only mildly astonished to find himself transported to the upper part of a castle donjon by means of a newly installed elevator. Convenience, the Western visitor notes with some bemusement, does not seem to detract from the enjoyment, let alone...

You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.

Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.

The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'

By Tomoko Otake

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