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November 22, 2024
 

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Mark Schreiber

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Mark Schreiber
Mark Schreiber worked as a salaryman in travel, consumer electronics, computer software, advertising and market research before turning to translation and writing full time. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he has lived in Tokyo since 1966.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 27, 2009
Murder with hefty history
PAPER BUTTERFLY, by Diane Wei Liang. Simon and Schuster, 2009, 227 pages, $24.00 (hardcover) Reviewed by Mark Schreiber Mei Wang, the Beijing-based female private investigator who made her first appearance in "The Eye of Jade" (2008), is back. Burned out by the demands of her job in the Ministry of Public...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 20, 2009
Ramen memoir goes down easy
THE RAMEN KING AND I: How the Inventor of Instant Noodles Fixed My Love Life, by Andy Raskin. Gotham, 2009, 293 pp., $26 (hardcover) "The year I was a student at International Christian University . . . Japan's automated-teller machines were open only during regular bank hours — weekdays from nine...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 6, 2009
Kawasaki's Nihon Minkaen: Traditional folklore in a natural setting
In an article last May 10 introducing the many attractions of Tokyo's neighbor Kawasaki, this writer made a brief reference to the Nihon Minkaen (The Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum) in Tama Ward.
LIFE / Travel
Sep 6, 2009
Kawasaki's Nihon Minkaen: Traditional folklore in a natural setting
In an article last May 10 introducing the many attractions of Tokyo's neighbor Kawasaki, this writer made a brief reference to the Nihon Minkaen (The Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum) in Tama Ward.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 16, 2009
Afghan gang turns N.Y. into a battlefield
John Rambo, Harry Bosch, Elvis Cole's partner Joe Pike and other veterans of the Vietnam War era — who have served hard-boiled fiction so well over the past three decades — are getting too old for the sort of mayhem their authors would have them perform.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 9, 2009
Sampling a pot-sticker paradise
Whenever I watch national broadcaster NHK's weather forecast, I feel consoled that no matter how hot it may get in July and August in Tokyo, the mercury in Utsunomiya is always going to be several degrees higher.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 22, 2009
The world's best one-stop shop for Nihongo
"The number of people learning Japanese has increased and is currently estimated to be more than 3 million worldwide," says Nobuyuki Suzuki, deputy manager of a very special store in Tokyo.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 19, 2009
We all live in a 'yellow peril' submarine
This 454-page thriller, written in the time frame between the outbreak of SARS and swine influenza, puts a new twist on biological warfare. Indeed, what if an insidious crime syndicate were to infiltrate medical research and then, seeking huge profits, practice extortion on a worldwide scale?
CULTURE / Books
Jun 21, 2009
Eleventh-century lord cracks Kyoto crimes in the worst of times
In Shamus Award-winning mystery author's I.J. Parker's previous work, "Island of Exiles," Heian Period (794-1185) official Sugawara Akitada embarked on a harrowing undercover investigation of a suspicious death on Sado Island. Assuming the guise of a convict, the scholarly Akitada soon found himself...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 27, 2009
Appreciating kanji can unleash your inner art critic
As exotic as kanji (Sino-Japanese logographs) may appear to the uninitiated, most of those we encounter in everyday situations are intended to convey notices and other mundane or essential information, such as 禁煙 kin'en (no smoking) or 駅長室 (ekichō-shitsu, stationmaster's office).
CULTURE / Books
May 17, 2009
Rattling skeletons in China's political closet
A famous Chinese aphorism goes, "Yingxiong nan guo meiren guan (It is difficult for a hero to pass by [i.e. disregard] the gate of a beauty)."
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 10, 2009
Kawasaki risen from the grit with plenty to offer
Back in December 1972, having just taken a job with a Japan Airlines subsidiary, I moved into the company's bachelors dormitory at Miyauchi 2-chome in Kawasaki's Nakahara Ward.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 26, 2009
North Korea: Even facts read like fiction
During the shooting of the 1946 Humphrey Bogart film "The Big Sleep" — a noir movie notorious for its convoluted plot — director Howard Hawks cabled Raymond Chandler, author of the book on which the screenplay was based, to ask if Owen Taylor, the chauffeur, was murdered or committed suicide. "Dammit...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 5, 2009
Gates, gardens and . . . war
"Ohayoooo gozaimasu!" I greeted my 22-year-old nephew, Chris, using my foot to nudge him awake on the first morning of his 10-day visit to Japan. "What do you say we walk around Ginza?"
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 25, 2009
Brush up your Japanese the traditional way
Last week, I suggested that if you're really serious about mastering kanji, you should add brush calligraphy to your study regimen.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 22, 2009
Tale of a fallen woman and other intrigues
Since his literary debut in 1992, Vincent "Vinnie" Calvino, an expat Italian-Jewish attorney from New York, has been pursuing investigations on behalf of mostly foreign clients in Bangkok.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 18, 2009
Calligraphy still holds the key to mastering kanji
I recently encountered a new term that's a real mouthful: IT依存性漢字健忘症 (IT izonsei kanji kenbōshō, kanji amnesia due to dependence on information technology). The word acknowledges that the proliferation of word processors has weakened people's ability to recall both individual kanji...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 22, 2009
Riveting guitar saga tugs at the heartstrings
In the summer of 1975, Spain's 82-year-old leader Francisco Franco is fading fast. Spain's underground radical groups are determined to tarnish El Caudillo's legacy and, if possible, alter the direction of Spain's future.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 21, 2009
The key words that kept Japan abuzz in 2008
Last October, publisher Jiyu Kokuminsha released the 61st edition of its "Gendai Yogo no Kiso Chishiki (Encyclopedia of Contemporary Words)" — a massive 1,614-page tome that retails for just ¥2,980. I have a facsimile copy of the book's first edition, launched on Oct. 10, 1948. In the introduction,...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 21, 2009
The key words that kept Japan abuzz in 2008
Last October, publisher Jiyu Kokuminsha released the 61st edition of its "Gendai Yogo no Kiso Chishiki (Encyclopedia of Contemporary Words)" — a massive 1,614-page tome that retails for just ¥2,980. I have a facsimile copy of the book's first edition, launched on Oct. 10, 1948. In the introduction,...
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.
Tokyo Metro’s overseas efforts begin in earnest with London deal
Tokyo Metro will soon have a role in the running of London's Elizabeth Line, a major train route serving the U.K.’s capital city and environs.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
Ex-yokozuna Kitanofuji dies at 82
Yokozuna Kitanofuji enters the ring during the May 1970 grand sumo tournament in Tokyo.
Man charged with murder allegedly made victim date other men for money
A car carrying suspect Ryotaro Masuda, who was indicted for allegedly beating his 25-year-old girlfriend to death, leaves the Shibuya Police Station in Tokyo on Thursday.
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.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
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.

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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

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