author

 
Menu
Search
 
November 22, 2024
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access
Mark Schreiber

Meta

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
Dec 19, 2010
Final word on the year's best reading
Over the past 12 months I've been refamiliarizing myself with Swedish mystery fiction.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 15, 2010
Marketers bask in the glow of the year's successes
If you can generate profits during a 不景気 (fukeiki, a business recession), you must be doing something right. If you can generate a ヒット (hitto, hit) and sustain it in the face of deflation, imitators and low-cost imports, then you're to be heartily congratulated for your business acumen.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 14, 2010
Mail-order buyer, be aware
In retrospect, I didn't really need a new baseball cap. But this one, advertised by the publisher of a nationally circulated magazine, had a humorous logo in Japanese that tickled my fancy, making it — like much of the merchandise sold via mail order — a novelty item not sold in stores.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 12, 2010
Can Nissan start weaning the auto industry off petroleum?
On Dec. 3, BBC News reported that the prices of petroleum on both sides of the Atlantic hit their highest levels since the financial crisis, with Goldman Sachs forecasting an increase to $100 per barrel in 2011.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 21, 2010
Beijing conspiracy, New York villainy
CURE, by Robin Cook. Putnam, 2010,
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 14, 2010
A tale of one city (but two airports)
For the last three decades, air travelers on the Tokyo-Taipei route have utilized Narita International Airport and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 31, 2010
Hearing China's take on Senkakus
The most recent territorial dispute over the Senkaku (Japanese name)/Diaoyutai (Chinese name) Islands, located southwest of Okinawa (or north of Taiwan if you prefer), was triggered on Sept. 7 when a Chinese trawler attempted to ram two Japanese Coast Guard vessels. The blurry details of the collision...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 27, 2010
Learning to live without Japanese pronouns
While I was managing a gift shop at Expo '70 in Osaka, a friend arranged the loan of a Daihatsu Hijet mini pickup. It was probably a mid-1960s model, so small that the only way I could squeeze into the cab was to remove the seat and use a folded beach towel as a cushion.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 24, 2010
Mysteries through the eons
While traveling alone on horseback through a gloomy forest near Lake Biwa, northeast of Kyoto, Justice Ministry official Sugawara Akitada suddenly comes upon a filthy, shivering urchin who appears to be deaf and mute.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Oct 17, 2010
Balloon bombs, poisons all in a day's work at Noborito
"Balloon bombs aimed at North America were released by the thousands," says Meiji University professor Akira Yamada, running his hand in an up-and-down motion across a diagram of the Pacific Ocean. He first points to the spots on the coast of Honshu from where these explosive devices were launched, and...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 10, 2010
Weeklies, tabloids hawkish over China
On Saturday, Oct. 2, over 2,670 demonstrators carrying Hinomaru Japanese flags marched in Tokyo's Yoyogi Park to protest the Kan government's soft handling of a long-running territorial dispute with China over the Senkaku Islands (known in Chinese as Diaoyutai), which was rekindled on Sept. 7 when the...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 26, 2010
Nightmares from N. Korea
LOVE SONGS FROM A SHALLOW GRAVE, by Colin Cotterill. SOHO Crime, 2010, 326 pp., $25 (hardcover)
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Sep 22, 2010
A call to end confusion over foreign names
A problem newspaper readers in Japan confront on a daily basis is that no definitive rule exists for writing foreigners' names.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 12, 2010
Budget cuts dooming diners to plumpness
"The destiny of a nation depends on the manner in which it feeds itself," wrote French epicure Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826) in his famous treatise, "The Physiology of Taste: Or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy."
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 29, 2010
Tightened credit rules threaten to spawn 'loan refugees'
Japan may be in the midst of a silent epidemic of kinketsu-byo ("lack of money disease"). The source of the infection is a new statute that bans many borrowers from obtaining unsecured loans.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 22, 2010
Indonesia intrigue, Tokyo high-tech high jinx
While such enduring bad guys as Nazis, KGB agents, Cosa Nostra gangsters, sinister Asiatics and the occasional vampire still receive top billing in U.S. popular fiction and cinema, the events of 9/11 have not surprisingly inspired a stream of works featuring villains of Middle Eastern and/or jihadist...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 8, 2010
Japan's dismal dearth of new heroic figures
"Created in response to deep popular needs, the legendary hero survives long after his death. . . . While the positive aspects of the hero's life and character come to be emphasized (or even created out of whole cloth), less attractive features are passed over in silence and remain forgotten until they...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 28, 2010
A linguistic guide to the dog days of summer
With the exception of Hokkaido, Japan heralds the arrival of summer when the 気象庁 (Kishocho, or Japan Meteorological Agency) declares 梅雨明け (tsuyu ake, end of the rainy season).
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 25, 2010
Computer addiction dulls wits at work
Differences in familiarity with computers are creating ever-wider gaps within the ranks of Japan's salarymen. Evening tabloid Nikkan Gendai (July 17) reports on the emergence of a new type of person at companies who never stops typing on his PC, even while being spoken to by a colleague.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 25, 2010
On the hunt for snakes and dragons in Chinatown
Two years back I reviewed "Year of the Dog," about the exploits of detective Jack Yu, the creation of Chinese-American author Henry Chang, who portrayed New York's Chinatown as a frightfully sordid place. Yu, besides being forced to endure the slings and arrows of a race- baiting police department, suffered...
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 fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
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.
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

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’
SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER