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 Kris Kosaka

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Kris Kosaka
Kris Kosaka, a resident of Japan since 1996, contributes regularly to The Japan Times. She is a lecturer at Meiji Gakuin University in the Faculty of International Studies.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Aug 2, 2013
Housewife takes time to make a difference volunteering in Tohoku
Sometimes making a difference just means making the time. Kerry Shioya, 49, travels two or three times a month to the Tohoku areas hit by the March 11, 2011, disasters. Sometimes setting out alone, sometimes bringing one of her five children, interested English students or other volunteers, Shioya continues...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jul 19, 2013
Pioneering Australian's outdoor adventures invigorate Hokkaido
Australian Ross Findlay is a doer. Name any outdoor sport and chances are he's done it, from kayaking to rock climbing to snowcat skiing and snowshoeing.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 13, 2013
A diary washed ashore opens up a world of multiple realities
A good read transcends into the eternal, melding the real now with a timeless present. Ruth Ozeki's "A Tale for the Time Being" is all that and more: a quietly amazing achievement, a careful construct bridging quantum physics and the role of the reader/observer, a Zen eternity of multiple realities...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jul 5, 2013
Mom who blogged about tsunami wants people to remember
Stranded for three days after March 11, 2011, with her mother-in-law and young children on the second floor of their home near the industrial port of Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Naoko Nakayama fought panic by communicating the only way she could: scribbling on torn scraps of paper.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 4, 2013
'New' Royal Ballet spans the frontiers of dance
For the first time in three years, one of the world's most esteemed ballet companies is bringing its talent to one of the world's most appreciative audiences, as part of a tour that explores the parameters of dance.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 16, 2013
Historical biography captures the spirit of early feminist Japan
Time distorts, concealing the individual drops of humanity within the great tide of history. "Beauty in Disarray" attempts to reveal one such individual threatened to be lost in time, a woman named Noe Ito. In telling Ito's tragic story, biographer Harumi Setouchi (now known by her Buddhist name Jakucho)...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 8, 2013
Yoga teacher finds creative voice — and success — in 'surreal' Tokyo
While hammering nails and cutting planks in the prop department at New York's Lincoln Center for the Metropolitan Opera in the early 2000s, Barry Silver never dreamed of a life in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 30, 2013
K-ballet brings back 'Giselle' and introduces new leads
As summer approaches with the misty other-worldliness of Japan's rainy season, Tokyo's K-Ballet graces the stage in June with a revival of the hauntingly romantic masterpiece "Giselle." Six different ballerinas will perform the lead role as the production synthesizes K-Ballet's changing image from a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 26, 2013
Women's writings provide window on Tokugawa life
The Edo Period in Japan seems pretty much a feminist's nightmare. Samurai rule and strict societal boundaries confined women within the neo-Confucianistic bonds of a deeply patriarchal society.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
May 11, 2013
Head of international short film festival finds fertile ground up north
Toshiya Kubo consistently gravitates to the peripheral. As a teenager, while his friends rushed to buy Beatles records, Kubo searched for lesser-known musicians; the mainstream in media flocked to Tokyo while Kubo preferred Hokkaido, the prefecture of his birth; producers look toward feature films as...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Apr 30, 2013
Samurai moms and the art of brood maintenance: a mother from the West's lessons from the East
May in Japan is the perfect month for mothers. Wreathed in the fertile blooms of spring, bolstered by days of absolute perfection, May is also a month of muddy contradiction.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Apr 27, 2013
Trendsetting restauranteurs succeed in bringing bit of Bohemia to Osaka
You're in a breezy, open space, bathed in light. Frothy indoor plants and burnished wood surrounds vibrant splashes of azure. While sipping a "green fairy," that traditional spirit of artists around the world, someone passes you a shisha, or water pipe, and you inhale sweet, fruit-soaked tobacco. You...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 21, 2013
There are no shortcuts to enlightenment, but plenty of laughs on the journey
Spring in Japan: a time to re-evaluate, to explore spiritually the choices of the upcoming fiscal year. A season of pilgrimage.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Apr 6, 2013
Irrepressible Irishman promotes Japan culture
Humor may be the hardest genre to translate, but laughter speaks any language. Poet and literary translator Peter MacMillan's recent foray into visual art, "Thirty-Six New Views of Mount Fuji," delights with wry whimsicality, employing mixed-media print-making to reveal a multicultural drollery.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 29, 2013
Dine with a backdrop of cherry blossom
With an ephemeral canopy of pink sweeping Japan, the JT's food writers know the perfect spots to dine with an eyeful of sakura (cherry blossom) — or just the right sake to sip as you picnic under the petals.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 24, 2013
Abashiri astounds with its ice and convict connections
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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 23, 2013
Photography buff behind Japan Camera Hunter thrives in Tokyo, the capital of cameras
Bellamy Hunt's name is part of his business: Japan Camera Hunter, a one-man enterprise supporting film photo buffs around Asia and the world. His work mainly involves hunting down vintage cameras, whether an elusive early model Nikon or a classic Leica.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 9, 2013
Power of poetry penned by survivors of 3/11 is showcased by ASIJ project
Kathy Krauth, a social studies teacher at the American School in Japan, admits she was never a huge fan of tanka, traditional Japanese poetry. "Tanka never really spoke to me. I dismissed it as early Japanese history with cherry blossoms." That all changed when Krauth sat in a classroom at the University...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 3, 2013
'A person and a possession': Japanese women in history
SELLING WOMEN: Prostitution, Markets and the Household in Early Modern Japan, by Amy Stanley. University of California Press, 2012, 282 pp., $49.95 (hardcover)
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Feb 15, 2013
British photographer documents lives outside the lines
Uchujin, aka Adrian Storey, a British photographer and filmmaker based in Tokyo, drolly explains his rather unusual business moniker: 'I'd rather be an alien than an outsider.'

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