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November 22, 2024
 

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Roger Pulvers

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Roger Pulvers
Roger Pulvers is an author, playwright, theater director and translator who divides his time between Tokyo and Sydney. He has published more than 40 books. His latest book in English is "The Dream of Lafcadio Hearn."
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 4, 2005
Selective thinking devalues the V-word's worth
There is a six-letter word so abused and perverted these days that I wouldn't blame the media for banning it altogether. It is the V-word and, I must confess, I hesitated to write this column about it myself. But journalists must not be daunted by trends that pollute . . . and so, here we go. The word,...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 28, 2005
Intelligent Design: One chance encounter explains it all
Ijust happened to be reading the Kansas City Star the other day when a fascinating article caught my eye. The Star reported, in its Aug. 2 edition, that the Kansas Board of Education has approved a draft of new science standards proposed by supporters of so-called Intelligent Design.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 21, 2005
All together now, as yesterday's no-no becomes the status quo
When I first arrived in Japan in the 1960s, I was friends with a Western sociologist who was genuinely frustrated. When he went around surveying public opinion, he said that he found Japanese people to be stubbornly reserved and conservative. Apparently, those who responded to his questions about social...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 14, 2005
Chiune Sugihara: His conscience gleams out of the darkness
Exactly 60 years ago, during the evening of Aug. 14, 1945, Emperor Hirohito recorded the speech of surrender to be broadcast to the Japanese nation the next day at noon.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 7, 2005
Learning a foreign language is a cultural journey, too
English students of Japan, unite! You have nothing to lose but your (conversation school) chains!
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 31, 2005
Only the names change as U.S. policy blunders on
Don't blame it on the neo-cons.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 24, 2005
Strangelove encounters of a MAD scientist kind
Herman Kahn is back in the news.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 17, 2005
All hail the Land of the Free -- or else!
The United States of America is all akilter.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 10, 2005
New horizons beckon as Train Man heads nowhere fast
The Japanese nation seems to be firmly in the grip of the otaku.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 3, 2005
Detractors have a whale of a time as Japan flounders on
The American historian Brooks Adams (1848-1927) defined history as "just one goddamn thing after another." Though it is a century old, Adams' aphorism is a spot-on characterization of the most recent events surrounding Japan.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 26, 2005
Opportunities go begging as the blind follow dissembling blind
Japan and Australia are natural partners.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 19, 2005
Media conspiracy of concealment costs social progress dear
What do these Japanese people have in common: A neighbor of people whose house has burned down; an uncle or aunt of someone who has been the victim of a crime; a person who has had food poisoning?
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 12, 2005
'Woe is me' nation awaits return of its sadsack heroes
In the last days of May, news reached Japan that two former soldiers in the Imperial Army had been found in the Philippines. Apparently the two men, who had been hiding during the entire postwar period in an area around the town of General Santos close to the southern tip of the island of Mindanao, now...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 5, 2005
Will Japanese inertia never be the same again?
Who is to blame for the dead hand of inertia that has prevented Japan from forging ahead economically and politically in the last decade and a half?
COMMUNITY / COUNTERPOINT
May 29, 2005
Causes and effects can encompass far more than 'specifics'
In January 1977, an express train traveling from the Blue Mountains of New South Wales to Sydney derailed on a curve near Granville Station, 21 km west of the city. The train -- which was three minutes late when it left the last stop on its 2 1/2-hour journey -- smashed into the pillar of a bridge, killing...
COMMUNITY / COUNTERPOINT
May 22, 2005
Last laugh to the lizards, and fair play for frogs an' all
Long ago in a land skirted by two oceans, there lived a people who worshipped lizards.
COMMUNITY
May 15, 2005
Spaghetti with chopsticks makes a mess of Mishima image
Many years ago, while teaching Japanese language and literature at the Australian National University in Canberra, I asked students in a seminar to conduct an experiment on campus. That was in the 1970s, when Australia and much of the rest of the world were rediscovering Japan as an economic and cultural...
COMMUNITY
May 8, 2005
Serial stereotyping only serves others' brazen hubris
Ever since the reopening of Japan to the outside world in the mid-19th century, people from the West have categorized Japanese life in terms of one or another social model. Whatever the category chosen, though, the inference has always been that Japan is "different." How else would you account for something...
COMMUNITY
May 1, 2005
Memories are made of . . . history managed and manipulated?
Way back in 1964 and 1965 I made extended trips to and around the Soviet Union. Memories that are 40 years old are hard enough to relate to the reality of the present, let alone when they are of a country that has ceased to exist. This, though, is precisely what I aim to do.
COMMUNITY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 24, 2005
Thirty years on, have no lessons been learned from Vietnam?
This month marks the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, a war that in Vietnam is known as the "American War."
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

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