If Shukan Bunshun and Shukan Diamond are both right, Japan is in serious trouble. The former says the nation's middle class is vanishing. The latter says the rich are deserting. The descent into national poverty that these developments imply would be a shattering epilogue to the ...
Not everyone fits into society. Dropping out, or falling by the wayside, has numerous causes and many manifestations. Two categories cover the more extreme forms — homelessness and hikikomori, a withdrawal from all social activities into the security of one's own room, usually in one's ...
"Ah, for some bold warrior to match with, that Kiso might see how fine a death I can die!" Tomoe Gozen was the prototypical Japanese female warrior. She had "long black hair and a fair complexion, and her face was very lovely; moreover she was a ...
"Kokoro kara owabi mōshi-agemasu" (「心からお詫び申し上げます」 "I apologize from my heart"). The hearts of Japanese politicians must be bottomless indeed, for all the apologies that seem to ferment there. Their mouths, meanwhile, are on automatic pilot, sowing shitsugen (失言, gaffe, slip of the tongue) after ...
Once upon a time men were proud to call themselves fascist. "I am convinced," wrote a leading Japanese reformist bureaucrat in the early 1930s, "that from now on the spirit of the civilization and politics of mankind is fascist ideology ... Before the iron ...
An Associated Press report of Apple Inc.'s CEO Steve Jobs' resignation last month stated, "Jobs helped change computers from a geeky hobbyist's obsession to a necessity of modern life at work and home." This testifies to Jobs' genius but fails to raise what seems ...
Kodomo teate (子供手当て, child allowance) is a benign, beneficent social policy rooted in horror, having first seen the light of day in certain European countries that had been dangerously depopulated by World War I. World War II and its carnage helped spread the idea, as ...
"May you live in interesting times," goes the familiar curse — or as the Chinese say in a similar vein, "It's better to be a dog in times of peace than a human in times of chaos." Unquestionably these are interesting times. It's not war, ...
Hiroshima was nothing. Nine years later on March 1, 1954, there occurred at Bikini atoll in the Marshall Islands an atomic blast equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshimas. THE DAY THE SUN ROSE IN THE WEST: Bikini, The Lucky Dragon, and I, by Matashichi Oishi. University of ...
Two thousand eight was a dreadful year. Long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were going badly. The U.S. "subprime crisis" was strangling the global economy. Rising food prices were causing concern at best, riots at worst. The worse things got, the more helpless the ...
