All Daisuke Tajima could think about was ending it all. One day the 49-year-old salaried worker walked out of his office in a city in northern Japan, and for weeks his family had no clue as to his whereabouts. To get as much space between ...
In the small southern Sri Lankan town of Kataragama, high school student Gamini Nawaratne eagerly awaits his monthly mail from Japan. The letter includes words of encouragement from its sender, fellow Sri Lankan and Gifu University student Dasantha Wickramasinghe, who also encloses 1,000 yen of ...
KOFU, Yamanashi Pref. -- The home of Yutaka Endo (not his real name) resembles one in a lesser-developed nation. His living room walls are stained where the rain has leaked through cracks; the wind whistles through warped window and door frames. A crack in the ...
Staff writer Japan's first team of aid workers in Albania returned home recently, praising Kosovo refugees' "positive attitude" despite "terrible" living conditions, but lamenting the Japanese government's almost total failure to provide humanitarian support there. Erika Ito and Mio Nozoe were among a group of five ...
Staff writer While Japan's unprecedented success at soccer's World Youth Championships in Nigeria last month no doubt served as an hors d'oeuvre to the World Cup to be held in Japan and South Korea in 2002, officials here have been focusing on another segment of ...
LEVUKA, Fiji -- Thirteen-year-old Una Turaganicolo's strong, clear voice filled her family's timber-frame home, rising to the corrugated roof visible through the rafters. Her sister, Rose, hummed along as she battled with her math homework by the light of a flickering candle. Next to the ...
Two rather large Fijian tribesmen, wielding clubs once used in tribal wars to smash enemies' skulls, stand on either side of Yoichi Matsumoto and Kaori Tanaka (not their real names). The young Japanese couple look slightly terrified, but not because of the warriors' threatening ...
SUVA -- Lounging by the pool of one of Fiji's most expensive resort hotels last month, an American tourist cracked open a bottle of "Fiji" mineral water and knocked it back like a draught of ice-cold beer. "Thank God for water," he sighed, examining ...
Heard the one about the foreigner who wanted to get to Nakano and ended up in Nagano? She's actually pretty smart, and has no qualms about telling her embarrassing mishaps to complete strangers -- several hundred of them, in fact. Neeta Bhushan of India was ...
While Tomomi Kahala hopefuls battle their way across Shibuya's Hachiko crossing to the nearest karaoke bar, those looking for a bit of live entertainment and a huge dollop of good-humored banter head straight for a cluster of rickety wooden watering holes that time seems ...
