The latest Japan travel and culture news

POLITICS

How Can Japan Better Prepare for the Next Pandemic?

A foreign resident of Japan gives a street-level view on the country's COVID-19 response - and how it could better prepare for…

HISTORY

Video: The Colonization of Hokkaido

Watch our latest video - a reading by author Noah Oskow of his original essay on the history of Hokkaido and how…

HISTORY

The Otsu Incident: Tsar Nicholas II’s Near-Assassination in Japan

In 1891 Japan, history was nearly changed when a Japanese policeman took aim at Russian Crown Prince Nicholas II - the future…

WOMEN

The Feminist Movement in Japan: WWII to the 1970s

How the feminist movement in Japan worked after World War II to free women from the traditionally assigned role of the "good…

WOMEN

Comedian: Wait for Jobless Women to Become Sex Workers

Japanese comedian Okamura Takashi has apologized for comments that many have derided as sexist and cruel - but some say it's not…

JAPANESE LANGUAGE

Japanese Writing: The Birth of Kana in the Heian Period

How did the hiragana and katakana writing systems come to exist in Japanese? What purpose did they serve? A history of writing…

WOMEN

Let ‘Em Sew: Flight Attendants and Sexism in Japan’s COVID-19 Crisis

A comment by a government official that (mostly female) flight attendants on furlough would be sewing hospital gowns was news to the…

VIDEO

Video: Head(ache) of Household – Women in Japan and the COVID-19 Crisis

Sachiko Ishikawa explains how Japan's "head of household" system works, and we discuss how this puts women in Japan at a disadvantage.