Stories about Japan from February, 2008
National Sports: unique expressions of countrywide pride.
Whether by government decree or by popularity, national sports are part of the cultural makeup of every country. People from many walks of life come together to participate, watch or root for their favorite athletes or teams. Check out which unique national sports Colombia, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates have.
Japan: Interview with Sasaki Toshinao by g86
In an interview with "space journal", a group blog by four architecture students at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, well-known Japanese IT journalist and writer Sasaki Toshinao speaks about the emergence of Japan's Lost Generation, the birth of the country's blogging movement, and the recent transformation of Japanese society from "seken" to "kuuki".
Japan: Coming-Out Letters
The Japanese LGBT community has come a long way to claim its position in society today. However, aside from those flamboyant celebrities on TV who satisfy viewers’ appetite for entertainment, the voices of sexual minorities are still rarely heard or amplified – perhaps more so in the case of those...
Japan: Japanese bloggers on Super Tuesday
While Super Tuesday has come and gone in the U.S., conversations carry on in its wake among bloggers in the booming Japanese blogosphere. What do bloggers in the world's second largest economy think of the presidential elections of their major trading partner? In this post: Japanese views on Clinton, Obama, Edwards, McCain and Ron Paul.
Japan: Visualizing Japanese Grammar
Now you can learn Japanese grammar with cute cartoon illustration – via James from Japan Probe.
East Asia: Early Modern Periodization
Morgan Pitelka from frog in a well blogs about a symposium on “early modern” periodization in East Asia. There is an interesting debate about comparative history.
Japan: How many Japanese blogs are there?
On January 22, blogger smashmedia asked readers of his blog to answer a questionnaire [ja] on the topic of: “How many blogs are there in Japan?” [ja] In another post [ja], smashmedia reports that respondents on average estimated the number of Japanese blogs at 2.44 million. Other results: 23% answered...
Japan: Newspapers launch news portal “Aratanisu”, bloggers respond
Three of Japan's largest newspapers, Nikkei Inc., Asahi Shimbun Co. and Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings on Thursday together launched a new online news portal referred to as "Aratanisu", aiming to provide side-by-side coverage of news stories from each newspaper to allow readers to easily draw comparisons. Bloggers in Japan have reacted with skepticism to the new service, however, pointing to issues like the absence of RSS feeds and a general lack of understanding among traditional media of the value of content presentation.
Japan: Insider trading at public broadcaster NHK (Part 2)
The uproar last week about the discovery of insider trading at Japan's public broadcaster NHK has died down, with former Asahi Breweries advisor Fukuchi Shigeo having taken over for beleaguered NHK president Hashimoto Genichi, who resigned days ahead of his scheduled end-of-term. This week, more comments from bloggers on the insider trading scandal.
Japan: Snow Creatures
Edo posts some photos of snow creatures with Japanese characteristic.
Japan: Imai Noriaki
At The Westerner's Fear of the Neonsign, calligraphykid writes about the experiences of freelance journalist and blogger Imai Noriaki, who became famous in 2004 as one of three Japanese to be taken hostage in Iraq.
