November 15, 2012
A beam of light shines through the darkness, revealing the silhouette of a man wearing a hat low over his eyes and smoking a cigarette.
November 08, 2012
In Dalian, Liaoning province, on the morning of Sept. 25, a sense of tension hung over this usually sleepy port town.
November 02, 2012
BEIJING--On a recent evening in October, in a desolate backyard surrounded by high walls, a stand of pomegranate trees could be seen drooping under the weight of their ripe fruit, heavy with ruby-red pulp.
November 01, 2012
Today, Da Nang, a central Vietnamese port city of 890,000 people, is famed for its graceful coastline and is a popular destination for huge crowds of tourists.
October 25, 2012
Recently, I found the whole shelf of Japanese liquor had disappeared at a local supermarket in Beijing, which I visited to pick up distilled "shochu" spirits for a nightcap.
October 18, 2012
After a four-hour drive from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, I saw a giant monument displaying a soccer ball high in the air in central Sialkot, a city of almost 400,000 people, near the Indian border.
October 11, 2012
In early September, I traveled during my summer vacation to the southern city of Jinju, South Korea, about a one-hour bus ride on the expressway from Busan.
October 04, 2012
I visited Boston in late June to cover the children of China’s high-ranking Communist Party officials for the “Red Aristocrats” series in The Asahi Shimbun.
September 28, 2012
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia--A thick concrete fortress overlooks the peaceful Amur Bay from the top of a mountain. Built by imperial Russia, it still stands firm today. Cool, musty air engulfed me when I entered an underground passage.
September 27, 2012
Three members of Pussy Riot, an all-female punk band, were sentenced Aug. 17 to two years in prison for staging a guerrilla performance of an anti-Putin protest song in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, an important holy edifice of the Russian Orthodox Church.
September 20, 2012
I traveled to Britain in June and July to collect information for a series of articles on the power structure of the Chinese Communist Party, before the start of the London Olympics.
September 19, 2012
I was asked, during an appearance on a TV news show, to comment on the flap caused by a group of Hong Kong activists who illegally landed on the disputed Senkaku Islands in mid-August.
September 16, 2012
The Chinese public was shaken and is reacting strongly to “nationalization” of the Senkaku Islands by the Noda administration, and not the Chinese administration of Hu Jintao.
September 13, 2012
The street looked like a sanctuary for angry Indians. Near the ancient Jantar Mantar observatory built by the Mughal Empire in central New Delhi, protesters held sit-ins and rallies each day, yelling slogans such as, “Don’t kill the sacred cow,” and “Further rights to the Dalit caste.”
September 07, 2012
I just read a book titled "Dokuritsu Kokka no Tsukurikata" (How to create an independent nation). The author, Kyohei Sakaguchi, actually created an independent nation last year in Kumamoto Prefecture and became its first prime minister.
September 06, 2012
Increasing stress of late has worsened the chronic hypertension of Vafaee, a 45-year-old trade firm employee in eastern Tehran.
August 30, 2012
I was invited by a Syrian friend of mine to a dinner at his home in the capital, Damascus, in July, as the disruption in the lives of residents following an offensive against the city by dissidents and rebels was subsiding.
August 23, 2012
A buzz of rotors from the mountainside heralded the appearance of a fleet of four Z-9WZ helicopters, state-of-the-art Chinese military aircraft.
August 16, 2012
To see the rapid political and economic reforms under way in Myanmar, look no further than the dramatic increase in the number of new cars on the streets.
August 15, 2012
On a rainy midsummer day in late July, thick forests of deep green pine trees were veiled in fog at the Chinese beach resort of Beidaihe.