Life

A ski resort in Beijing. New indoor ski areas and resorts are popping up around the country.
Travel & Leisure

Skiing is hot in China -- even indoors -- on Olympic boom

New resorts planned in Shanghai and Shenzhen as public embraces winter sports

1 March 2023
Stream article image
Life

Five of Hong Kong's best sustainable restaurants

City's leading chefs put a delicious spin on environmental friendliness

25 February 2023
Tourists enjoy the views of Luang Prabang from a bamboo bridge, constructed every year during the dry season over the Nam Khan River in the charming UNESCO heritage town. (All photos by Ron Gluckman)
Life

Luang Prabang ready for return to halcyon days

Laotian town was a top destination before COVID, but recovery is slow

24 February 2023
A staff member of the Nipponia Hotel, clad in samurai armor, gives guests a royal welcome. (Photo courtesy of Nipponia Hotel)
Travel & Leisure

Want to be lord of a Japanese castle? You can for $8,400 a night

Wealthy Chinese tourists thirsty for $770 bottles of sake

19 February 2023
Xiang Xiang was the first giant panda to be born and grow up at the Ueno Zoo since 1988. (Photo courtesy of Tokyo Zoological Park Society)
Life

Japan bids farewell to beloved panda Xiang Xiang

Ueno Zoo star, leaving for China on Tuesday, made life 'richer' for fans and locals

18 February 2023
Donald Richie on set with the cast of the play "Three Kyogen" in 1969. A habitue of bars, pink cabarets, and porno flea pits, he was equally at home among film archives, embassy receptions, or glittering parties for members of Tokyo's high society. (All photos from Donald Richie's collection unless otherwise stated)
Life

Remembering Donald Richie: Keen chronicler of an ever-changing Japan

10 years after his death, words of US-born cultural commentator still resonate

17 February 2023
Mademoiselle Yulia is a kimono stylist and DJ (Photo by Akira Takemura)
Life

Kimono's comeback: Out of the closet and into modern fashion

Traditional Japanese garment finds new life as is, or repurposed for new looks

12 February 2023
A man carries a fishing net after collecting clams near an abandoned mosque that has been claimed by the sea in Jakarta's Muara Baru district in August 2021. Indonesia's capital is one of the world's fastest-sinking cities, afflicted by out-of-control development and rising sea levels caused by global warming. (All photos by Garry Lotulung)
Life

The drowning land: Indonesia's climate crisis

Parts of the country's coastline are disappearing as sea levels rise

10 February 2023
Foreign visitors enjoy the slopes in Hakuba Valley, in central Japan's Nagano prefecture. (Courtesy of Evergreen International Ski School)
Travel & Leisure

Japan's skiing industry hits bumpy patch

International visitor numbers surge even as domestic demand flags

8 February 2023
Refugees interact at a workshop for decorating eggs -- a traditional craft in Ukraine -- in Yokohama in November 2022. (Photo courtesy of YOKE)
Ukraine war

Grassroots refugee support grows in Japan amid tough asylum policy

Country accepts less than 1% of applicants, far cry from Canada's over 60%

6 February 2023
In Hokuto, Yamanashi prefecture, a cool dip after a visit to the sauna is popular with visitors.
Travel & Leisure

Saunas turn up the heat for local economies in Japan

Companies look to warm-air baths to deepen ties with employees, clients

5 February 2023
Kochi Fighting Dogs staff meet Brazilian baseball instructors in the state of Sao Paulo on their latest trip to South America. (Photo by Hidetake Miyamoto)
Sports

Japan baseball team takes grassroots swing at South America

Kochi Fighting Dogs offer clinics, pathway for new generation of players abroad

4 February 2023
Afghan journalist Salma Niazi, founder of The Afghan Times, attends an International Peace Conference in Peshawar, Pakistan, in November 2021. She fled Kabul last year to escape life under an increasingly restrictive Taliban government. (Courtesy of Salma Niazi)
Life

Female Afghan journalists continue their fight from abroad

Staffed by women, The Afghan Times seeks to hold the Taliban to account

1 February 2023
A leather upper fitted to a wooden shoe last: "Japanese shoemakers have a strong sense of curiosity, taking much time and effort to find prewar materials about shoemaking," a magazine editor says. (Photo taken at Orma, in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture)
Arts

Passion and precision: Japanese artisans conquer the shoe world

How law and architecture students plus consumers reshaped a hot fashion trend

29 January 2023
Sunrise in Mrauk U, an ancient town in the western Myanmar state of Rakhine. In recent years, the state has been wracked by fighting between Rakhine Buddhists and Myanmar's military regime, with the Rohingya Muslims trapped in the middle.
Life

History haunts Myanmar's 'triangle of death'

Buddhists, Muslims, central government in three-way struggle in Rakhine state

27 January 2023
Arata Isozaki at the Elysee Palace in Paris in May 2019. The rebel smuggled art-world trends into architecture.
Obituaries

Arata Isozaki, architect warned of the death of architecture

Japanese Pritzker Prize-winner rebelled against the mainstream

14 January 2023
SKA-Low prototype antennas on-site at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia. The SKA project has been compared in importance to NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. (Courtesy of the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research)
Life

Australia and partners ramp up search for alien life

Giant radio telescopes aim to probe secrets of the universe

13 January 2023
Japanese idol group JO1 performed to a national Japanese audience on NHK's New Year's Eve songfest, one of the year's biggest televised events.. (Photo by Kosaku Mimura)
Media & Entertainment

Blending K-pop and J-Pop, Tokyo boy band JO1 aims for global stage

11-member group thrills Japan on New Year's Eve with touch of Seoul music

8 January 2023
Arata Noguchi's apartment in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward does not have a bath, which fits well with his desire for a simple life. (Photo by Shihoko Nakaoka)
Property

No-bath apartments win over Japan's minimalist youth

Preference for simplicity and social interaction fuel trend

8 January 2023
Paintable stamps can turn everyday events into special memories.
Business trends

Japanese stationery has a new star: paintable stamps for diaries

Stickers add color to pages, tug at emotions and offer a break from smartphones

7 January 2023
Terraced paddies in the Hoshitoge area of Tokamachi, a city in Niigata Prefecture, gleam next to crimson foliage in late autumn.  (Photo by Tomohide Yamaguchi) 
Life

How terraced rice paddies bring Japan's inhabitants together

'Tanada' evoke a nostalgia that grips city dwellers and villagers alike

31 December 2022
(Source photos by Reuters and Kyodo) 
Obituaries

Obituaries 2022: Remembering those who passed away

Abe and Jiang, Inamori and Idei, Mori and Miyake and more changed our lives

29 December 2022
Yaiphaba Kangjam, a battlefield guide and historian, poses with a Japanese World War II helmet found in the fields of Jessami, a village in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. (Photo by Bertie Alexander)
Life

How history is shaping the future in Nagaland

Remote region on India-Myanmar border hones efforts to attract international tourism

21 December 2022
Javanese dancers perform at Hotel Tugu Malang in Indonesia's East Java province. Established in 1990, the hotel is filled with old art and a museum dedicated to antiquities from Cambodia and Thailand. (Courtesy of Tugu Hotels and Restaurants)
Life

Preserving Indonesia's cultural heritage, one hotel at a time

Art collector returns some of the country's oldest inns to their former glory

9 December 2022
For chef Rene Redzepi, who spent 10 days in Kyoto during his first trip to Japan in 2009, the upcoming Noma Kyoto residency feels like a second homecoming: "It's one of my favorite places in the world," he says. (Courtesy of Amy Tang) 
Life

Chef behind Denmark's Noma restaurant readies for Kyoto launch

Rene Redzepi to offer fusion of Scandinavian and Japanese influences

7 December 2022