Joey in Japan
Joey “Pepe” Smith is a great raconteur with a boatload of fascinating stories, some of which may even be true.
Japan’s Immigration Dilemma
The role model is Yuichiro Miura, who reached the summit of Mount Everest at the age of 80
Tokyo Dystopia
Half-naked girls brawling on a bed of satin, champagne bottles spurting foam into eager upturned mouths..
FIFA Should Be More Like the ADB
The story started with a swoop worthy of Eliot Ness, the heroic investigator who took down Al Capone.
Who are the Brain Police?
Despite a 7 year investigation involving 170,000 police and list of 110,000 suspects, the crime remains unsolved to this day.
Abe and the Historians
Koizumi enacted a Japanese equivalent of the “Willy Brandt moment” at the Marco Polo bridge
Get Ready for the Asian History Games
British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm riposted “We cannot invent our facts. Either Elvis Presley is dead or he isn’t.”
Tomorrow’s Joe
The Japanese Red Army militants who hi-jacked a JAL plane to Pyongyang in 1970 claimed “we are Tomorrow’s Joe.” The survivors remain in Pyongyang today and are now on Twitter.
The Seagull Laughs
The “Queen of the Japanese Underground” stuck to her unique personal style – long black dress, dark glasses, cloud of cigarette smoke
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
By then she had jettisoned her hippy chanteuse persona and joined Blues Creation, featuring Japan’s answer to Jeff Beck, Kazuo Takeda on guitar.