(Periodically, I post stories I wrote while working as a foreign correspondent. Following is a story I wrote about Bangkok’s network of canals (klong). Many have already disappeared under concrete roads, but life goes on along those that remain.) Some 150 years ago, when Anna Leonowens, the prim English governess who has … Read more…
(This is a profile of Tokyo, Japan done in the 1990s. Not much has changed in one of the world’s biggest, loudest, most expensive cities) CITY LIMITS: TOKYO HAS REACHED THEM IN HUMAN PERSEVERANCE By Ronald E. Yates It’s the world’s biggest, noisiest, most expensive and arguably least livable city. … Read more…
(This is a 1990s profile of Japan’s “all girl” theater–immortalized in the book “Sayonara” by James A. Michener and the classic film of the same name starring Marlon Brando) Japan’s Takarazuka Theater makes women, and men, of talented girls It is late afternoon and 18 teenage girls, wearing simple jackets … Read more…