the qualia journal

Summer in Tokyo this year was unusually long. The record-breaking heat spell went on and on, until we residents started to think that we wer...

So the newt was alive, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Once in a direct contact with the reality, a sense of practical wisdom took hold of ...

The clock in my heart started to tick slowly. The passage of the every day became painful. I felt the urge to take a look at the newt tank, ...

(Continued from yesterday) I had completely forgotten about my pet newt. Oblivion be damned! It was a horror realization. Apart from the sme...

(Continued from yesterday) Days passed, and I kept playing with the arrangements for the newt paradise. Within the small dimensions of the t...

When I was about 10 years old, I went to a pet shop and encountered my newt. It was the Cynops pyrrhogaster (Japanese fire belly newt) speci...

Yesterday, as I was moving through the maze that is Tokyo, I finished reading Botchan, written by Soseki Natsume, and translated by Yasotaro...

I have not written into this English Journal for a little longer than a week now. The writing streak is now officially broken. I don't r...

I don't know how, but I do feel that the summer has gone. Ever since childhood, at some time in August or September, I would suddenly co...

In many cultures a truth is simply bestowed upon the youth as given. You are not supposed to question the authorities, let alone to have new...

On Thursday, I had a wonderful time interviewing Michael Sandel in Tokyo for a magazine. Sandel's "Justice" ( http://www.justi...

For a long time, Japan has prided itself as the first nation to modernize in the region of Asia. Despite the terrible and self-brought defea...

On the second day at the CUTE center in NUS (National University Singapore), we had another hectic and yet deeply enjoyable time. In the mor...

Since I came to Singapore a few days ago, one of the things that attracted my attention has been the sheer cultural diversity. Chinese, Mala...

Singapore is such an urban country on the surface. You have the impression that no matter where you go, you find buildings and paved streets...

I am in Singapore now, attending a conference at National University Singapore. I met with Ilya Farber, my neurophilosophical friend now bas...

As the sheer volume of information available for an average individual increased, we really need a keen and well-tuned "sixth sense...

As the sheer volume of information available for an average individual increased, we really need a keen and well-tuned "sixth sense...

(continued from yesterday) The phrase "a fool can be cured only when he dies." is a very famous one in Japan, known even among the...

Japanese literature has a rich tradition in the philosophy of life. The genre of Rokyoku, in which important events and life histories of fa...