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COMMUNITY
Oct 24, 2009

Seasonal rules permeate daily life in Japan

I grew up in Florida, and our year divides itself into seasons of bearable and unbearable. Even the most creative mind could hardly find illumination in topics around the weather, as there are only so many ways to say "the sun is shining with ferocious force today" or "the sweat is running into my eyeballs...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 16, 2009

Crystal Kay is having a ball

"There is still some racial thing going on," claims a mild-mannered Crystal Kay. "Some people can't accept there are a lot of foreigners out there, even in the industry.
LIFE / Language
Oct 11, 2009

What's in a (Japanese) name?

"How do you do, my name is Saito Ichiro Sama-no-kami Minamoto-no-Ason Tadayoshi."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 9, 2009

Gruff maybe, but Nakagawa recalled as hard worker

Although he appeared unfriendly to some, he was in fact a serious, responsible man with delicate sensibilities who studied policies day and night. That is the picture emerging of the late former Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa from interviews with relatives and officials.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BY THE GLASS
Oct 9, 2009

Introducing the Californian dream

Swilling an elegant Pinot around your glass, the landscape before you, verdant with vines, undulates in the soft evening light. The little wine you've imbibed sets your senses aglow as you contemplate the cinematic beauty of California's wine country.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Oct 4, 2009

Mamoru Mohri: A spaceman speaks

When future historians document the story of Japanese space exploration, 2009 will likely figure as the year when the nation put two high-profile rocket launch failures, in 1999 and 2003, firmly behind it and, quite literally, took off.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 25, 2009

Making sure nothing is lost in translation

"The Coast of Utopia" a 10-hour-long trilogy of plays — comprising "Voyage," "Shipwreck" and "Salvage" — was originally written in 2002 by Tom Stoppard for the National Theatre in London. An award-winning English playwright, Stoppard first shot to fame with "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead"...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Sep 20, 2009

U.K. birders' fair shows we can all help save even LBJs

"Life works by making lots and lots of different kinds of living things, and every one we lose impoverishes us and the world. Every single species, obscure or common, funny or dull, gorgeous or LBJ [the bird-watchers' abbreviation for "Little Brown Job"], is a strand in the web of life: every time we...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Sep 20, 2009

U.K. birders' fair shows we can all help save even LBJs

"Life works by making lots and lots of different kinds of living things, and every one we lose impoverishes us and the world. Every single species, obscure or common, funny or dull, gorgeous or LBJ [the bird-watchers' abbreviation for "Little Brown Job"], is a strand in the web of life: every time we...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 12, 2009

What gomi problem?

There is a growing concern in Japan about gomi yashiki, or trash houses, created by people who hoard useless stuff. Eventually, their collections start overflowing from their houses onto the streets. Such people often have more feline friends than human. I never realized that cats shared this same predilection...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BY THE GLASS
Sep 11, 2009

It's as good as it says on the bottle

Wine shops bear more than a passing resemblance to libraries. The hushed respectful tone of the staff, the way the wines are displayed on floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves with the rarest bottles set high up and only accessible by ladder. And like the covers of books, wine labels are seductive things:...
SOCCER / J. League
Aug 16, 2009

Frontale's Chong draws strength from pride in North Korean heritage

KURIHIRA, Kanagawa Pref. — Kawasaki Frontale's North Korean striker Chong Tese has a busy year ahead of him.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Aug 14, 2009

The spiritual side of making wine

Between the cold steel of enormous fermentation tanks and the state-of-the-art equipment in the tasting rooms of today's modern wineries, it's hard to believe that there is any element of the winemaking process that is not governed by the strict dictates of science. So imagine my surprise when, visiting...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Aug 6, 2009

Perseverance pays off for Isohata's NBA cheerleading dream

Yoshimi Isohata took a bit of a detour. But she has no regrets and feels blessed to have this Golden opportunity.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Jul 27, 2009

How to Japonese

The blog How To Japonese should appeal to anyone studying intermediate and advanced Japanese, but don't expect structured step-by-step courses. Launched in 2008 by Daniel Morales, a New Orleanian who first came to Japan in 2002 and currently works as a translation coordinator in Tokyo, the blog pretty...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 25, 2009

Lifetime of travels at root of keen insights into Japan

One person you want to meet for a coffee in Tokyo: Stephen Mansfield. The British author and photojournalist has written 10 books (14, including collaborative work) and produced over 2,000 published articles for newspapers, magazines and journals since 1992.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Jul 25, 2009

Belgian no waffler on love, life in Japan

Pascal Latui, 28, first fell for Yumiko, 36, on a backpacking trip in Japan in June 2006. She was a receptionist at the Tokyo youth hostel where he was staying.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jul 14, 2009

Wit, humor help longtime columnist come to grips with life in Japan

Freelance journalist and longtime Japan resident Thomas Dillon was at first shy of being on the receiving end of questions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 3, 2009

Deliberately insignificant gestures

While walking through the courtyard of the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art and interviewing critic Midori Matsui, a frog hopped out of the darkness, stopped for a moment in the light and then slipped back into the night. Matsui, who curated the Hara's current exhibition, "Micropop," had just been explaining...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Jun 14, 2009

Pierce looking to build on successful first season with Lakestars

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with individuals in the bj-league — Japan's first professional basketball circuit — which wrapped up its fourth season in May. Head coach Bob Pierce of the Shiga Lakestars is the subject of this week's profile. Pierce guided the team to a 19-33...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 14, 2009

New university library puts focus on the fans

Perhaps no single cultural product is held more dear in Japan than manga. It was a dominant form of pulp entertainment in the early post-World War II period, a forum for social dissent in the 1960s, then for female creativity in the '70s. By the '80s, manga was at the center of a mass market that outstripped...
Japan Times
SOCCER / World cup
Jun 10, 2009

No Japan let-up against Qatar pledges Okada

YOKOHAMA — National team manager Takeshi Okada insists there will be no let-up from his side against Qatar in Wednesday's World Cup qualifier despite having already secured safe passage to South Africa.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 7, 2009

Kang Sang Jung: Born but not Bred

Kang Sang Jung is one of the most influential ethnically Korean residents of Japan (zainichi). A political science professor at the University of Tokyo, he also gives lectures around the country, is a regular television commentator and has a column in the prestigious weekly current affairs magazine Aera....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 7, 2009

Our columnist's 'drug runs' are happily over

Whenever I visit the United States, friends ask me to pick up things for them, usually over-the-counter (OTC) drugs that are cheaper in the States than they are in Japan. I always return with this booty as nervous as if I were carrying a brick of hash, having once been told by a colleague how customs...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 22, 2009

Tattoo you — Mika's call to arms

"I believe in my voice as a singer," declares Mika Nakashima, alluding to the three words tattooed in English around her right wrist. " 'Trust your voice,' in a broad sense, means we should accept everything and believe in many things. I learned this in New York and developed myself in many ways that...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
May 20, 2009

Tokyo Photojournalist

Journalists everywhere are facing the twin challenges of recession and rapidly changing technology. With his blog, Tokyo Photojournalist, Tony McNicol showcases his work as a Japan-based freelance journalist and discusses photojournalism in the age of Flickr and Twitter. In this interview with The Japan...
COMMENTARY / World
May 18, 2009

Recognizing the 'pale blue dot' is to revere it

MELBOURNE — The 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote: "Two things fill the heart with ever renewed and increasing awe and reverence, the more often and more steadily we meditate upon them: the starry firmament above and the moral law within."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 15, 2009

Lights, mirror . . . reaction

S ometimes the cutting-edge is five years old. Take the current exhibition at the Mori Art Museum, "The Kaleidoscopic Eye: Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection." Featuring some of the best of what the contemporary art world has to offer, by the time it's made it to the museum, the art world...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Apr 26, 2009

Ignorance of 'sustainability' is not an option

Judging from the last month's headlines, it's clear we are collectively still not getting it — despite how much we know about the environment. In fact, it seems the more we know, the less we learn.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat