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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 3, 2010

Modern design aesthetics enhance traditional Kyoto

Gray corridors, strip lighting, scratched desks and bland canteens: Schools are not generally renowned for the finesse of their decor.
LIFE / Digital / Japan Pulse
Dec 1, 2010

Charismatic shop assistants are back in style

The returning popularity of store staff blogs show that strategic charisma can go a long way toward good PR and sales.
LIFE
Nov 28, 2010

Summiteering with Nobel peace laureates

Hiroshima is a beautiful city with cute trams cruising along its tree-lined streets.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 28, 2010

The Caucasus imperative in summit season

YEREVAN, Armenia — Following the Group of 20 meetings in Seoul and the NATO summit in Portugal, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will hold its first summit in 10 years in Astana, Kazakhstan's spanking new capital city.
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Nov 28, 2010

Eats, shoots and leaves in Hakusan

It's hunting season in Tokyo. I kit up and trek out to the Hakusan area of Bunkyo Ward, hoping to shoot (with camera) the wild shades of autumn.
COMMUNITY
Nov 27, 2010

Expat peace group studies embattled Okinawa ecology

At first glance, the group of 15 young Japanese and foreigners gathered together in the arrival lounge at Naha airport look like just another package tour for a week of fun on Okinawa's tropical beaches.
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Nov 22, 2010

Japan by the numbers (11.22.10)

This week we toast to your good skincare, personal independence and, of course, the newly arrived Beaujolais Nouveau.
COMMUNITY
Nov 13, 2010

Dream becomes reality for Scottish manga creator

It sits in a place of beauty, incongruously bordered between Japanese stone art and a vivid blue ink painting: "2000 A.D.," a classic British comic book from the 1980s. The apocalypse orange cover shrieks "Revenge of the Warlock" but — muted by a plastic overlay to protect its condition — the sci-fi...
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 12, 2010

Theater with a hint of human truth

Yumi Suzuki co-founded the Jitensha Kinqureat theater company with friends at Nihon Joshi Daigaku (Japan Women's University) in 1982, and it was not long before the Tokyo troupe gained a prominent reputation and a keen following for its true-to-life plays in colloquial language about the lives of young...
CULTURE / Film
Nov 5, 2010

'Genpin'/'Umareru (To Be Born)'

The pain of childbirth, Genesis says, is God's punishment for the original sin of womankind — if only Eve hadn't given Adam that apple! But in Japan, traditionalists contend, it's to be embraced, not lamented, since the deeper the agony, the deeper the motherly love. So hold the epidurals, please,...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 31, 2010

Okinawan garden majesty

The world's first gardens may well have been made of coral, natural clusters of underwater beauty that could be glimpsed through the transparent water. Perfectly tone-coordinated, balanced and formed, they were refined by nature to a degree that may have suggested the divine.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Oct 28, 2010

Ryokan owner Kazushi Sato

Kazushi Sato, 63, is the owner of Tsurunoyu Onsen, a hot-spring ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) in Akita Prefecture. Nestled within beech woods deep in the mountains, Tsurunoyu is surrounded by natural beauty — bears wander freely, feasting on mountain grapes, and edible wild mushrooms grow in enough...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 26, 2010

Rationing miracle rescues

HONG KONG — Surely the picture of the month was of Chilean miner Mario Sepulveda thumping the air like a 2-year-old in jubilation that he was free after 68 days in a dank, dark dungeon more than 600 meters below the Atacama Desert.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 24, 2010

Some recent adventures in intellectual property

Much has been made in the Japanese press about the commercial ramifications of the research in palladium- catalyzed cross couplings in organic systems that won Eiichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki the Nobel Prize in chemistry this year. The long-term studies by the pair and an American colleague, Richard...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 22, 2010

Is Tokyo staging the next major theater festival?

Festival/Tokyo, which launched last year with two sets of events in spring and autumn, is in a bid to join the ranks of the world's top-flight theater festivals — such as Edinburgh's annual spectacular in Scotland, Avignon's in the South of France and Adelaide's in South Australia. The question is,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 21, 2010

More 'Schindlers' emerge

The young man's monochrome portrait is at least 70 years old, the whites all faded to yellow, but it is still clear he had style. His hair is slicked down, eye arched, suit perfect with matching tie and handkerchief.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 17, 2010

Utopia means free money for everyone

Scientifically and technologically, the world is in flux bordering on chaos. Every day brings something new: a new discovery, a new device, a new technique, a new cure. The pace of change is dizzying; we scarcely know where we stand. Yesterday's novelty is today's norm, tomorrow's anachronism.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 15, 2010

Breaking old conventions to find the new

Ryota Aoki (b.1978) says that he wants to see things that never before existed in ceramics. Personally, too, he is the exemplification of that ethos. We do not usually expect a celebrated ceramicist to be wearing a turban, have both ears pierced and be listening to hip-hop in the background as he sits...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 9, 2010

Photography fan ends up manager on floating hotel

James Deering planned on being either a professional photographer or a psychologist. Instead, it was the call of the sea that steered his life. For 16 years now, the American citizen and Tokyo resident has held management positions on the world's biggest cruise lines. In a few days, he will don his uniform,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 8, 2010

Harue Koga: The art of assimilating Western styles

The curse of early Western-style Japanese painters is the charge of derivativeness. Simply because they embraced foreign artistic idioms rather than their own indigenous artistic traditions, it is easy to dismiss them as mere copyists, "regurgitating" whatever it was they saw in the latest imported art...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL: KEYES' POINT
Oct 6, 2010

Hiyakasu: Teasing finds easy target in first love

"Yukino! My big brother is in love with Yukino!" Little Kimika Keyes whoops with delight, which of course only throws Peter deeper into misery. Kimika is 10 and he's 14 — he should have the upper hand, but there is in her a bewildering mix of yōchi (幼稚, childishness) and seijuku (成熟, maturity)...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 3, 2010

Nomo blazed trail, helped mend fences with move

First in a four-part series
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 3, 2010

Why not put a little fun into your funeral?

It's your funeral. What's your pleasure?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 1, 2010

All-grrrl DJ collective touts a twee life

Shibuya is not a pretty place. In fact, Tokyo's youth mecca can look downright grimy at times. But as with most eyesores, there are pockets of beauty and Sumire Taya owns one of them.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 1, 2010

Find time in the 'Forests of Asoka'

Like many people, I have an instinctive suspicion of conceptual art, regarding its practitioners in the same league as politicians, lawyers and snake oil salesmen; namely, hot-air artists who rely too much on words to win us over to their dubious concepts. Art should effortlessly speak for itself, but...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Sep 26, 2010

Moving pictures of Shibamata

I change trains three times before boarding one of Tokyo's shortest lines, the 2.5-km Keisei Kanamachi. I'm bound for Shibamata, which isn't precisely a backstreet, but it's tucked so far from most major thoroughfares in the back-beyond of Katsushika Ward that I imagine it will fit the bill.

Longform

Eme-Ima Kitchen is one of over 10,000 kodomo shokudō in Japan. A term first used in 2012 to describe makeshift eateries offering free or cheap meals to disadvantaged kids, it now refers to a diverse range of individuals, groups and organizations working to provide not only food but a sense of belonging to both children and adults.
Japan’s ‘children’s cafeterias’ are booming — but is that a good thing?