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Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 12, 2010

Japan life: Etiquette by the numbers

Have you ever tried to shake hands with a Japanese only to be bowed at instead?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jan 12, 2010

Italian culture rep probes parallels

Umberto Donati, the 65-year-old director of the Italian Institute of Culture, is a force of nature when it comes to seizing every opportunity to introduce his country's paintings, books, art exhibitions and language courses to Japanese.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 12, 2010

Wannabe comics find their voices in Tokyo

"Everyone likes a laugh now and then, right?"
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 11, 2010

Spain could lead way for Roma

NEW YORK — Continued discrimination against Roma in Europe not only violates human dignity but also is a major social problem crippling the development of Eastern European countries with large Roma populations.
Reader Mail
Jan 10, 2010

China using leverage to beat West

Regarding Brahma Chellaney's Jan. 6 article, "China wants it both ways": It saddens people like me of Indian descent to see people like Chellaney write as if they were clinging to feelings of "brown-man inferiority" long after the fall of colonialism and the decline of the British Empire.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jan 10, 2010

'Stars seek reversal of fortune with multiple moves

Happy New Year, and 2010 may be a happy year for fans of the Yokohama BayStars, a team that deserves a lot of credit for a series of transactions during the offseason in an effort to improve the standing of the 2008 and 2009 Central League last-place team.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 10, 2010

Fast fashion is not what's ailing Japan's economy

Last fall outspoken economist Noriko Hama caused a fuss with an essay about deflation in the magazine Bungei Shunju. She said that the trend of yasuuri kyoso (low price competition) was "destroying society," and not just in Japan. However, in Japan she singled out the clothing retailer Uniqlo as the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 8, 2010

A feast for film buffs

The Japanese film industry, at least the top end where Toho and its media partners dwell, is looking forward to a prosperous 2010, with a lineup of crowd-pleasers that should thump the Hollywood competition.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 8, 2010

' Where the Wild Things Are'

My parents bought me plenty of books as a child, and thinking back on it now, a lot of them — "Gerald McBoing Boing," "Harold and the Purple Crayon" or "A Wrinkle In Time" — were pretty strange. (That might explain a few things.) But one book I never got was Maurice Sendak's "Where The Wild Things...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 8, 2010

Ghent's Das Pop goes overground

His upbringing pretty much ensured that the thought of being in a band was the farthest thing from Bent Van Looy's young mind.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 8, 2010

Aesthetics of paring down to the outline

In the distant past, the ratio of manufactured goods to people was extremely low, so the tendency was for such products to be highly decorated and embellished. Since then the ratio has altered considerably in favor of the material objects. Now, most of us are inundated with a multitude of gadgets, gizmos,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 8, 2010

What's real in a world of copies and clones?

I n contrast to the type of mass- produced art best characterized in Japan by Takashi Murakami and the hordes of assistants who complete paintings and sculptures to the specifications of their employer, is a small coterie of sculptors/painters who work at individually crafting the mass-produced items...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 8, 2010

Girls

Based in San Francisco but fronting a sunnier, fuzzier sound that has more to do with a Southern California contaminated by the melodic chutzpah of early 1960s East Coast vocal groups, this duo of self-described losers is the latest big deal in the American underground. At first, it isn't clear what...
JAPAN
Jan 5, 2010

Jobless ranks exit shelter, are relocated

The holiday-season shelter run by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government closed Monday, and some 800 lodgers were taken to different accommodations to continue their hunt for homes and jobs.
JAPAN / LOOMING CHALLENGES
Jan 5, 2010

Experts say Japan must change how it is handling low birthrate

The government has been grappling with a low birthrate for 20 years, but experts say the Hatoyama administration must step up the game if Japan is to maintain a leading role on the international stage.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jan 5, 2010

Florist sees seeds of change in Japan

Hans Damen came to Japan from his native Holland 16 years ago, attracted by the traditional aspects of Japanese culture, like "taiko" drumming and ikebana flower arrangement. After teaching flower design at a school in Tokyo for a year, he landed a job with the major flower retailer U.Goto Florist and...
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2010

2010 make or break for the DPJ

2009 will be remembered as a turning point in postwar politics, a time when voters ousted the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party and put the Democratic Party of Japan in power.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 31, 2009

Eco-friendliness starts at home

Hiroko Kawata, a tour guide with the nonprofit organization Japan for Sustainability, covers her microphone with her hand and whisper-rehearses a section from her handwritten notes, running over a few words and the trickier English phrases. She nods to Julie Emmings, her British companion, who unfurls...
JAPAN
Dec 31, 2009

Fukushima strives to carve a pacifist path for the SDP

After being handed a fourth term as president of the Social Democratic Party without a vote, Mizuho Fukushima on Dec. 4 took her seat at the SDP's headquarters in Tokyo and faced reporters to give her victory speech.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 31, 2009

Eco-friendliness starts at home

Hiroko Kawata, a tour guide with the nonprofit organization Japan for Sustainability, covers her microphone with her hand and whisper-rehearses a section from her handwritten notes, running over a few words and the trickier English phrases. She nods to Julie Emmings, her British companion, who unfurls...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 30, 2009

Need to know those buzzwords to follow Japan's big hit products

Of all the jobs I've held in Japan, by far the most challenging was the four years I spent during the baburu keizai (バブル経済, bubble economy) as a trend watcher for a market-research company.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Dec 30, 2009

Lakers, fans embarrassed on Christmas Day

NEW YORK — Win or lose, Laker fools remain consistently bad sports. Secure a championship at home and they burn the surrounding neighborhood. Have calls go against them in a game already decided in their disfavor and they chuck souvenir foam fingers (I get the imagery) and plastic bottles onto the...

Longform

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