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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 27, 2009

Immigration showing signs of ninjo

Last month, I was asked to take part in a public panel discussion on the recently released Harrison Ford blockbuster "Crossing Over." In the film, Ford plays an L.A. Immigration and Customs officer with a conscience, increasingly disturbed by the human consequences of his job.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 27, 2009

Painful past must be put to rest for good

PARIS — A nation's relationship with its past is crucial to its present and its future, to its ability to "move on" with its life, or to learn from its past errors so as not to repeat them. This includes the past that isn't dead and buried — "in fact, it is not even past," as William Faulkner famously...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Oct 26, 2009

Moving portraiture by Julian Opie

If you see the influence of Japanese art, both traditional and contemporary, in the work of Julian Opie, showing at Scai Bathhouse till Nov. 14, you've got a good eye.
COMMENTARY
Oct 26, 2009

Paranoids feast on China's 'peaceful rising'

LOS ANGELES — Paranoid people tend to live longer, goes the old joke. And so it is in this spirit only — not out of a desire to engage in Cold War China-bashing — that we raise concerns about China. So here's the paranoid's question: Just what is China really up to?
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Oct 25, 2009

Managerial wheels spinning as NPB teams change bench bosses

Three Japanese teams have already filled managerial vacancies while two others are expected to name their choices sometime soon as the Climax and Japan Series draw to a close, in time for fall camp, the Oct. 29 amateur draft and the printing of the 2010 team calendars.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Oct 25, 2009

Hard-working kids documentary, tales from teen mothers and housewife-volleyball sitcom

This week, NHK's BS1 channel will present in bilingual format a series of overseas documentaries that show "children working hard" for their families and communities.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 23, 2009

Yamasaki's clutch play, veteran wisdom benefit Eagles

At age 40, Takeshi Yamasaki is enjoying the career-defining phase of his life as a ballplayer.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 23, 2009

A day to act in the name of planetary justice

PRINCETON, N.J. — What we are doing to our planet, to our children and grandchildren, and to the poor, by our heedless production of greenhouse gases, is one of the great moral wrongs of our age. This Saturday is a day to stand up against this injustice.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 23, 2009

Pusan fest revels in all films Asian

South Korea's biggest box-office hit of the year is the disaster movie "Haeundae," which has been seen by 11.3 million Koreans. The title refers to the beach-resort area of Pusan, where from Oct. 8-16 the 14th annual Pusan International Film Festival took place. In fact, most of the festival is held...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 23, 2009

Unified by Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau's birth at the end of the 1900s not only affected the art world but also radically transformed the public's visual awareness, helping to propel product design, graphic design, typography and manufacturing into the 20th century.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 23, 2009

'Shizumanu Taiyo'

"I am big. It's the pictures that got small," Gloria Swanson declaimed in "Sunset Boulevard." In the Japan film industry, though, the pictures are getting bigger — gargantuan, in fact. Examples include the "Death Note" duology, the "20-seiki Shonen" ("20th Century Boys") trilogy, and "Ai no Mukidashi"...
Reader Mail
Oct 22, 2009

Kids should relish both cultures

As foreign countries join together to urge Japan to recognize the rights of the child and the separated parent in international dispute cases, I need to add my voice and those of my family and friends. These sad situations cause ongoing pain and deep distress not only to the parent but also to the grandparents,...
COMMENTARY
Oct 21, 2009

Fading trust in the political class

LONDON — The world is clearly passing through a crisis of political legitimacy. People in growing numbers do not trust their governments or their governing classes. In many cases they despise them.
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Oct 21, 2009

Get set for next year's overhaul of official kanji

Kanji aficionados and educators are buzzing over the biggest kanji news in nearly three decades: Next fall, for the first time since 1981, Japan’s government is expected to announce a revision of the joyo (general-use) kanji list. Currently numbering 1,945, these kanji comprise the official list allowed...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 20, 2009

Mistrust carries economic consequences

LONDON — Public trust in financial institutions, and in the authorities that are supposed to regulate them, was an early casualty of the financial crisis. That is hardly surprising, as previously revered firms revealed that they did not fully understand the very instruments they dealt in or the risks...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Oct 20, 2009

Seeking some advice, a lost father, friend

Where is my father? Yovichi (Yoichi?) Perez is "Japinoy," meaning of Filipino-Japanese ancestry. He saw a letter from a Japinoy like himself, also looking for his father, so he thought he would try his luck with us.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 19, 2009

Sour feelings linger as Nomura marches on

SENDAI — For all the new beginnings the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles' win in the first stage of the Climax Series signified, there was an unmistakable sense of finality lingering in the air at Kleenex Stadium.
EDITORIALS
Oct 18, 2009

Tenth place and falling

Japan ranks 10th in the world on the Human Development Index (HDI), an annual report from the U.N. Development Program that uses three main factors, health, knowledge and standard of living. Tenth would be a laudable position except that Japan's ranking is buoyed by one single factor, the longevity of...
Reader Mail
Oct 18, 2009

Balancing a foreign mom's roles

I was instantly drawn to Tomoko Otake's Oct. 6 article, " 'Outsider' shares unique take on life, prejudices in the 'real' Japan" — about Suzanne Kamada. I, too, am the blond-haired, blue-eyed wife of a Japanese man. We live in Michigan with our three kids, but visit family in Japan each summer. I lived...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 18, 2009

Professor, schoolgirl share victim status in grope case

Last April, the Supreme Court reversed a Tokyo High Court decision that found Masahiro Nakura, a professor of medicine at the Self-Defense Forces University, guilty of being a chikan (groper) after he was charged with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old high school girl on the Odakyu train line in 2006....
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Oct 18, 2009

Wildlife on your doorstep

To be brutally honest, wildlife photography is mostly about having the means to get to amazing places, where wildlife still abounds. Then it takes heaps of patience. And the final ingredient is a good eye to capture the moment.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2009

Brouhaha stirs over Belgian brew

Belgian beer, rich in fragrance, flavor and potency, is not like other brews in Japan.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 16, 2009

Antony Gormley shrugs off the plinth critics

BEIJING (AP) The sometimes scathing reviews of British artist Antony Gormley's public art installation in London's Trafalgar Square are just proof, he says, that it's been as challenging for audiences as he hoped it would be.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 16, 2009

Tea gets Grand treatment

This year's Tokyo Grand Tea Ceremony provides an opportunity for anyone to experience Japan's renowned tea culture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 16, 2009

Foreign filmmaker wrestles with legacy of manga hero

"I hope people give it a chance. Because if people give it a chance they'll like it," says director David Bowers about his new animation, "Astro Boy" (titled "Atom" in domestic release), in a room at the Park Hyatt hotel in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo.

Longform

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Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat