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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Sep 10, 2009

Tour guide Shinobu Nimura

Shinobu Nimura, 50, is an experienced tour guide who organizes long-distance bus journeys through Asia, Africa and South America. His tours take one to two months and cover vast territories. In 25 years, he has clocked up an incredible 280,000 km on buses, the equivalent to riding around the Equator...
COMMENTARY
Sep 9, 2009

A Spanish medical doctor's African epiphany

I was visiting Rio Muni, the continental half of Equatorial Guinea with some medical colleagues. We were assessing the health situation in the country and we had arrived at Niefang, a small, sparsely populated, neglected town in the interior. The high humidity made the heat even more oppressive.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Sep 9, 2009

Sharp puts faith in resurrection

Sharp faith: Belief in resurrection is not restricted to religion. Sharp has a real faith in the power of bringing gadget ideas back from the dead. Its new PC-Z1 looks like a reborn version of Sharp's Zaurus brand of PDAs. The PC-Z1, marketed under the NetWalker brand, is a clamshell device with a 5-inch...
EDITORIALS
Sep 8, 2009

Inauspicious start for consumers

The Consumer Agency, which was inaugurated Sept. 1, is in a state of confusion — for which Prime Minister Taro Aso is solely to blame. He was obsessed with the idea of starting the agency on Sept. 1, about a month earlier than planned. Now, the lack of sufficient preparation is apparent.
EDITORIALS
Sep 7, 2009

Rise of the telecommuters

The number of telecommuters in Japan jumped during fiscal 2008, according to a survey by the transport ministry. Nearly 10 million people telecommuted for eight or more hours per week at the end of last March, up five percentage points from three years earlier, to comprise roughly 15 percent of all workers...
COMMENTARY
Sep 7, 2009

Duel of market ideologies past due in Japan's polls

The world has undergone drastic change in the first decade of the 21st century. There appears to be no end to terrorist activities and international disputes in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide attacks on the United States.
Reader Mail
Sep 6, 2009

Fluent Japanese does not compute

Debito Arudou's Sept. 1 article, "Mr. James, gaijin clown," was written in a balanced and professional manner, and clearly showed that, even in 2009, Japan and Japanese corporations are still more than willing to stereotype non-Japanese as buffoons.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Sep 6, 2009

Murakami says players going to MLB not hurting NPB

Long before Hideo Nomo was making major league hitters look silly with an unorthodox windup and an unhittable forkball, or Ichiro Suzuki began rewriting the record books, pitcher Masanori Murakami was blazing the trail.
Reader Mail
Sep 6, 2009

Show same courtesy to foreigners

I think the "gaijin clown" article is bang on. I was one of those people who laughs off many of the daily insults encountered as a foreigner in Japanese society, although I don't think all Japanese people have such narrow-minded views. I do think that such thinking is not discouraged in Japanese society,...
Reader Mail
Sep 6, 2009

Hatoyama's article recommended

Regarding the Sept. 2 article " 'Distorted' in translation?": I have just finished reading Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama's entire article ("A New Path for Japan," published on The New York Times Web site Aug. 27) and see nothing in it that is "anti-American."
CULTURE / Books
Sep 6, 2009

Money: the root of all optimism

A New Development Model for Japan: Selected Essays 2000-2008 by Akira Kojima. The Japan Journal, 2009, 362 pp., ¥2,625 (cloth) "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," wrote Charles Dickens in the opening passage of his famous novel "A Tale of Two Cities." Although written 150 years ago,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 6, 2009

Kawasaki's Nihon Minkaen: Traditional folklore in a natural setting

In an article last May 10 introducing the many attractions of Tokyo's neighbor Kawasaki, this writer made a brief reference to the Nihon Minkaen (The Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum) in Tama Ward.
LIFE / Travel
Sep 6, 2009

Kawasaki's Nihon Minkaen: Traditional folklore in a natural setting

In an article last May 10 introducing the many attractions of Tokyo's neighbor Kawasaki, this writer made a brief reference to the Nihon Minkaen (The Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum) in Tama Ward.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 5, 2009

Flying octopuses of thanks

"Amy-san!" yells one of the neighborhood obaachan while standing in my genkan holding out a plate of warm shrimp tempura. "Thank you so much for helping my husband the other day."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 4, 2009

Wonder Stuff give fans an encore

Anyone who knows anything about the U.K. pop scene understands how important the music weeklies are to the success of young artists, and while the Internet has undermined that influence they can still make or break a band. Miles Hunt should know. He and his group, The Wonder Stuff, were darlings of the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 4, 2009

'The Ugly Truth'

The rom-com, once a source of solace for the working woman who, after a hard day's work, could at least count on undemanding entertainment to tide her through the evening, has become something different. It's no longer the sweet and smart girlfriend equivalent, unjudgmental if a little cynical. That...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 4, 2009

Denzel holds the lead

"I think it's hard to generalize," says actor Denzel Washington about movie remakes. He and John Travolta — as the villain — costar in a remake of the 1974 "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3," which starred Walter Matthau and was much noted for its powerful score by David Shire. Comparisons between the...
EDITORIALS
Sep 3, 2009

Getting disarmament started

The 21st U.N. Conference on Disarmament Issues was held last week in the Sea of Japan coastal city of Niigata, attended by about 90 people from 21 countries, mainly government officials and researchers who exchanged opinions as individuals. In a positive development, they agreed that the international...
Reader Mail
Sep 3, 2009

Sanctions don't impoverish Burma

In his Aug. 29 article, "U.S. should engage Burma," Brahma Chellaney makes some good points concerning U.S. sanctions against the military regime in Burma: that these sanctions have failed in their stated purpose to promote democracy and human rights; that they have increased China's already large influence...
Reader Mail
Sep 3, 2009

'Clown' does OK by comparison

Regarding Debito Arudou's Sept. 1 article, "Meet Mr. James, gaijin clown": I can't believe The Japan Times would print this self-serving rubbish. It seems that Arudou has run out of things to complain about and is resorting to writing about trivial things that are irrelevant to the lives of foreigners...
BUSINESS
Sep 3, 2009

Big business plans revolt against DPJ's 25% emissions-reduction goal

The nation's industries plan to jointly pressure the government to be formed by the Democratic Party of Japan to back off from its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, business sources said Wednesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Sep 3, 2009

Has Tokyo's art-fair scene got the goods?

Credit crunch be damned. Tokyo art fairs are going strong, with more coming to the roster. And now Tokyo Photo is coming into focus.
COMMENTARY
Sep 2, 2009

Justice, clemency and U.K. politics

The secretary for justice in the devolved government in Scotland decided Aug. 20 to release Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only individual who had been convicted of involvement in the so-called Lockerbie tragedy. This terrorist incident occurred more than 20 years ago when a Pan American airliner was...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Sep 2, 2009

Kohjinsha monitors get moving; Sony hits Blu-ray potential

Now screening: Netbooks too often are like a range of cars. The varying bodywork makes them look deceptively different from each other, but turn the key and you find that where they count, under the hood, the differences are all but nonexistent. Maybe the engineers at Kohjinsha are into motorcycles....

Longform

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