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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 4, 2008

Katsura Funakoshi's sphinxes of suggestivity

The figure is nothing if not startling: Truncated just above the knees and suspended on four, bark-covered sticks sprouting from the body, sculptor Katsura Funakoshi's "The Sphinx Floats in Forest" is a muscular hermaphrodite with full, female breasts and male genitalia, an elongated neck and leather-strap...
JAPAN
Sep 4, 2008

Police take 'dead' doll for autopsy

Police are trying to determine whether they were the victims of a hoax after what they thought was a body inside a sleeping bag turned out to be a life-size doll.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 4, 2008

'The Closed Garden'

Tokyo Gallery, Ginza
COMMENTARY
Sep 2, 2008

Unconventional American and Asian women

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — There are nonreductionist ways of looking at modern women. One is to view them as Warrior Queens. These women do not deny their biology or ignore its potentials but equip themselves to play ball with the big boys on a playing field that has grown more level by the decade.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 2, 2008

Soft power is key to Japan reshaping its identity abroad

In February this year, a Japanese university student scribbled her name and that of her college on the walls of Florence's Duomo. The following month, the university received complaints from Japanese travelers embarrassed to find Japanese graffiti on a World Heritage Site. In June, after another Japanese...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2008

Estimated 590,000 people take part in nationwide quake drills

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura kicked off a government-sponsored earthquake drill Monday by announcing that a hypothetical magnitude 8.6 temblor had struck off Wakayama Prefecture an hour earlier at 6:30 a.m.
Reader Mail
Aug 31, 2008

Imagination trumps knowledge

Is being able to solve formulas in academic math, or write fabulous essays without a single grammatical mistake, the most important thing in life? Some students my age trying to get into Harvard University might say, "Of course, it is."
Japan Times
SPORTS / ODDS AND EVENS
Aug 31, 2008

Beijing Games chock full of memorable moments

Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series. The second part will focus on Japan's 2008 Olympic experience.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 31, 2008

All you need to know about Japan's politics

GOVERNING JAPAN: Divided Politics in a Resurgent Economy, by J.A.A. Stockwin. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008, 298 pp., £19.99 (paper) Arthur Stockwin, who was until recently Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Studies at the University of Oxford, is the leading British expert on Japanese politics....
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 31, 2008

Is yours a sweet and eco-friendly home?

After hearing all the talk about climate change and global warming, many of us are now aware that we need to change our lifestyle in the battle to stop our planet from being a far less agreeable place to live.
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Aug 31, 2008

Toyota flies toward the future

Toyota aims to take us on a magic- carpet ride in mobility in about two years with its new vehicle called the Winglet. The device is the latest addition to the company's range of "partner robots" — concept vehicles whose purpose is to explore future forms of personal transportation. Toyota believes...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 31, 2008

Spain to China: Letters of a lasting friendship

AUSTIN COATES: Souvenirs and Letters, by Ramon Rodamilans. London: Athena Press, 2007, 140 pp, £5.99 (paper) The Spanish author of this memoir recognizes early on just how much his subject, the British writer and historian Austin Coates (1922-97), like Coates' Vietnamese companion, "came from south-east...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 30, 2008

A Welshman's 10,000-km tale of Japan

What on earth would induce anyone to cycle around a country for six months?
COMMENTARY
Aug 29, 2008

Pioneers who pushed cinema into politics

MADRAS, India — When Indian Telugu film star K. Chiranjeevi entered politics recently in the south Indian state of Andhra, it merely affirmed a widely held belief that cinema and public affairs are firmly linked to each other. Chiranjeevi, who has acted in 138 movies, said it was the former state chief...
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2008

Slaying in Afghanistan will not deter Japan's antiterror mission

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura voiced anger Thursday over the kidnapping and killing of aid worker Kazuya Ito in Afghanistan.
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2008

Ministry setting example with own day-care center

The Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry plans to open a day-care center on its premises in the Kasumigaseki district in the next fiscal year.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 29, 2008

'Detroit Metal City'

Soichi Negishi (Kenichi Matsuyama) hates what he does for a living. After every night on the job, he can't wait to strip off his work clothes and relax with his favorite light J-Pop tunes. With his pudding-bowl hairdo, goofy grin and foppy gestures, he looks like the younger Japanese brother of Jim Carrey's...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 29, 2008

'Youth Without Youth'

Ever since he first hit it big with "The Godfather" way back in 1972, Francis Ford Coppola has made noises about saying goodbye to Hollywood, taking the money and making small, uncompromising independent films. With the exception of "The Conversation" (1974), that never happened, with Coppola seemingly...
Reader Mail
Aug 28, 2008

Gratitude to the unknown finder

I am a North American who now lives in Costa Rica. This month I traveled to Japan to visit my son, his wife and my new grandchild. My flight was long and I was tired when I arrived at Narita International Airport on Aug. 12.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 28, 2008

Indecisive moments

Henri Cartier-Bresson's legacy of the "decisive moment" had a profound impact on photography. As a cofounder of the photographic cooperative Magnum Photos in 1947, his philosophy influenced a whole generation of photojournalists, and, for decades, Magnum photographers were instrumental in constructing...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 28, 2008

Temp era ending as rules change, workforce shrinks

Masahiko Tanabe's life has changed since home products retailer The Loft Co. made him a permanent employee and gave him a 10 percent pay raise.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 28, 2008

Contemplative in Gunma

The Hara Museum ARC in Shibukawa, Gunma Prefecture, has just opened a revolutionary new space designed by world-renowned architect Arata Isozaki that interweaves motifs of Japanese traditional architecture and art with modern ones. Called the Kankai Pavilion, the exciting new exhibition space is being...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Aug 27, 2008

Exploring Antarctica for key climate clues

The steamy hot days of summer make it very tempting to imagine an escape to the snow and ice of Antarctica, though few of us will ever have that chance. Shin Sugiyama, 39, a glaciologist at Hokkaido University, is one of the exceptions.
LIFE / Language
Aug 26, 2008

Today we itadaku, for tomorrow we die

The Bible (in both testaments!) commands us to "eat, drink and be merry," but I think the wise individuals who thought up this pithy phrase meant it as a warning. To them there was more to life than endless imbibing and gluttony, though I can think of only one other thing.
BUSINESS
Aug 26, 2008

Low interest rates will alleviate economic slump: Shirakawa

The country's low interest rates will help the economy avoid slipping into a "deep" slump, Bank of Japan Gov. Masaaki Shirakawa said Monday.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 24, 2008

It's time for perfectly cute 50-year-old Japanese women

Madonna turned 50 on Aug. 16. The milestone was marked by a predictable barrage of commentary about "50 being the new 40" and how women no longer dread the half-century mark. Everybody is trying to eat better and exercise more, and cosmetic surgery isn't the big taboo it once was. But since the subject...
Reader Mail
Aug 24, 2008

Aliens bear burden of belonging

Michael Dewood's Aug. 14, letter "Limits of 'multiculturalism,' " reflects attitudes that are likely to conspire against the success of an alien who comes to Japan intending to stay. Expecting "equal treatment" by imposing ideological "multiculturalist" standards on Japan, and by regarding social acceptance...

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