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Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 2, 2011

English big business, and growing

When it comes to preparing for the April launch of compulsory English classes in elementary schools, the private sector appears to have a clear lead over public school teachers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 25, 2011

Artist-curated festival sets new rules

"It's Auschwitz with good music," jokes Nick Cave at the start of "All Tomorrow's Parties," a 2009 documentary released to mark the 10th anniversary of the music festival of the same name. It's a tasteless description for an impeccably tasteful event, one that has become a bastion for left-of-center...
COMMUNITY / ZEIT GIST: UPDATE
Feb 22, 2011

Navy removes captain over sex abuse furor

The United States Navy has taken action against staff involved in the case of former Lt. Cmdr. Anthony L. Velasquez, a doctor accused of sexually abusing a number of women while based in Japan and Kuwait between 2007 and 2009.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Feb 18, 2011

Plan for 36-team league rejected by JBA board

It's back to the drawing board for the Japan Basketball Association.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 18, 2011

EeL pumps out electric pop for common people

The title track from EeL's new album "For Common People" is likely to make you feel like you've just overdosed on candy.
Reader Mail
Feb 13, 2011

Crossed genders dressing right

I would like to correct a reference by Edan Corkill in his Feb. 4 Weekend Scene article, "Anime's late, late show." The late-night anime production "Hourou Musuko" ("Wandering Son") is not about cross-dressers; it's about transgendered adolescents. If you read the manga, or pay close attention to the...
JAPAN
Feb 12, 2011

Long honeymoon over for Hashimoto

OSAKA — Three years into his first term, Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto continues to enjoy some of the highest ratings of any politician, with media polls showing 70 to 80 percent of the electorate approve of his job performance.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Feb 8, 2011

Hooked on U.S., Japan risks going down with it: responses

Following are responses to "Hooked on U.S., Japan risks going down with it" by Brian Victoria (Hotline to Nagatacho, Jan. 4):
COMMENTARY
Feb 7, 2011

Hedging the glad hand to China

HONG KONG — The joint statement released during the state visit to the United States by Chinese President Hu Jintao is in some ways strikingly different from a similar joint statement issued in November 2009 during American President Barack Obama's state visit to China.
Reader Mail
Jan 30, 2011

Most progressive place on Earth

The attacking posture of Kunio Miyamura's Jan. 9 letter, "Celebrating a respectful sentiment " — in response to my Dec. 30 letter ("Overbearing demand on Christmas") — is far too common as it's the result of a perceived slight to Christianity.
EDITORIALS
Jan 30, 2011

Confrontation continues

Question-and-answer sessions have started in the Diet as Japan faces such serious problems as economic stagnation, deteriorating state finances and worries about the social welfare system's sustainability. But the mood of Diet is no closer to holding meaningful discussions. Opposition parties, especially...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jan 30, 2011

Pushing the U.S. Constitution to the brink

NEW YORK — On opening day of the 112th session of the U.S. Congress, the members of the House of Representatives recited the U.S. Constitution. The Republican Party, now the majority, instituted the unprecedented step. The tea party instigated it.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 29, 2011

New Yorker finds success within himself in Kyoto

American restaurateur Charles Roche, 62, credits his love of feting others to having grown up in the warm and noisy embrace of an extended Italian-American family in the Bronx. As part of a food-loving clan he jokingly refers to as "the Sopranos without the crime," he remembers splitting chestnuts and...
Reader Mail
Jan 27, 2011

Living with the fear of being shot

Thank you for the Jan. 23 editorial, "Making sense of Tucson." Despite the deluge of news and comment following the tragic shooting, I had yet to read or hear a single reference to what I believe Americans call "the elephant in the room," namely the link between gun ownership and gun violence. One would...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 25, 2011

Waiting for the WikiLeak dam to break

Like a giant dose of salts to a bloated and constipated patient, "Cablegate" has scoured its way through the post-9/11 United States empire, exposing its internal workings to merciless scrutiny: In Iraq, U.S. forces and their Iraqi subordinates kill civilians and journalists while their commanders turn...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 25, 2011

Whither Tunisia's 'Jasmine Revolution'?

NEW YORK — As I try to grasp the meaning of the Tunisian Revolution and gauge its future, I am looking at my desk, where I have spread two issues of The New York Times, both featuring Tunisia on their front pages. The two issues are dated 23 years apart.
Reader Mail
Jan 23, 2011

'Gun' headline misfires

The headline for the Jan. 14 article "Leave the gun, bring 'takoyaki': East Village" baffles me. Is this an off-color reference to the recent gun violence in America? Or was the editor just at a loss for words? Is the headline supposed to mean that it is safe in the East Village (Manhattan, N.Y.) because...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / WEEK 3
Jan 16, 2011

Calligraphy writ large takes in choreography, too

Japanese calligraphy is a challenge at the best of times. So why go to the trouble of using a piece of paper as large as the side of a bus, and a brush that's almost two meters long and weighs 50 kg?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 14, 2011

Spelling out China's calligraphic influence

At the end of the Edo Period (1603-1868), as Japan began to change its long-held cultural reference point from China to the West, a strong Sinophile interest was maintained by the nation's cultural and political elites. From the late 19th century, however, the cultural reorientation to the West had deleterious...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 31, 2010

Japan's cloudy prospects for higher fertility

WASHINGTON — Japan's efforts to raise fertility through changes to the child allowance present a fragile and troubling vision for the future.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 29, 2010

Looking back on 2010 one word at a time

Perched majestically at the summit of the clutter on my desk this sunny December morning is a copy of the 2011 edition of Jiyukokuminsha's 「現代用語の基礎知識」("Gendai Yōgo no Kiso Chishiki," "Encyclopedia of Contemporary Words") — all 1,688 pages of it.
LIFE / Digital
Dec 29, 2010

Living in Japan: There's an app for that

As 2010 draws to a close, smartphone use in Japan has risen to an all-time high, accounting for around 50 percent of all handset sales here. Yet it shames this columnist to admit that I'm still rockin' an old Windows 6.1 phone — insofar as a Windows 6.1 phone can be rocked at all — because as someone...
COMMENTARY
Dec 27, 2010

What is Beijing willing to do to secure oil and gas supplies?

SINGAPORE — China's dependence on increasing amounts of oil imported from potentially unstable areas of the Middle East and Africa through vulnerable shipping channels has become an uncomfortable fact of life for the government in Beijing.
JAPAN / Media
Dec 26, 2010

Arashi get advice from their 'honey man'

What do you get when you combine the Wales-born, dyed-in-the-wool outdoorsman C.W. Nicol with the five squeaky-clean members of Japanese boy band Arashi? Good television, that's what.

Longform

An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow it