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Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jan 11, 2008

Famed Japanese dancer branches into mime

In 1993, the legendary choreographer and radical ballet master Maurice Bejart created — especially for the Tokyo Ballet Company — a work based on the life of doomed author Yukio Mishima, called "M." For the main role of St. Sebastian, the late, great French artist who died last November selected...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 11, 2008

'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'

The story of Western outlaw Jesse James gets rewritten for every generation — indeed it was being rewritten even while he lived. As the former confederate guerrilla-turned-bandit embarked on a spree of bank and train robberies in the 1870s, gunning down unarmed bystanders repeatedly, James was also...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 11, 2008

Passing politics from generation to generation

'La Faute a Fidel!" is, in a sense, a project engineered by daughters. Director Julie Gavras' father is the famed prorevoltionary director Costa Gavras, its lead actress Julie Depardieu is the daughter of Gerard, France's most treasured actor. And Nina Kervel, who was age 9 when the film was made, comes...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 10, 2008

Shibuya loaner-umbrella campaign aims to aid community, environment

Cheap and readily discarded clear plastic umbrellas are just the thing when you're caught off guard by a shower.
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jan 9, 2008

A microphone you put in your ear, and a video recorder kids can take anywhere

Silence is golden: Sanyo and NS-ELEX have unveiled their new earphone microphone, e-Mimi-kun. Using bone-conduction audio technology, it is designed to cut out background noise, the bane of modern life, and boost the quality of your sound transmission. If you are talking on your cell phone, for example,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 8, 2008

An up-close view of Mount Fuji

Mount Fuji is the most beloved mountain in Japan — an honor it has held since the dawn of history.
Reader Mail
Jan 6, 2008

Justification of past naval treaties

In account No. 8 of the "Witness to war series" (Oct. 5), Masayoshi Ito explains that one factor in setting his course in life was his view that the Washington Naval Limitation Treaty of 1922 (in which the size of the Japanese navy was limited to 60 percent of that maintained by the United States...
Reader Mail
Jan 6, 2008

Deafness to survivors' stories

Regarding Misao Nakayama's Dec. 29 letter, "Korean workers not used as slaves": What term would Nakayama prefer to use than "slave" to avoid having the truth told once again? How many Koreans have told Nakayama that they were "happy" to work for the Japanese government (during World War II)?
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Jan 6, 2008

Games so real the best of drivers take them seriously

Advancing technology blurs the line between virtual and real-world driving as today's champions practice on television screens.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 6, 2008

Social realism enhanced by the pastoral

MOUNTAINS PAINTED WITH TURMERIC by Lil Bahadur Chettri, translated from Nepali by Michael J. Hutt. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007, $22.50 (cloth) Originally published in the late 1950s, this novel — says the blurb — "is one of the few books almost every Nepali knows well." The reason is...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 6, 2008

Politicians, dogs and bowels mix it up in our annual media awards

Media Personality of the Year: Hideo Higashikokubaru.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 4, 2008

'Hokushin Naname ni Sasu Tokoro'

The old school tie is strong for many Japanese, especially members of the dwindling prewar generation.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Jan 4, 2008

Where ambitions have long soared

First of two parts
Japan Times
JAPAN / THIS FOREIGN LAND
Jan 4, 2008

The doctor will see the moneyed and insured, but less fortunate also ail

Third in a series
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 4, 2008

'Silk'

It took a long time for me to recover from the blast of bullsh*t Orientalism that was "Memoirs of a Geisha." There were the usual symptoms: nausea, shaky hands and an attack of shudders every time I passed by the Oriental Bazaar on Tokyo's Omotesando avenue, among others.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 4, 2008

'The Namesake'

Mira Nair's last film, "Monsoon Wedding," was not only a lot of fun, it was also a perceptive look at cross-cultural confusion, tracking the travails of an Americanized Indian guy back in Dehli for an arranged marriage. Her latest film, "The Namesake," flips the equation, following a young Calcutta girl...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 4, 2008

Beijing: punk paradise in waiting

As Beijing enters its Olympic year, The Japan Times meets the Japanese mogul who's hoping to put the city on the musical map
CULTURE / Art
Jan 3, 2008

"Hitoshi Kuriyama"

Magical Art Room
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 3, 2008

The artist and the island

Because of strong pressures to belong and conform in Japanese society, the country can be a difficult place for those otherwise inclined. One reaction to this is the hikikomori phenomenon, in which chiefly young males reduce contact with society to a minimum by staying in their rooms. A recently suggested...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 30, 2007

Need something to read in the new year?

SHADOW OF THE SILK ROAD, by Colin Thubron (HarperCollins)
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2007

Barack Obama's American revolution

WARSAW — For eight years, U.S. President George W. Bush has managed to incarnate and reinforce all the prejudices and negative stereotypes the world has of the United States. He has antagonized the world more than any other American president before him, seriously damaging America's "soft" power by...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Dec 29, 2007

Wringing out the year

When I arrived in Japan in the 1970s, I was both young and stupid. Now, over three decades later, I can only make half that claim.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 29, 2007

Watami empire built on concept of family 'izakaya'

Until Miki Watanabe opened his first Watami "izakaya" pub in April 1992 in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward, such eateries were considered places for business workers and college kids to have a cheap drink and a few side dishes.
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Dec 29, 2007

Japanime holding all the cards in buildup to All-Star Game

Glenn Kardy calls himself a "crazy baseball fan." His earliest sports memory is a wild one. He can still remember the heated seventh inning of Game 2 of the 1972 American League Championship Series between the Tigers and A's.
EDITORIALS
Dec 28, 2007

Drain of public trust in 2007

In the past year, Japan has been rocked by political turmoil — especially the devastating defeat of the ruling coalition in the July 29 Upper House election, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's abrupt resignation in September and Mr. Yasuo Fukuda's ascent to power. An attempt to form a grand coalition between...
Reader Mail
Dec 27, 2007

Belief in UFOs proves unshakable

An AFP article last week quoted the "science minister" as saying he hopes aliens exist. In the delightful decades I've spent in Japan, of the wonderfully wacky beliefs that people discuss -- from blood-type personalities to unlucky calendar days to ghosts haunting mansions -- the most unbelievable is...

Longform

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