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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 2, 2010

Lights, camera, Sakanaction!

"I hope foreign listeners can persevere with Japanese music," laughs bespectacled musician Ichiro Yamaguchi. "Sure, there's a lot of crap music here, but there's a lot of good stuff, too. Intelligent music is in the minority now, but I believe it will become mainstream in the future."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 26, 2010

Japanese bands go big in Texas at SXSW festival

AUSTIN, Texas — 'We want to conquer the world," says Okamoto's vocalist Shou Okamoto after their well-received gig at the 24th annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Music and Media Conference.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / INSIDE ART
Mar 19, 2010

Curator Shihoko Iida reveals lessons learned from stint at foreign museum

Japan's art world is occasionally compared to the Galapagos Islands — and not just because it is inhabited by some curious creatures; sorry, I mean artists.
JAPAN
Mar 18, 2010

DPJ rule raises Hague treaty-signing hope

It has been over five years since Murray Wood's two children left their home in Canada with his Japanese ex-wife for a supposed visit with their ill grandfather in Japan.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 17, 2010

You can count on the tales behind number-kanji

When giving talks on Japan in elementary school classrooms in the United States, I chalk the kanji 一, 二, and 三 on the blackboard and ask the children to guess their meanings. "One, two, three!" they shout, easily intuiting three kanji introduced to Japanese schoolchildren in the first grade. Japanese...
CULTURE / Books
Mar 14, 2010

Untamed past taken by the tail

Jid Lee, now a professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University, begins this memoir with the tale of the killing of her great-great-great-great- great-great grandmother by a tiger. A Buddhist monk predicted the death, saying it would bring rewards to her descendants. Her "sacrifice" is the touchstone...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 5, 2010

Shibusashirazu Orchestra set to sprawl

Things got off to a memorable start at England's Glastonbury Festival in 2002. Revelers were roused from their tents on the first morning to find the main Pyramid Stage overrun by a 40-strong Japanese big band, complete with costumed performance artists, butoh and go-go dancers. The late radio DJ John...
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Mar 2, 2010

Sumo body deserves mawashi wedgie for racist wrestler ruling

I've noticed how highly Japan regards sports. We love investing taxes in games and facilities, hosting international events and Olympics. Sports are even part of a government ministry, the one in charge of Japan's science, education and culture.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Mar 1, 2010

Message for Hatoyama from his patron saint

Saint Thomas More is the patron saint of politicians. As a Catholic myself I should have known this before, but the information actually came to me quite recently via the Mainichi Shimbun. So many thanks to the newspaper for this piece of religious education.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2010

Delving deep beyond the merely decorative

In a vast room with white walls and wooden floors, a lone man crouches in the corner holding a spouted container that releases tiny white crystals onto the floor in a carefully controlled flow. Making sure not to disturb the meticulously crafted lines around him, he works steadily and with great resolve....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 13, 2010

Computer whiz turns 'strangeness' into asset

From his early days in Japan as a destitute student sleeping in train station stairwells to living in a 3-mat room that cost him ¥10,000 a month, Richard Northcott went on to head a mobile software company that now enjoys sales of $2 million a year.
EDITORIALS
Feb 1, 2010

State of a divided nation

Since the speech is called the State of the Union address, it was expected that U.S. President Barack Obama would devote most of his time to domestic concerns. In that regard, he did not disappoint. Two-thirds of his 75-minute talk focused on the economy, with much of the remainder challenging members...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 27, 2010

Spouse hunting, politics had us all abuzz in '09

The 2010 edition of the "Encyclopedia of Contemporary Words" was recently put on sale by publisher?Jiyukokuminsha. The bulky paperback's English title doesn't really do justice to the Japanese name, which is "Gendai Yogo no Kiso Chishiki." Broken down by its individual components, it becomes 現代 (gendai,...
EDITORIALS
Jan 26, 2010

Religious sites on public land

The Supreme Court's grand bench on Jan. 20 ruled that the city government of Sunagawa in Hokkaido has violated the Constitution through its longtime practice of letting a Shinto shrine use a city-owned plot of land without charge. The top court's precedent-setting ruling should serve as a warning to...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 26, 2010

Judges fill the gaps in Japan's family law

First in a two-part series
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Jan 21, 2010

Landlocked 'lighthouse'

Dear Alice,
EDITORIALS
Jan 9, 2010

The problems of Yemen

There are two important lessons to be learned from the bungled attempt on Christmas Day to cause an explosion on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit: (1) the need to remain vigilant against the threat posed by terrorists, and (2) recognition of the importance of Yemen, a state that...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 8, 2010

What's real in a world of copies and clones?

I n contrast to the type of mass- produced art best characterized in Japan by Takashi Murakami and the hordes of assistants who complete paintings and sculptures to the specifications of their employer, is a small coterie of sculptors/painters who work at individually crafting the mass-produced items...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 5, 2010

Minors in own category but never above the law

Jan. 11 marks Coming of Age Day, an annual holiday to celebrate people who have reached legal adulthood.
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 27, 2009

Koza remembered

It's October 2009, and I'm sitting in the parking lot of a convenience store in Koza city, taking photographs of the sidewalk. I've been here for close to an hour — surrounded by a dozen old photographs, four maps and reams of photocopies all weighed down with chunks of brick to stop them blowing away...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Dec 26, 2009

The industry of the under-motivated

"How do you do?" The man greets her in Japanese and bows in his doorway. He wears the same teasing grin and the same rumpled shirt as always. Even the cookie crumbs on his collar seem the same.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 23, 2009

Yappa! Abbreviated Japanese ain't all that bad

"Ain't" ain't a word. My high school English teachers pounded that into my head. And they were right — "ain't" is not proper English. On the other hand, it is used colloquially by people all over the English-speaking world. Language is not just limited to those words found in reference books and textbooks....
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 13, 2009

The colorful lure of carp in Japan

Two milestones were achieved at this year's All-Japan Show for Nishikigoi, or ornamental carp, which was held last month in Izumo, Shimane Prefecture.

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