Search - culture

 
 
COMMENTARY
Jun 18, 2014

China's mixed messages to Taiwan, Hong Kong

China has released a document that fundamentally alters the meaning of its promise of 'one country, two systems' to both Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
Jun 17, 2014

New Lions slugger Mejia relishes opportunity to play in NPB

Ernesto Mejia remembers the bus rides. Those long trips to games in rookie ball, Single-A and a notch up the ladder in Double-A. Some of those rides could last for seven, eight, nine hours.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 14, 2014

Chinese World Cup woes provoke self-doubt

China's long-suffering soccer fans keep looking for proxies at World Cup time, all the while grumbling under their breaths about the government's control-freak approach to choosing athletes for the national team and a lack of youth developmental leagues outside of the official system.
Events / KANSAI: WHO & WHAT
Jun 13, 2014

Free counseling for foreigners offered in Kyoto

The Kyoto City International Foundation will host a free counseling session for foreign residents from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. on June 21.
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Jun 12, 2014

Get dolled up at the 'Rozen Maiden Exhibition'

Now a recognized subsection of culture abroad, manga has attracted people from all around the world. What may be less well known, however, is another interesting part of Japanese culture — ball-jointed dolls and the artists who make them. Gallery parabolica-bis in Tokyo's Yanagibashi, Taito Ward, brings...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Jun 10, 2014

Blue-eyed Austrian finds calling at shrine

Walking through the torii, or gateway, to the quiet and serene Konnoh Hachimangu Shrine in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward — minutes away from the hustle and bustle of Shibuya's main "scramble crossing" — and being welcomed by a blond and blue-eyed Shinto priest seems almost surreal.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 9, 2014

Why Malaysia is riskier than India, Indonesia

From missing airplanes to jail-bound opposition leaders, Malaysia has recently made international headlines for all the wrong reasons. Will the nation's economy be next?
Japan Times
CULTURE
May 31, 2014

Essential summer festivals 2014

A summer without festivals simply wouldn’t be a proper summer in Japan, so now that the humidity has returned, it’s time to slop on an extra layer of sunscreen and line up some outdoor activities.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
May 30, 2014

Shiro Kuramata's iconic sushi bar heads to Hong Kong museum

Sushi is arguably Japan’s most popular cultural export — and modern design would probably run a close second. So when, in 1988, the two were "combined" in the form of a sushi bar designed by the iconic Shiro Kuramata, well, perhaps it was only a matter of time before the whole thing would be dismantled...
COMMENTARY / World
May 23, 2014

A right-wing shock for Europe?

A new European Parliament will be elected this weekend on the heels of French poll that says fewer than 40 percent of France's citizens think the European Union is a good thing.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 21, 2014

Japan's isolation didn't stop the West lending its colors

A common misperception of sakoku, Japan's closed-door isolation policy gradually enacted from 1633 by Tokugawa Iemitsu and his successors, is that Japan forsook the outside world.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 20, 2014

Foreign domestics seen as aiding working mothers

Noriko Hitotsumatsu, a bilingual research pharmacologist with a master's from Cambridge University, considers herself lucky to have a part-time job in a Tokyo pharmacy after shelving her career to raise two daughters in one of the world's most work-oriented countries.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 17, 2014

The Politics Of Dialogic Imagination

"The Politics Of Dialogic Imagination: Power and Popular Culture in Early Modern Japan" attempts to ascertain the relationship that existed between well-known cultural portrayals and the configuration of social order in the late Edo Period (1603-1867). It peels back the layers behind the political effects...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 14, 2014

Nagoya hosts works from one of the largest collections in the U.S.

For Malcolm Rogers, the Ann and Graham Gund Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), visiting Japan in mid-April had a special resonance. The MFA this year celebrates its 15th anniversary of ties with what is not only its very first sister museum, but also its sole sister museum in Asia: the...
COMMENTARY / World
May 13, 2014

Lessons to be learned from Modi's popularity

One reason that 63-year-old Narendra Modi, the likely winner in India's parliamentary election, inspires fear in Delhi is that he did not go to the best Indian schools, eats simple food and is otherwise unlike many members of the political and bureaucratic elite.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 10, 2014

Bringing the wisdom of samurai into the modern world

The astrophysicist Carl Sagan famously called writing "perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs." "Books," he said, "break the shackles of time." In that sense, reading "Hagakure: The Secret Wisdom of the Samurai" lets the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / AT A GLANCE
May 4, 2014

Fashionable Shibuya is a magnet for youths

Known as the town for young people, Tokyo's Shibuya district is the capital's center of youth fashion and culture. It also attracts crowds of tourists from home and abroad.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
May 2, 2014

China militants show new daring

A bombing in western China that killed three people and wounded 79 on Wednesday has raised concerns about the apparent sophistication and daring of the attack, which possibly was timed to coincide with a visit to the heavily Muslim region by President Xi Jinping.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
May 1, 2014

China says three killed in attack at Xinjiang train station

Three people were killed and 79 wounded in a bomb and knife attack at a train station in the far western region of China on Wednesday, state media said, as President Xi Jinping was wrapping up a visit to the area.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 30, 2014

Injuries reported after explosion in capital of China's Xinjiang region

An explosion at a railway station in Urumqi, the capital of China's restive far western region of Xinjiang, on Wednesday injured some people, state media said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 30, 2014

Rough transition raises issues over F/T's future

On Dec. 18, 2013, the Festival/Tokyo website announced that following the implementation of "a new administration system," Program Director Chiaki Soma, 38, would resign from her position and be replaced at the end of March 2014 by Sachio Ichimura, 64, the then chairman of F/T's executive committee....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 30, 2014

Tradition is woven into modern Japanese fashion

Boosted by Japan's remarkable economic growth and the modernization of the country's lifestyle in the latter half of the 20th century, contemporary Japanese fashion has soared to the heights of the global fashion scene while, at the same time, the textile industry related to the kimono has declined....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 29, 2014

Populist Hashimoto a true 'yankii'?

In Japanese politics, someone labeled a 'yankii' is something of a populist who disdains cosmopolitanism and intellectual elitism. But does that apply to outspoken Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto?
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 29, 2014

Ferry crisis transports South Korea back to 1997

If South Korean President Park Geun-hye acts boldly and transparently to investigate the many failures that led to the Sewol ferry tragedy, her administration can still recover, and the nation's loss of face globally will be fleeting.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / NATURE'S PANTRY
Apr 29, 2014

A natural miso and soy factory that is always full of beans

Although rice is certainly the king of Japanese food, soybeans are the queen. Small makers of miso, soy sauce and tofu dot the landscape of Japan, but blink once and you will notice that the local shops are closing up as supermarket culture takes over daily life.
EDITORIALS
Apr 26, 2014

Jazz Day to get its due in Osaka

Underscoring its long love affair with jazz, Japan this year will hold its International Jazz Day (April 30) in Osaka for the first time.

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