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Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 26, 2013

Japan Inc.'s hurt pride may be behind bout of fresh phone fears

What's the explanation for the current surge in concern over the poor manners and inattention of addicted cellphone users — especially considering smart phones are arguably no more distracting than the previous generation of mobile gadgets
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 6, 2013

Female novelist says pregnant women should quit work

The plight of Japan's working women is a subject that often pops up in the media. Female politicians and company executives voice the opinion that it would be good to harness the power of women in Japan, and that the garasu no tenjō (ガラスの天井, glass ceiling) needs to be smashed. But meanwhile,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 7, 2013

What's the real story behind 'Emperor'?

"Emperor," a film directed by Peter Webber that takes up the subject of Emperor Showa and the postwar occupation period, has been showing at local theaters since July. The film's protagonist is Gen. Bonner Frank Fellers, who served as a subordinate to Supreme Commander Allied Forces Gen. Douglas MacArthur....
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 24, 2013

Chilling tales are tops when trying to beat the heat

Perhaps stemming from the belief that hearing a scary story will send a chill down the spine and provide welcome relief from the summer heat, August is Japan's favorite season for traditional tales of horror. At local festivals and in theme parks, the obake yashiki (haunted house) is a standby for dating...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 17, 2013

Cyber-kids get a break during Bon holidays

You didn't need prophetic powers, back in the 1980s when the personal computer was starting to show its potential, to foresee something like Internet addiction. It should have been obvious. It was, to science-fiction writer William Gibson. Reminiscing to Time magazine in 1995, he recalled his shock,...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 20, 2013

Japan's weeklies debate modern man's burden

Pity the declining male in an age of expanding female empowerment!
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 13, 2013

'Black' business tales cast shadow on candidate

Elections for the House of Councillors will be held a week from today. The election is being billed as historic in that candidates are permitted to appeal to voters via the Internet.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 9, 2013

How even the mightiest can sometimes succumb to their own success

Toyota was famously slow to respond to the glut of claims of sudden acceleration problems afflicting some of its vehicles — at least until a now-notorious recording of an emergency 911 call made from one of the passengers stuck in 45-year-old California Highway Patrolman Mark Saylor's speeding Lexus on Aug. 28, 2009.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 2, 2013

Severe sports training methods became taibatsu in time

The martial arts were the inspiration for the famous baseball team at the First Higher School of Tokyo, a late 19th century powerhouse that helped make yakyu, as baseball came to be known, the national sport of Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 28, 2013

An avian flu outbreak in Japan could kill 'Abenomics'

No one has ever fully explained why, in 2002-3, the virulent pathogen known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) ran rampant in mainland China (5,328 cases, 349 deaths) but only infected four people in South Korea, with no fatalities, and none in Japan.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 21, 2013

Fearing the worst if Japan joins the TPP

Here is Shukan Josei magazine's nightmare scenario of a typical Japanese salaryman's TPP future, if in fact Japan joins the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement currently being negotiated among 12 countries. After a genetically-engineered, chemical-drenched breakfast, he hops into his American-made...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 17, 2013

Hiding from strangers in the global village

In his 1993 novel "Hanauzumi," Junichi Watanabe pictures a prosperous farming village in Saitama. The year is 1868. The Meiji Restoration has just occurred. The shogun has been overthrown. The teenage Emperor Meiji has been conveyed from the ancient imperial capital of Kyoto and installed in Tokyo. Great...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 4, 2013

'Abenomics' will either make or break Japan's economy

This story is concerned with money, vast sums of it, amounts quite beyond most people's imagination. The operative word is chu014d (u5146, trillion).
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 3, 2013

Constitutional revision may bring less freedom

Article 18 of Japan's Constitution states, "No person shall be held in bondage of any kind. Involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime, is prohibited."
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 6, 2013

Additives: Let's hope we are not what we eat

Four-legged chickens
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 28, 2012

You can't choose your (invisible) neighbors

Some animals are solitary. Others live in flocks or herds. Human beings are somewhere in between. Our sociability and our economic needs force us into communities, where our misanthropy, meanness and selfishness — or maybe it's an instinctive craving for solitude — can make our neighbors' presence...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 28, 2012

Hashimoto needs a much thicker skin

There is a breed of political reporter that thrives on misanthropy. These journalists have no use for empathy when trying to understand issues or individuals. They are only stimulated by acrimony, by the need to reveal the darkest impulses of human endeavor. H.L. Mencken, the most eloquent of this ilk,...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 21, 2012

Watching the wealthy, a popular spectator sport

Twenty-five years ago, in what was to became known as the bubble economy, many Japanese suddenly found themselves awash in money.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 9, 2012

Joy among the clouds and shadows

Yoko Sakata was an ordinary "office lady," not earning much and not aspiring to much, when she began suspecting her boyfriend of having an affair. She hired a private detective, who confirmed her fears and then paid her a compliment: "You have good intuition." He offered her a job. She grabbed it. That...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 26, 2012

Complacency perished in the Fukushima nuclear disaster

August, that most searing of months, compels us to reflect on the atom. Japan was atom-bombed twice in August 67 years ago, and Hiroshima since 1952 and Nagasaki since 1955 have hosted solemn anniversary ceremonies to keep the memory alive in the hope of preventing similar horror and folly in future....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 9, 2012

Hashimoto reeling after students' names leaked

Osaka Ishin no Kai (One Osaka) officials were reeling with embarrassment and threatening to file a police complaint this week after a weekly tabloid magazine published the names of the 888 students studying at an academy set up by the local political group and its founder, Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto....
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 5, 2012

Steamy, sleepless nights grind down the nation

Sleeping-goods manufacturer Nishikawa Sangyo Co. Ltd., founded in Omi Province (modern-day Shiga Prefecture) in 1566, got its start in business selling mosquito netting. The company's Tokyo retail outlet, on the opposite side of the Nihonbashi Bridge from the Mitsukoshi department store, has been in...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 22, 2012

Spies and their watchers in a tense war of nerves

What in the world is China going to do with 5,000 tsubo — about four acres — of land in Niigata City? Build a new consulate general, it says. But that seems like an awful lot for a consulate in a regional city whose main activity since it initially opened has been issuance of commercial visas.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 10, 2012

It's not that easy to quit

"If you don't like it, quit."
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 4, 2012

A hot genpatsu-free summer threatens

Two things make a battered Japan cringe: genpatsu (原発, nuclear power) and fukeiki (不景気, economic stagnation). The nation has suffered deeply from both. As spring fades into a potentially sweltering, potentially stagnant summer, there arises an agonizing dilemma: Can the latter be avoided, or...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 8, 2012

Mainstream media toes the line on sales tax

A bill to increase the consumption tax has finally been submitted to the Diet. Approval is by no means assured, owing partly to the fact that the substance of the issue has changed since the idea of a consumption tax was originally formulated. The Liberal Democratic Party saw it as a source of funding...
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 25, 2012

Sakura: Soul of Japan

"If I were asked to explain the Japanese spirit, I would say it is wild cherry blossoms glowing in the morning sun!" — Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801), nativist thinker and poet
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 25, 2012

Is Japan as busy as it first seems?

Are things what they seem? Can you tell a book by its cover? Does the face reveal the heart? Does your appearance give you away?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 18, 2012

Yu Darvish under the magnifying glass

Barring a major natural catastrophe, war or government upheaval, the vernacular news headlines for the next several months are almost certain to be dominated by baseball. Specifically, former Nippon Ham Fighters hurler, Yu Darvish, who on April 8 is scheduled take the mound in his first start for the...

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Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?