Search - life-style

 
 
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 30, 2013

FC Tokyo's Lee not lacking confidence as he seeks return to national team

Tadanari Lee is determined to use his loan move from Southampton to FC Tokyo as a springboard to return to the national team, but club manager Ranko Popovic has warned his new striker not to try too hard to impress.
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 29, 2013

Revamped Kabukiza theater aims to charm a new audience

The Kabukiza is back — with big ambitions and aspirations to make the nation's classical theatrical entertainment more attractive to a 21st-century audience.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Mar 27, 2013

Kite artist Tetsuya Kishida

Japanese kite artist Tetsuya Kishida, 89, has been creating and flying kites since the age of 6. He used to be a salesman for the steel industry and he later sold bonsai. In his late 40s, he finally turned his hobby of painting kites into a profession. His artistic repertoire is inspired by images from...
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 27, 2013

Berezovsky: a tale of betrayal by pal Putin

Boris Berezovsky had always believed in British justice. It was, after all, a British judge who had granted him asylum, after Berezovsky fell out with his one-time protege, Vladimir Putin, and fled in 2000 to London.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 22, 2013

Trial translation faults irk lay judges

The conviction in Tokyo of a U.S. minor for the slaying of an Irish woman once again highlights Japan's lack of a national accreditation system for court interpreters, after the lay judges complained about misinterpretations.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 17, 2013

The rising of a nation

This superb book charts the improbable rise of South Korea from the devastation of war and impoverishment to rapid development and prosperity, and from brutal dictatorship to the most vibrant democracy in Asia. It is 'impossible' in terms of its economic and political achievements, 'the most unlikely and impressive story of national building of the last century,' Daniel Tudor writes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 15, 2013

Classical community unites to celebrate bicentennials of Verdi and Wagner

This year marks the bicentennials of the births of two great composers: Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) and Richard Wagner (1813-83), both giants of the classical music world who brought opera to the peak of its artistic expression in the 19th century.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 15, 2013

'Searching for Sugar Man'

Ever heard of a Detroit-based musician by the name of Sixto Rodriguez? If so, you're extraordinarily well informed, or perhaps you spent some time in South Africa during the late 1970s. But if you're unaware of the man or his music, "Searching for Sugar Man" is the best place to start, and the payoff...
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Mar 5, 2013

Child's quibble with U.S. 'poverty superpower' propaganda unravels a sobering story about insular Japan

Last November, a reader in Hokkaido named Stephanie sent me an article read in Japan's elementary schools. Featured in a sixth-grader magazine called Chagurin (from "child agricultural green") dated December 2012, it was titled "Children of America, the Poverty Superpower" (hinkon taikoku Amerika no...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2013

Today's take on Stalingrad

In one of Moscow's central subway stations — Arbatskaya — the escalator leading up to the city exit ends in a spacious vestibule. On the front wall, a classic frame several meters high is covered with white plaster. It bears no image, and the white paint must be regularly renewed to avoid ugly cracks....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 28, 2013

In New York, the Guggenheim goes Gutai

By now, the looks, character and history of Gutai, the post-World War II Japanese art movement born in 1954 in Ashiya, between Osaka and Kobe, are familiar to regular viewers of modern-art exhibitions in Japan. Last summer's "Gutai: The Spirit of an Era," a survey of the movement's evolution and its...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 22, 2013

'Martha Marcy May Marlene'

You're fed up with your family, your upbringing, your school, your social class. You don't fit in and are reminded of it. The rules and social norms that other people seem to follow so blindly seem to you phony, trite, suffocating. You develop an attitude, a bit of psychological armor, and step off the...
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 20, 2013

Chinese struggle in 'airpocalypse'

China's toxic air pollution is exacting a toll, as more people suffer coughing attacks and are forced to stay indoors, especially anywhere near Beijing.
WORLD / Science & Health
Feb 17, 2013

A look at the heavenly bodies and the danger they may pose for our planet

Berlin AP
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 8, 2013

'Kiiroi Zo'

Ryuichi Hiroki has become the go-to director for romantic dramas that quality-wise are a cut above the local formula weepers whose starred-crossed lovers are parted by a slow, beautiful death (though Hiroki's couples are hardly immune to life's vicissitudes). At the same time, his films in this genre...
BASKETBALL
Feb 3, 2013

Osaka coach Cartwright puts focus on fundamentals

Osaka Evessa bench boss Bill Cartwright reveals what he thinks are important traits for the team leader after landing his first head coaching job since guiding the Chicago Bulls from 2001-03.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Feb 2, 2013

Hugo, Manet unveiled Paris' poor and privileged

The iron gates of the short passageway, a stone's throw from the increasingly trendy Montorgueil district of Paris and a brief walk from the prostitutes of Saint Denis, are closed to the public these days. It was here, in what was Passage Saumon off the Rue du Bout du Monde — the end of the world road...
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Feb 1, 2013

Six months on, U.K. schools are losing the Olympic legacy

Near the entrance of York High School in northern England, painted in large letters, are the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." It is not a bad motto, particularly for a school that prides itself on its sporting prowess. Along all the corridors and outside...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 19, 2013

Meiji Japanese who sought to improve China

ASIA FOR THE ASIANS: China in the Lives of Five Meiji Japanese, by Paula S. Harrell. Merwin Asia, 2012, 407 pp., $35 (paperback)
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jan 14, 2013

Canadian has English-language rakugo dream

Katsura Sunshine wants to spread the world of rakugo (traditional comic storytelling) to people all over the world, including his home country Canada, by delivering English-translated versions.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jan 12, 2013

Chelsea fans refuse to blame owner

When Bruce Buck came on the pitch before Wednesday's League Cup semifinal first leg against Swansea to make a presentation to Petr Cech, the Chelsea chairman was booed. Seriously booed.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 11, 2013

Overseas restaurants set up shop in Japan

Call it the Pancake Revolution.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jan 5, 2013

When in doubt, keep running

My buddy grinds his teeth and says, "You know what irks about this country?"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 3, 2013

Kitaro taps into Native American culture

"Kitaro and I were destined to meet each other," Dennis Banks tells The Japan Times. "Our beliefs are similar: Mother Earth, who we are ... we are all the children of this Earth."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 29, 2012

How can Japan help save the world? Be more Taiwanese

Japan had Taiwan under its rule from 1895 until 1945. Despite the history of colonial rule, Taiwanese today have largely favorable views of the Japanese. Japan is the third most popular destination for the Taiwanese, after South Korea and China.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / BEST OF 2012
Dec 28, 2012

Japan's female directors make a strong showing

Female Japanese directors were once like those rare species periodically discovered in Asian jungles and immediately labeled endangered. This year, however, in their highly individual ways, they made some of Japan's strongest, most ambitious films. By now the only thing endangered is local industry prejudice...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 20, 2012

COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2012

U.S. school massacre won't change views on guns

We live in a society that makes it very, very easy to kill kids, though we want to pretend that isn't true.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 17, 2012

Buzzwords show the changing face of Japanese in 2012

While hamming it up before the TV cameras on a diving board last September, entertainer "Sugi-chan" (real name: Eiji Sugiyama) suffered a fractured thoracic vertebrae.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 13, 2012

Tadanori Yokoo unearths a future from personal past

The establishment of a museum in the name of an individual is always, to a degree, a memorializing issue in preparation for the inevitable. The inauguration of the Yokoo Tadanori Museum of Contemporary Art in many ways heralds such, and Yokoo's oeuvre has often been a dialogue with death.

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake