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LIFE / Travel
Mar 15, 2009

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough

It's sakura (cherry blossom) time again, and I've got three special spots to recommend beneath the pale, poetic petals in Tokyo. One will present you with a single starlit beauty, another will have you rolling around in an expansive venue of varied cherries, or if the spirit moves you there's a climb...
Reader Mail
Feb 19, 2009

Kyoto got what it asked for

Regarding the Jan. 13 article "Respect 'maiko' privacy, don't act like paparazzi, Kyoto tells tourists": All of Kyoto has aggressively promoted tourism to the international community. The city.kyoto.jp Web site provides a pamphlet that dedicates two pages to the maiko (apprentice geisha), the same amount...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2009

Choked with visitors, Kyoto takes slow road toward eco-tourism

The ancient capital of Kyoto conjures up many images among international tourists, ranging from quiet rock gardens and temples to performing geisha.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Feb 1, 2009

Chizu Saeki: Beauty's more than skin deep

Skincare guru Chizu Saeki's expertise is such that her abilities have been compared to those of a fortuneteller. She can, for example, determine people's physical and mental health condition, the key experiences that have influenced them, and even their outlook on life, merely by running her fingers...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 18, 2009

In love with China: from forbidden fruits to futile fantasies

CHINA DREAMS by Sid Smith. London: Picador, 2008, 183 pp., £7.99 (paper)
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 6, 2009

Otaru ruling beats 'mob rule'

Paul de Vries' treatise on group accountability in Japanese society ("Back to the baths: Otaru revisited," Zeit Gist, Dec. 2) offered a new take on the now familiar story of the court case between Japan's naturalized enfant terrible, Debito Arudou, and the managers of the Yunohana public bath in Otaru,...
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2008

Conference in Nagoya provides writing tips

NAGOYA — Japan has long been a favored destination, and a favorite subject, for Western scribes. In the 19th century, Laficadio Hearn and Isabella Bird penned books that were widely read in Europe and the United States. In the 20th century, novelists like James Michener and beat poet Gary Snyder were...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Nov 21, 2008

'Tis a gift to be simple

The best holiday presents wrap themselves — in your arms, that is. The rest of your gift-list responsibilities, whether for Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah or Japanese oseibo (yearend gifts), can be taken care of near Asakusabashi Station. I'm usually way behind schedule getting presents together, but...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 13, 2008

Tokyo's Rokku laughs it up again at film festival

The objectives of the First Old Town Taito International Comedy Film Festival, which runs Nov. 21 to 24 in the Tokyo districts of Asakusa and Ueno, sound ambitious. Noting on the festival's English-language Web site that "there are innumerable film festivals held throughout the world," the executive...
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Oct 22, 2008

Skate America kicks off GP season

Former world champion Miki Ando will once again be looking for redemption and Yukari Nakano, the fourth-place finisher at the world championships last March, will be out to raise her profile even higher as the 2008 Grand Prix season gets under way this weekend with Skate America in Everett, Wash.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 17, 2008

Grand Tea Ceremony to attract thousands

If there was a Guinness World Record for the largest Japanese tea ceremony, then this would surely be in the running. On the weekend of Oct. 25 and 26, the Tokyo Grand Tea Ceremony will be held at several tea houses within the picturesque Hamarikyu Gardens, in Tokyo's Chuo Ward. The event is expected...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 23, 2008

'Manga' fans have been won over but what about the rest of Japan?

A curious thing happened to the stock market when Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda announced Sept. 1 his intention to step down: Shares in "manga"-related companies surged.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 22, 2008

Lasenkan to stage 'Dejima'

Lasenkan Theater is a Japanese drama group based in Berlin. Since 2002, it has spent two-thirds of every year in the German capital, presenting works by author Yoko Tawada, a resident of Germany.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 12, 2008

Artist puts a happy face on Olympics

Pictured on umbrellas paraded at the event, the happy faces of more than 1,000 children from around the world adorned Friday's opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics at the Beijing National Stadium, otherwise known as the Bird's Nest.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jul 20, 2008

Fly fanboys in the living room

Parents the world over would surely prefer their children not to throw things about. It's just plain bad manners, among other things. But Atsushi Kikuchi, a serious-looking father of two boys, positively encourages it. And, he evenmaintains, his sons' ballistic behavior has produced considerable benefits...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 6, 2008

Fearless bluestockings in Japan

THE BLUESTOCKINGS OF JAPAN: New Woman Essays and Fiction From Seito, 1911-16, edited by Jan Bardsley. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2007; xii + 308 pp., $70 (cloth), $26 (paper) In 1911 a new publication appeared in Japan. It was singular in that it was written, edited...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 29, 2008

Foreigners flourish in the realm of Japanese arts

Japan has come a long way since the era of Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), arguably the world's most famous and certainly the first Western Japanophile. Before Hearn, a Greek-Irishman who married the daughter of a local samurai in remote and rural Shimane Prefecture, and also took on Japanese citizenship,...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 29, 2008

Thomas Charles Marshall: Irishman excels at age-old biwa

With his back straight and his head up, Thomas Charles Marshall sits down in an arbor overlooking a lotus-filled pond on the compact but verdant campus of the University of Creation; Art, Music & Social Work in Yoshii, Gunma Prefecture. He slowly reaches for his pear-shaped biwa, a century-old mulberry-wood...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jun 6, 2008

Monster mash

Explosion, the livehouse in Kagurazaka, central Tokyo, must have been named with nights like this in mind. Billy Trash, who's covered in blood, has discarded his double bass and stripped to his tiny, gonad-garroting Batman underpants. He charges into the crowd, pouring water over his head, then smothers...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 13, 2008

Hopes of silence in Tokyo undergo brutal assault

The concept of chinmoku wa kin (silence is golden) isn't a Tokyo thing. Like a lot of other nifty modernities, such as buttered pancakes and the subway system, it was imported into Japan and adopted into city living when the country opened up to the West in the late 19th century.
CULTURE / Art
May 1, 2008

Chicks on Speed: Art Rules Kyoto 2008

The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 4, 2008

'Curse of the Golden Flower'

Having established himself in the 1990s as one of China's leading directors, Zhang Yimou spent the past decade making two types of film: small, contemporary and supremely sentimental ones such as "The Road Home" and "Happy Times," or big, lavish, action-packed period-epics like "Hero" and "House of Flying...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Mar 25, 2008

Snack mama Hiroko Mito

JUDIT KAWAGUCHI Hiroko Mito just celebrated the 10th anniversary of Kyoya, her small Kyoto-style snack and karaoke bar in Shibuya's Sakuragaoka district. Always dressed in a kimono and a freshly pressed kappogi, the white apron that used to be commonly worn by housewives, Hiroko-mama means business....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 14, 2008

A guide to how to wine 'n' dine

Taking your own bottle to a dinner party is a tricky business. Dashing to a convenience store for some plonk that's below ¥1,000 might save cash, but it won't save your blushes if the stuff acts like paint-stripper on the palate, ruining the meal and your chances of being invited back. Even if you do...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 3, 2008

Journal of an uncommon traveler

WINDOWS ON JAPAN: A Walk Through Place and Perception, by Bruce Roscoe. Algora Publishing, 2007, 308 pp., $31.95 (paper) On the premise that speed blunts the mind, New Zealander Bruce Roscoe decided to make his journey on foot, following a route across the waist of Japan, from the port city of Niigata...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 1, 2008

Yoshiume: Simmering over a nabe hot pot

The sleet was lashing down, the wind whipping off Tokyo Bay as we trudged the streets of Ningyocho, eastern Nihonbashi, in search of dinner. Appalling conditions, certainly, but worth braving for the down-home charms of an evening at Yoshiume.
Reader Mail
Jan 15, 2008

Reviews of films set in Japan

In the Jan. 4 article "Once again, here comes the West to the Orient," writer Kaori Shoji labels the film "Silk" Orientalist, but fails to provide any convincing evidence for this pejorative. Her one relevant criticism is that a village lord speaking English in pre-Meiji Japan would have been "an impossible...

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan