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LIFE
May 25, 2008

Sonoko

"You're a strange girl!" muttered my mother, shaking her head.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 24, 2008

Nature eases journey back to one's true self

In 2002, James Heartland found himself unexpectedly on Mount Shasta in northern California. There he fell into conversation with a young Japanese woman on a journey of her own.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
May 21, 2008

A nature sanctuary for the ages

Regular readers know that my usual sphere is the biosphere and that I typically pursue wildlife in the wilds. Occasionally, though, one should step beyond home turf and try dipping a toe into a new stream of consciousness.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 16, 2008

Fight vs. apartheid through foreign eyes

Danish director Bille August never had personal ties to South Africa, but he remembers what a "powerful force" Nelson Mandela was throughout the 1980s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 15, 2008

Julie madly, deeply

It's always interesting to meet someone you've seen on the screen so many times. You always wonder: Are they like their movie image? I know, I know — actors are just playing a role, that's not really them up on the screen.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Apr 29, 2008

Yasujiro Tanaka

Yasujiro Tanaka, aged 65, is a turnaround expert and volunteer guide in the city of Nagasaki, in Kyushu, where walking is often the only form of transportation. Born and raised in this beautiful port city famous for its steep hills and the winding steps that weave through its houses, Tanaka has always...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 23, 2008

Kamei seeks to undermine death penalty

Japanese politicians are generally not very vocal when it comes to their views on capital punishment, mainly because a large majority of the public supports the death penalty.
BUSINESS
Apr 23, 2008

Sony decides to delay Home virtual world showcase for PlayStation 3 until fall

Sony is delaying the start of Home, its virtual world for the PlayStation 3 video game machine, until the latter half of this year — the second time the online interactive service has been postponed.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 20, 2008

Helping newcomers settle in Japan

HANDBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS, MIGRANTS AND IMMIGRANTS TO JAPAN, by Arudou Debito and Higuchi Akira, 2008, 376 pp. ¥2,300 (paper) In this important and necessary book the authors address migrants and immigrants to Japan in saying that "we believe that your life in Japan should be under as much of your control...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 5, 2008

Breaking the bubble of pain and isolation

Nobuaki Kobayashi is a phenomenally kind and dedicated man. Life has never been easy, however. Now his wife is chronically unwell and he too is feeling his age.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 16, 2008

Car industry hitting the bumps as wheels lose their cachet of cool

Anew TV commercial for insurance company Tokyo Kaijo Nichido features two newborns lying next to each other in a hospital maternity ward, telepathically discussing the "pleasures" that await them in life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 29, 2008

'Breach'

It's a joy to see an actor who once seemed nothing more than a bimbo, a pretty face, mature into a real actor of far greater range.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2008

Why's Japan grown so ugly?

YUNOMINE, Wakayama Pref. — My brother wanted to create a new room in the loft of his house in an English provincial city, actually Kingston upon Hull (population 250,000), a place of passing interest to Japanese because two centuries ago it was one of the world's biggest whaling ports. Today, the whales...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2008

Loss of father to ALS inspires play about disease

The death of their father a decade ago gave Rumi and Takuya Iryo a new goal in their lives — raising public awareness of the disease he died from, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.
Reader Mail
Feb 7, 2008

No place for official 'revenge'

Following the approval of the execution of three condemned convicts in December, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama announced that he authorized the three executions that took place Feb. 1. Many of those who agree with those hangings cite their sympathy with the feelings of the families of crime victims...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 5, 2008

Indian IT workers feel pull of home

My wife was finally beginning to show signs of despair.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2008

New magazine takes aim at wrongful convictions

A court ruling last fall changed a man's life. After Hiroshi Yanagihara was found guilty of rape in Toyama Prefecture and served about two years in prison, the Toyama District Court's Takaoka Branch officially found him not guilty.
EDITORIALS
Jan 27, 2008

The 'keitai' generation

Nearly 100 percent of high school students, 50 percent of junior high, and a third of those in grammar school now own cell phones. Even the word "cell phone" already sounds out of date, replaced even among foreign residents by "keitai," the shortened form of the Japanese word for portable phone.
Reader Mail
Jan 27, 2008

Adjunct to mental health care

I am writing in response to the anonymous Jan. 17 letter, "Far-fetched claim on 'life force,' " which commented on Angela Jeffs' profile of me in the Jan. 12 Japan Times.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 27, 2008

In memory of one for whom Japan was a muse

A month ago I lost a very close friend. This would not be the proper place to write about it, except for the fact that despite her not being Japanese, her profound understanding of Japan and her love for the country were the lifeblood of her artistic career.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 27, 2008

A woman who cared

A low-budget film about a woman who operated Japan's first school for disabled children in the Meiji Era (1868-1912) is currently enjoying a long run in Japan and is also being shown in the United States.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 27, 2008

Justice Minister talks in death-penalty riddles

What does Japan's justice minister, Kunio Hatoyama think of the looming introduction of citizens' juries, also known as the lay-judge system — which is potentially the most revolutionary change set to affect Japan's trial system since World War II?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 19, 2008

Canadian garden of unity and reconciliation

"Hello," wrote an old Japan buddy back on her native British Columbian soil. "I've met a woman — Rumiko Kanesaka — who's helping build a Japanese garden on Salt Spring Island where I live. Would you like to talk with her?"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 18, 2008

'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'

On many other actors Victorian period costumes would look like, well, costumes, but on Johnny Depp, they cover his physique like a second skin — merging with his persona as if he had a spent his life wearing lace cuffs and with his feet, encased in heavy boots, treading on nothing but mud and cobblestones....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 10, 2008

The Renaissance Man

Peter Greenaway's first film in eight years is every bit as enigmatic and tantalizing as the painting it takes its name from, Rembrandt van Rijn's "The Night Watch." Completed in 1642, this work in oils is considered by many critics to be the Dutch master's greatest and most mysterious work.
Japan Times
Reference / Special Presentations / WITNESS TO WAR
Jan 5, 2008

Aug. 13 field draftee fast-tracked to Soviet gulag

Fourteenth in a series
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 24, 2007

Christmas letter to Pope Benedict XVI

HONG KONG — Until three years ago, you had a well-earned reputation as the fierce watchdog of the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. You were nicknamed "God's Rottweiler."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 20, 2007

Hokusai's 'Dutch' courage

It might sound a corny to say that artists live through their works, but in the case of Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), whose lengthy life story is mired in muddles, myths and myriad name changes, it is his art that speaks with the clearest voice and that provides the scale with which to weigh the words...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Dec 2, 2007

Dalai Lama: Ocean of wit and wisdoms

Lhamo Thondup was born on July 6, 1935 in Taktster, a small village in the Amdo region of northeast Tibet. But neither his parents — farmers who grew barley, buckwheat and potatoes — nor his three elder brothers and one elder sister (a younger sister and brother came later) were to discover his true...

Longform

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