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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Sep 5, 2009

How to become a gaijin that can say no

I wish I could say, "No." I wish I knew how.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 4, 2009

Dälek and DJ Baku

To promote their "DJ Baku Vs Dälek" CD, Tokyo turntablist DJ Baku and American hip-hop group Dälek (pronounced Die-a-leck) are teaming up for some shows.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 30, 2009

The artistic influence of the East

This large and lavish volume is the catalog of an important art exhibition at the New York Guggenheim Museum that ran from Jan. 20 to April 19 this year. Since the show itself is not traveling to other venues, this excellent account of its purposes and content is now all that remains of one of the most...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 28, 2009

Dipping into modern art at Naoshima's bathhouse

At 2 p.m. on July 26, operations commenced at the first public bathhouse on the island of Naoshima in the Seto Inland Sea between the mainland of Honshu and Shikoku. Titled Naoshima Bathhouse "I Love Yu" (the "Love" represented by a heart symbol and "Yu" in kanji form) and designed by artist Shinro Ohtake...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 23, 2009

TV celeb wannabes, origins of noodle-making and mysteries of Azuchi Castle

Show business likes family dynasties even more than politics does, though you may wonder how new "stars" are introduced when they have nothing more to offer than their surnames. Eight "talked-about teen candidates" for show biz stardom are the guests on this week's installment of the variety show "The...
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Aug 18, 2009

Kids hit the dance floor for charities

Visitors going into Tokyo Church of Christ in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, on a Friday afternoon in July were welcomed by three children with painted faces who proceeded to perform modern dance.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 16, 2009

Striking it rich on the Izu Peninsula

Gold may be heavier than water, but all that's rattling around the bottom of my panning bowl are lots of multicolored pebbles.
EDITORIALS
Aug 7, 2009

Pension premium delinquency

The premium payment rate for Kokumin Nenkin (national pension) — a public pension system for self-employed people, part-time workers, jobless people, etc. — fell to a record 62.1 percent in fiscal 2008. The situation suggests that modifications should be made to the plan under which the Social Insurance...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 7, 2009

Art triennial helps revitalize rural Niigata

Visiting Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial 2009 is a strange and wonderful journey. A satoyama (mountain homeland) adventure replete with rice paddies brimming with bright green shoots, refurbished abandoned houses and closed-down elementary schools, it features 370 contemporary artworks by little-known and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 7, 2009

'Transporter 3'

Luc Besson has taken it upon himself to build a little empire smack in the heart of the French film industry. It's a close approximation to a French Hollywood, specifically an action-genre Hollywood — and its getting bigger everyday. For mindless, gratuitous violence, nonsensical plots and endless...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 2, 2009

Occult novel dredged from Tokyo's shadowy history

To say the second book in David Peace's "Tokyo trilogy" is haunting would be to start this review with a cliche of which "Occupied City" is devoid. Yet the book stays with you, hunkers down in your memory like some needling parasite.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 2, 2009

When does popular become canonical?

Some scholars would seem to think that methodologies (systems of methods used to focus on particular areas of study) never alter. Other scholars know that the methods change as the area under study enlarges and that ways of looking at the subject are always being transformed by the subject itself.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 2, 2009

Walking Osaka's 'aquapolis' ways

Osaka: the Venice of the East!
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Jul 27, 2009

How to Japonese

The blog How To Japonese should appeal to anyone studying intermediate and advanced Japanese, but don't expect structured step-by-step courses. Launched in 2008 by Daniel Morales, a New Orleanian who first came to Japan in 2002 and currently works as a translation coordinator in Tokyo, the blog pretty...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 24, 2009

He can't seem to escape from the museum

Ben Stiller is back in the museum. Specifically, in "Night at the Museum — Battle of the Smithsonian."
LIFE / Digital
Jul 22, 2009

Google Books leaves Japan in legal limbo

For a long time, the Japanese publishing industry was in the dark about the Google Book Search Library project, the ambitious endeavor by the Mountain View, Calif.-based Internet giant to create a vast online library by scanning millions of books. Google announced the start of the project in 2004, but...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 19, 2009

Tune in to nature's sounds

The phenomenal diversity of Japan, in its landscapes, climates, ecosystems, fauna and flora, has enthralled me for more than a quarter of a century. For part of each year I am extremely fortunate to be able to travel the length and breadth of the country seeking out its wilder places in order to experience...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 17, 2009

Chongryon swindler gets suspended term

A former intelligence agency chief was sentenced to a suspended 34-month prison term Thursday for his role in a 2007 investment scam aimed at swindling the pro-Pyongyang group Chongryon out of ownership of its Tokyo headquarters.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 10, 2009

'La Raggaza del Lago'

When the nude body of the beautiful 18-year-old Anna (Alessia Piovan) is discovered on the shores of a lake in the Italian Dolomite Alps, the local town recoils like a slapped hand then clenches itself like a fist, hiding any number of secrets and unspoken, unexpressed emotions.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 7, 2009

NHK a fount of info, a lot of it from the government

Sometimes compared with the British Broadcasting Corporation or America's Public Broadcasting System — and by its fiercest critics even to the state-run media in China and North Korea — NHK boasts two terrestrial television services, three satellite television services, three radio networks and the...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 4, 2009

A look into the secrets of the Kanji family

Japanese is comprised of three syllable alphabets: kanji, hiragana and katakana. Yeah, you've heard this before. But do you know the history behind the three?
JAPAN
Jul 3, 2009

Agency moves on 'manga cafe'

Amid continuing objections from the Democratic Party of Japan and others, preparations for the proposed National Center for Media Arts, or "state-run 'manga' cafe" as it is known by its detractors, have begun in earnest.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 3, 2009

Deliberately insignificant gestures

While walking through the courtyard of the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art and interviewing critic Midori Matsui, a frog hopped out of the darkness, stopped for a moment in the light and then slipped back into the night. Matsui, who curated the Hara's current exhibition, "Micropop," had just been explaining...

Longform

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