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JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 8, 2013

Xenophobia finds fertile soil in web anonymity

As diplomatic strains with China and South Korea worsen over territorial disputes, more and more Japanese are using the relative anonymity of cyberspace to vent their political spleens online.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 8, 2013

Unneeded farm subsidies off table as U.S. debates budget cuts

FOCUS
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 8, 2013

At White House, electricity wasn't love at first light

At the north front porch of the White House (where newscasters broadcast) is a very large chandelier-type light that is strangely hung by chains. Please give us a history of this light. Under which president was it installed? Was it originally lit by candles? What is the significance of the chains it...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 6, 2013

Complex tales of censorship in 20th-century Japan

THE ART OF CENSORSHIP IN POSTWAR JAPAN, by Kirsten Cather. University of Hawaii Press, 2012, 342 pp., $45.00 (hardcover) REDACTED: The Archives of Censorship in Transwar Japan, by Jonathan E. Abel. University of California Press, 2012, 376 pp., $44.95 (hardcover) Censorship in Japan has long been hot-button...
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Jan 6, 2013

Even gangsters live in fear of Japan's gun laws

It's almost impossible to get to a gun in Japan, and selling one or owning one is a serious crime. Fire the gun? Possibly life imprisonment. Gun-control laws are taken so seriously that police will pursue a violator all the way to the grave — and maybe beyond.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 4, 2013

Not all, but sundry find niche in China

Even as anti-Japan rioters were busting the windows of Japanese stores and demolishing Japanese cars in Beijing and other cities in China in mid-September, young fathers in the subprovincial city of Xi'an were taking lessons in how to bathe their newborns with soap and lotion developed by Japanese baby...
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 1, 2013

Guard Afghanistan's most sacred artifact at one's peril

For 250 years, Masood Akhundzada's family has protected Afghanistan's most sacred artifact: a cloak said to have been worn by the Prophet Muhammad. Its power drew Afghan kings and presidents and Taliban leaders to a small, blue shrine in a city conquered by Alexander the Great and contested ever since....
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2013

Japan's steely resolve suggests nationalism based on fear

More than half a century ago I had dinner in Paris with Arimasa Mori, the grandson of the Meiji Era education minister Arinori Mori, who had set the prewar pattern for a Westernized but intensely patriotic education. The Mori family hailed from Kagoshima, and the part that Arinori had played in the Meiji...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Dec 30, 2012

Matsui should be remembered as one of Japan's best

In 2001 Ichiro Suzuki shattered expectations about what Japanese players could and could not do in Major League Baseball.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / MLB
Dec 29, 2012

Matsui praised for impact on baseball

Kyodo, AFP-Jiji Fans in Japan were saddened Friday by the news of power-hitter Hideki Matsui's retirement from baseball at the age of 38, many wishing he would resume his career in the country.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Dec 28, 2012

Special New Year's buffet in Osaka; countdown dance event in Tokyo; Champagne dinner party

Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 26, 2012

BOJ's ¥23 trillion JGB spree sees record gains

Japanese government bonds are headed for the longest run of annual gains on record, buoyed by central bank purchases almost equivalent to Malaysia's economic output.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Dec 25, 2012

Benshi Midori Sawato

Midori Sawato is a benshi, a unique kind of performer who provides live narration to silent films at the movie theater. The benshi brings the characters in films alive using different voices and vocal expressions. They sit to the side of the screen, watching the movie with the audience and using their...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Dec 21, 2012

Recipes for a new life in Japan

Nwe Nwe Kyaw arrived in Japan 12 years ago, the wife of a political refugee from Myanmar granted asylum in Japan. In Yangon, she had been a teacher; here she had to figure out something else to do.
EDITORIALS
Dec 21, 2012

Ms. Park returns to the Blue House

Ms. Park Geun Hye has eked out a victory in South Korea's presidential election. The conservative candidate narrowly bested progressive rival Moon Jae In in a contest whose outcome was not apparent until the votes were counted.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / WEEK 3
Dec 16, 2012

Pyongyang offers a rare 'real' photo opportunity

Most images of North Korea appearing in the media express just a few aspects of that country — namely, repression, militarism, poverty, backwardness, gloom.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 16, 2012

An aging country learning to adapt

Occasionally in this space I refer to a financial writer called "Gucci-san" who contributes a weekly column to Aera. Apparently, he works for an investment consulting firm that does a lot of work in mergers and acquisitions. In a recent piece he said that some of his clients are involved in importing...
EDITORIALS
Dec 13, 2012

North Korea remains defiant

North Korea on Wednesday morning launched a long-range multistage rocket and claims to have put a satellite into orbit. In a preliminary assessment, the United States also said that an object carried by the rocket went into orbit. Pyongyang's action must be condemned in the strongest terms. It ignored...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 7, 2012

Media matriarch Elisabeth Murdoch dies at 103

Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, the matriarch of the English-speaking world's most pervasive media empire who instilled toughness in her son, Rupert, by tossing him as a child into the deep end of a cruise ship's pool to teach him how to swim, died Dec. 5 at her estate outside Melbourne, Australia.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat