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COMMENTARY
Dec 25, 2004

Waiting for Japan to change -- or can it?

LOS ANGELES -- For as long as I write this column on Asia, which enters into its 10th year next month, I doubt I'll ever witness anything as amusing or telling as the flareup that took place at the close of the University of Southern California's Asia Conference last month.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 30, 2004

SRC and Edwin Cayce seek to relieve stress

Chris Earnshaw speaks with so much passion -- such an enthusiasm for life -- that it is hard to believe that 12 years ago he was a quivering wreck. "I fell apart, losing my job (as general manager of a bank), my family and home, in rapid succession."
COMMENTARY
Oct 4, 2004

Staying on path of resistance

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi defines the aim of his new Cabinet as "privatizing the postal services." The new executive lineup of the Liberal Democratic Party, of which he is president, attests to the importance he attaches to postal privatization as the mainstay of his "structural reform" agenda....
JAPAN
Oct 23, 2003

Nobel laureate wants research facility built -- now

Masatoshi Koshiba, the astrophysicist who won the 2002 Nobel Prize, said Wednesday he has urged a government panel to reconsider its recommendation not to fund an advanced physics research facility.
EDITORIALS
Jul 20, 2003

Driving Jesus crazy

Sooner or later, there had to be a backlash against the largely American phenomenon of preempting political debate by injecting "Jesus" into whatever social or political argument happened to dominate the hour. The fad started several years ago and quickly found favor among a surprisingly broad swath...
BUSINESS
Jul 19, 2003

Honda looks to shape brighter future by remodeling the past

Honda Motor Co. hopes to recover from a slump in domestic car sales by launching redesigned models of popular vehicles, according to Honda President Takeo Fukui.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jun 25, 2003

Jack Johnson: "On and On"

In the off season, professional surfer Jack Johnson keeps himself busy -- keeping his boards waxed, of course, but also polishing his craft as a songwriter. To follow up his debut, "Brushfire Fairytales," he retreated to his living room-cum-studio with longtime buddies percussionist Adam Topol and bassist...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 22, 2003

Evil war crims had it cushy

From behind a wooden lectern in Princeton University's Department of East Asian Studies last month, 85-year-old Tokio Tobita, a Japanese World War II veteran and convicted war criminal who served 10 years in Sugamo Prison, surveyed the intently focused faces of scholars, artists, students, American war...
EDITORIALS
Apr 22, 2003

The meaning of low interest rates

The global economic outlook remains dim despite the swift and decisive coalition victory in Iraq. In Japan the prospects are darker still, with deflation getting worse, not better. Stock prices are at their lowest level in about 20 years. Banks are still burdened with piles of bad debt. Prime Minister...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 6, 2003

Selfishness and greed motor the American Dream

Watching the war in Iraq from the vantage point of Japan, you don't get as much of the propaganda-like white noise that accompanies the coverage if you're watching it from the United States or the Middle East. But that doesn't mean you get less information.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 23, 2003

English text lays bare a secret

Fanc a trip to a not-so-secret but hitherto inaccessible part of Japan?
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Feb 13, 2003

Have we got the will to survive?

"State of the World 2003," this year's edition of a report published annually by the Worldwatch Institute, arrived in my mailbox several days before the shuttle tragedy, but it sat on my desk unopened until the morning of Columbia's fiery descent.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Nov 28, 2002

From oil-dependent past to hydrogen future

Making a global transition from fossil fuels to clean hydrogen-energy systems seems like pure science fiction -- until you meet Amory Lovins.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 30, 2002

The noble art of collecting

Artists trying to earn a living before these days of government grants, international art fairs and global cultural celebrity were at the mercy of the people holding the purse strings. Teaching was (and remains) a way of getting by, but for the premodern artist, real security depended largely on catching...
JAPAN / Media
May 19, 2002

'Sakura' -- or 'E.T. Comes to Japan'

One of the staples of Japanese daytime television for more than four decades has been the NHK Renzoku Terebii Shosetsu (serialized television novel), broadcast six days per week, Monday through Saturday, from 8:15 to 8:30 a.m. Begun in 1961, each "novel" runs for 26 or 52 weeks.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
May 8, 2002

Heart and soul in your hands

A list of the things we humans take for granted would be long indeed. Not wishing to embark on a colossal environmental-spiritual- humanitarian itemization, I'll keep my list real short. One item, in fact: a clay mug.
BUSINESS
Apr 13, 2002

Honda, Sanyo tie up on nickel-hydrogen batteries

OSAKA -- Honda Motor Co. and Sanyo Electric Co. have agreed to jointly develop nickel-hydrogen batteries for use in Honda hybrid automobiles, Sanyo officials said Friday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 20, 2002

Zazen and the art of playwriting

This month, the Kabukiza Theater in Tokyo is presenting two programs of kabuki plays and dance numbers starring such leading actors as Koshiro Matsumoto, Nizaemon Kataoka, Mitsugoro Bando and Sadanji Ichikawa, as well as the female-role specialists Tamasaburo Bando and Tokizo Nakamura.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Dec 30, 2001

Party on, to the break of the new dawn

I was going to make just one recommendation for New Year's Eve -- the countdown party at Milk, a freestyle club in Ebisu. I have had a couple of great New Year's Eves there -- including one special moment making mochi (traditional rice cakes) as the first tendrils of dawn crept across the sky in the...
JAPAN
Jun 10, 2001

Waseda Egyptologist says key to future is learning from past

A free ride to the Middle East on an oil tanker may not be the flashiest start to a career. But for Waseda University professor Sakuji Yoshimura, the voyage he organized to Egypt in 1966 was the first step in what has become 35 years of archaeological exploration born from a childhood fascination with...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / LEARNING BY HEART
Apr 13, 2001

Exploring a choice of futures beyond 17

"I am about to die," Takahisa Ide, 17, tells the camera. On his lap is a simple crayon drawing freshly made to illustrate the scene.
COMMENTARY
Jan 1, 2001

It's time for bold diplomacy

In the 21st century, Japan should rise to the diplomatic challenge of developing strategies to create a new order in East Asia, where confusion still reigns after the end of the Cold War.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 5, 2000

Redefining to rescue Kyoto

KYOTO -- When people talk about traditional Kyoto culture, all the "a" verbs come out -- everyone appreciates it, everyone admires it, many adore it. So why is it disappearing so rapidly?
EDITORIALS
Nov 4, 2000

Babes in Gizmoland

It's almost that time of year again. The cold is closing in, the lights are coming on earlier, the leaves are turning and everywhere there are intimations of jingling. Even as early as November you can hear it: the jingle of bells, the jingle of cash registers, and the real or metaphoric jingle of coins...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 24, 2000

Revealing the nation one grain at a time

THE POLITICS OF AGRICULTURE IN JAPAN, by Aurelia George Mulgan. London & New York: Routledge, 2000, 856 pp.,82 British pounds/$125 (cloth). In 1890, a young German academic agreed to evaluate a survey of landowners in the German provinces east of the Elbe River. Overcoming the limitations of biased...
COMMENTARY
Apr 25, 2000

Mori's real test comes in July

Like many Japanese, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori will travel overseas in the Golden Week holiday period, which starts April 29. He will have little time to relax, however. Mori, who will chair the Group of Eight summit in southern Japan in July, will visit the participating nations to prepare for the...
COMMENTARY
Mar 26, 2000

All eyes on nuclear energy

It is axiomatic that any group in Japan -- doctors, dentists or candlestick makers -- will want to turn itself into a tightly bound community, closed off from the outside world. It will be concerned almost entirely with its own survival and prosperity.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 18, 2000

Southeast Asia: creature of Japan?

THE SPECTRE OF COMPARISONS: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World, by Benedict Anderson. London: Verso, 1999, 374 pp., 13.00 British pounds (paper). The Japanese invented Southeast Asia. This is just one of the pieces of intellectual dynamite that Benedict Anderson tosses into the reader's lap...
Japan Times
WORLD / FOCUS
Jun 19, 2023

Amid U.S.-China rivalry, a landmark science deal faces new scrutiny

A debate is underway within the U.S. government about whether to let the U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement expire later this year or to renegotiate the deal.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.