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April 14, 2025
 

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COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jul 18, 2002

Taking a break in Tokyo and getting to grips with coins

Did you miss me? Hopefully not. Due to stockpiling three columns, I was able to escape the worst excesses of rainy season to the U.K. for five weeks without leaving a gaping hole on the page.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Mar 14, 2002

You win some and you lose some . . .

Ten years ago, on March 12, 1992, this column began its life on these pages. Though it's still "green," when compared with colleagues who have graced The Japan Times for several decades, Our Planet Earth has now appeared more than 245 times.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 15, 2009

Did technology kill the KTO star?

In 1977, nine years after Tony Elliott started the then-alternative media London Time Out magazine, Kansai Time Out printed its first issue, an eight-pager with local listings and a smattering of Japan-related articles. Dominic Al-Badri, chief editor from 1997 to 2004, recalls that the info-packed pages...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 30, 2022

Four-year forests: The Japanese way to 'rewild the world'

Created in the 1970s, the Miyawaki method can help new saplings grow an average of a meter every year — a godsend for deforested areas.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jan 8, 2017

Japan's human rights issues fared better in 2016

Welcome back to JBC's annual countdown of the top issues as they affected Non-Japanese (NJ) residents of Japan. We had some brighter spots this year than in previous years, because Japan's government has been so embarrassed by hate speech toward Japan's minorities that they did something about it. Read...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jun 7, 2011

'Flyjin,' 'sheeple,' angry people: readers' views

Debito Arudou's May 3 Just Be Cause column, headlined " Better to be branded a 'flyjin' than a man of the 'sheeple,'" provoked an online skirmish between contributors to the columnist's blog, Debito.org, and its self-proclaimed "debunker" site. Here are just some of the mails received at The Japan Times...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Oct 7, 2008

'Gaijin' mind-set is killing rural Japan

Allow me to conclude my trilogy of columns regarding the word "gaijin" this month by talking about the damage the concept does to Japanese society. That's right — damage to Japanese society.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 23, 2008

Readers get last word on 'gaijin' tag

The Community Page received another large batch of e-mails in response to Debito Arudou's followup Sept. 2 (Sept. 3 in some areas) Just Be Cause column on the use of the word "gaijin." Following is a selection of the responses.
COMMUNITY
Aug 19, 2001

Tradition in transition

Art went private at the beginning of the 20th century. Back then Cubism's quest for a new visual language, abstract art's pursuit of purity of form, and Surrealism's sense of inwardness had little appeal to a public who viewed Modern Art as self-serving and difficult.
COMMENTARY
Apr 14, 1999

A clear victory for NATO

LONDON -- This time the critics and skeptics are turning out to be wrong. Conventional wisdom holds that one cannot halt an enemy from the air, let alone force a capitulation. Only troops on the ground can do that. This is supposed to be the overriding lesson from the disaster that was the Vietnam War....
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Apr 20, 2019

Downsized dwellings: Inside Tokyo's tiny living spaces

Twenty-five-year-old Sotaro Ito lives in a 9.46-square-meter apartment with a loft in the capital's retro-hip Koenji district.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Nov 1, 2015

Tackle embedded racism before it chokes Japan

Japan has a dire problem it must address immediately: its embedded racism.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jan 1, 2013

The year for non-Japanese in '12: a top 10

Back by popular demand, here is JBC's roundup of the top 10 human rights events that most affected non-Japanese (NJ) residents of Japan in 2012, in ascending order.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Oct 18, 2011

Sexless marriages, ineffective police

Some readers' responses to Debito Arudou's Sept. 6 Just Be Cause column, " 'Sexlessness' wrecks marriages, threatens nation's future":
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 26, 2011

Living and loving The Alien from Nagoya

The year 1990 might not seem so long ago, but for many reasons, and in Japan especially, it was a completely different world. There was no Internet. There were no mobile telephones. There was hardly any way to get up-to-date English information on places beyond Tokyo and Osaka except by going there....
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 11, 2022

Wildfire in Yosemite National Park imperils century-old trees

The fire, now entering its fourth day and fueled by timber and brush, is active in the Mariposa Grove, the largest and most popular of the park's three giant sequoia clusters.
Japan Times
Special Supplements
Mar 25, 2022

Agon Shu festival focuses on wishes, hopes in difficult times

A man dressed as a yamabushi (mountain priest) picks up a wooden votive tablet that has fallen beside one of two huge bonfires. He makes a silent prayer as he holds it reverently in both hands before tossing it into the flames. The gomagi joins hundreds of other such tablets being cast into the bonfires...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2020

Agon Shu prays for relief from natural disasters at Fire Rites Festival

French poet Francois Villon once asked, “Where are the snows of yesteryear?” as he pondered the evanescence of existence. The thousands of people who made their way along the winding mountain road to the Agon Shu Buddhist Association’s Fire Rites Festival on the morning of Feb. 9 may have been...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Sep 2, 2018

Don Maloney's 'Never the Twain...?' Japan Times column: some choice cuts from the 1970s

Some excerpts from Don Maloney's 'Japan: It's not all Raw Fish' (1975) and 'Son of Raw Fish' (1977) collections of Japan Times columns.
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Mar 27, 2016

Bearded train driver, out-of-pocket teacher and CV faker: How would they fare in court?

A look at three shiny new news items from the gossip columns that take on a different sheen when examined under the piercing light of labor law.
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Nov 29, 2015

Lessons in Japan's labor laws from striking NPB baseball stars and English teachers

What do Nichibei Eigo Gakuin teachers in 2000, pro baseball players in 2004 and Berlitz language instructors in 2007 have in common?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Oct 21, 2015

Three cases of whine offer lessons in how not to criticize Japan

Novelist John Updike famously declared America to be "a conspiracy to make you happy." I wonder sometimes if Japan is, then, a conspiracy to make you unhappy? Or, if not exactly unhappy, how about uncomfortable, exasperated or confused?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Oct 1, 2014

Readers' letters: Ian Thorpe, the Yushukan, racism, teaching English, tipping and sunlight

Some emails received in response to recent Community articles.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Dec 20, 2013

Cook, writer, TV host, actress and more: Briton toasts eventful half-century in Japan

Civil servant, cook, columnist and TV personality are among the hats Jill Sinclair Ito has worn during her 50 years in the country.
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Oct 16, 2013

Adoption and fostering, animal homes and a tribute: readers' mail

In response to a recent story about adoption and foster parenting in Japan, one woman recounts her life of doing both.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Feb 4, 2013

Russians cast wary eye on volunteerism

A country doctor, a tiny, dilapidated village hospital, an indifferent health bureaucracy — and now, coming to the rescue, volunteers from distant Moscow, bringing furniture, equipment, money and, maybe most important, good cheer.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jan 31, 2012

International vs. Japanese school: Which is top of class for mixed kids?

Some readers' thoughts on the dueling Jan. 10 Zeit Gist columns by Charles Lewis ("Local Japanese school is the obvious choice if you want your child to fit in") and Lisa Jardine ("International education a triple-A investment in your child's — and Japan's — future"):
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Dec 6, 2011

For the sake of Japan's future, foreigners deserve a fair shake

These past few columns have addressed fundamentally bad habits in Japanese society that impede positive social change. Last month I talked about public trust being eroded by social conventions that permit (even applaud) the systematic practice of lying in public.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Oct 12, 2010

Don't blame JET for Japan's poor English: responses

A selection of readers' views on "Don't blame JET for Japan's poor English" (Just Be Cause, Sept. 7) by Debito Arudou:
Osaka Expo throws open its doors as mega-event kicks off
People visit the Osaka Expo on the first day it opened to the public, in the city of Osaka on Sunday.
How to spend the perfect day in Hiroo, Tokyo’s expat enclave
Customers line up patiently for some early-afternoon baked goods outside Truffle, which is located close to Hiroo Station on the Hibiya Line.
Japan doesn’t plan to use U.S. Treasurys as tariff talk leverage
Liberal Democratic Party policy chief Itsunori Onodera speaks at LDP headquarters in Tokyo last October.
Japan and U.S. to hold joint patrol after Okinawa sexual assaults
Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki may participate in a joint patrol in the prefecture by Japanese and U.S. officials, an official in the area said.
Ishiba warns of divided world at futuristic Osaka Expo opening ceremony
The opening ceremony for the Osaka Expo on Saturday.
Osaka Expo throws open its doors as mega-event kicks off
People visit the Osaka Expo on the first day it opened to the public, in the city of Osaka on Sunday.
Heaven from hells: The sulfuric pleasure of Unzen Onsen
While Unzen Onsen's "hells" can be visually striking, locals describe them and their effects as "a source of emotional healing."
How to spend the perfect day in Hiroo, Tokyo’s expat enclave
Customers line up patiently for some early-afternoon baked goods outside Truffle, which is located close to Hiroo Station on the Hibiya Line.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.
Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

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.
By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)
BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)

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