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COMMENTARY / World
May 18, 2014

China plays down GDP size

China's government does not sound comfortable with new World Bank figures indicating that China will overtake the U.S. this year and become the No. 1 economy.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 15, 2014

Time to get over the 'shock' of aging actresses

"Americans can be strange about aging," said French actress Jeanne Moreau, in a brief interview she gave me back in 2005. She was then at the tail end of her 70s and had just co-starred with French heartthrob Melvil Poupaud in "Le Temps Qui Reste," as his sympathetic but alluring grandmother. As the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
May 13, 2014

Message themes woven into songs by J-pop's Hart

Chris Hart's appearance on "Kohaku Uta Gassen," NHK's annual New Year's Eve music extravaganza last December, "became one of the two most memorable stages (of his career) so far," he said in a recent interview.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 12, 2014

'Gourmet' comic stokes Fukushima ire

The popular manga series "Oishinbo" came under fire again Monday after a character based on a real-life former mayor refers to Fukushima Prefecture in its latest issue as unlivable because of the radiation leaking from the ruined power plant there.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech / ADVANCES IN PROGRESS
May 11, 2014

High-tech Japan jumps on wearable device bandwagon

Japanese firms are jumping into the race to manufacture a new generation of wearable devices that will link people more intimately with the Internet as they grow more dependent on gadgets to manage their lives.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 8, 2014

'Blue Jasmine'

We love watching rich people be rich and happy, but maybe we love it more when the cash stops flowing. There's a Japanese phrase for that, and roughly translated, it goes like this: "The unhappiness of others tastes of honey." In that vein, Woody Allen's newest work, "Blue Jasmine" — a film that stirred...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 5, 2014

'Ordinary' billionaire behind canal project

Wang Jing, the enigmatic businessman behind Nicaragua's $50 billion Interoceanic Grand Canal, shrugs off skepticism about how a little-known entrepreneur can be driving a huge transcontinental project, insisting he is not an agent of the Beijing government.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
May 5, 2014

Caroline Kennedy, dive with me in Okinawa and it'll change your mind

I entreat you, Ambassador Kennedy, to help protect the marvelous coral reef ecosystem at Oura Bay in northeast Okinawa from certain destruction under the U.S.-Japan plan for military expansion.
Japan Times
JAPAN / GENERATIONAL CHANGE
May 4, 2014

Jewelry innovator Shiraki puts ethics at the heart of beauty

Natsuko Shiraki, a jewelry designer and CEO of Tokyo-based jeweler Hasuna Co., vividly remembers the shocking experience in southern India that changed her life.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 30, 2014

Manga about work at Fukushima No. 1 stirs locals' ire

Cartoon characters who suffered nosebleeds after a visit to the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are turning into a headache for manga publisher Shogakukan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Apr 27, 2014

Hawaiian XLeague player Alo finds much that's familiar in his adopted land

For most people around the world, football means just what the word suggests: a sport played primarily with the feet in which the ball is rarely touched with the hands.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Apr 23, 2014

In a world of pretense, are Japanese just more honest about lying?

The net sum of lying may be similar in Japan and America, but in their acceptance of life exigencies, the Japanese may be more realistic, more charitable and forgiving about the role that deception plays in our social relations.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 20, 2014

Telescope to probe deepest space

Cerro Armazones is a crumbling dome of rock that dominates the parched peaks of the Chilean coastal range north of Santiago.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Apr 20, 2014

To teach to test or for communication — or both?

Which is more important: to communicate in a second language or to test well?
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 18, 2014

Philosophers still vital to our high-tech world

A Harvard University report showing a big dropoff across the U.S. in the proportion of bachelor degree graduates who majored in the humanities contrasts with the finding by a Swiss think tank that three or four of the top five 'Global Thought Leaders' are involved in philosophy.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 12, 2014

The curious tale of the man who slapped Tojo

On May 3, 1946, the indictments were read at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Among the defendants was a gangly, bespectacled, 59-year-old civilian named Shumei Okawa, who happened to be seated directly behind the former prime minister, army Gen. Hideki Tojo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 9, 2014

'In the Heights' sizzles across distant cultures

I had a few reservations about the first Japanese production of "In the Heights," the Broadway sensation nominated for 13 Tony awards in 2008.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 8, 2014

Want to be happy when you're old? Get a job

A Brookings Institution researchers has found 'well-being' benefits to voluntary part-time employment as well as to remaining in the workforce beyond retirement age.
Japan Times
JAPAN / GENERATIONAL CHANGE
Apr 6, 2014

Human rights champ Doi battles social injustice in Japan

Many Japanese view human rights violations as the problems of people in a distant world, but Kanae Doi is battling to change that perception.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Apr 6, 2014

California gurus find success via celebrities

Even in California, where people come to convince themselves of just about anything, it is not common for a celebrity couple on the verge of divorce to declare undying love and say they are closer now than ever.
COMMENTARY
Apr 4, 2014

Scotland: a nation, not a region

For Scotland, independence — the question in September's referendum — is about democracy not nationalism. It's about righting the wrongs of a country living its life as a region.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 3, 2014

Polish history captured by a man who was there

He may be 88 years old and the director of 54 films, but Polish film giant Andrzej Wajda is still evolving as a storyteller. His latest, "Wałesa: Man of Hope," opens in Tokyo on April 5 (as "Wałesa: Rentai no Otoko") and marks his further foray into the realm of history as entertainment, following...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2014

A Korean who cherished her Japanese teachers

An 89-year-old Korean in Pennsylvania calls the latest spats between Japan and South Korea 'infantile and lamentable.' She remembers her Japanese teachers as loving people who 'poured their heart and soul into making good human beings out of us.'
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 29, 2014

Unpersuasive logic for death penalty in Japan

The death penalty in Japan is imposed in cases of murder, and robbery and/or rape leading to death. In such cases, capital punishment is not mandatory and is usually only imposed in cases of multiple killings, though since 2006 this criteria has not been strictly observed.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2014

Government plans to cut number of elderly kept alive on feeding tubes

For the first time, Japan is trying to hold down the number of bedridden elderly people kept alive by feeding tubes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 20, 2014

'The Broken Circle Breakdown'

Love is supposed to crush you and marriage is the fast track to long-time despair. Such dark truisms are flung about in "The Broken Circle Breakdown," a Belgian film whose spirit is so 20th-century Americana it may as well be draped in the Stars and Stripes. And those truisms seem so glamorous, recalling...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 19, 2014

Deep feelings at high altitudes

The photographs, taken by artist Naoya Hatakeyama, hint at both the beauty and dangers of a mountain, as reflected in the shades of light and darkness alongside textures of soft-edged snow and sharply lined rocks.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
Mar 13, 2014

Top court case highlights U.S. rift over sex science

As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear a religious dispute over the "Obamacare" contraception mandate, advocates on both sides are trying to set the court straight on the science.
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Mar 12, 2014

With love and Japan, what you get out depends on what you put in

Moving to Japan makes an infant of us all, regardless of race, sex or creed. A major conflict in Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' comes from the fact that Prospero knew the language and Caliban the land, but when you first get to Japan, you know neither.

Longform

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