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CULTURE / Books
Feb 12, 2012

Stiff drink required for half-measure of multicultural insight

HYBRID IDENTITIES AND ADOLESCENT GIRLS: Being 'Half' in Japan, by Laurel D. Kamada. Mulilingual Matters, 2010, 268 pp., $49.95 (paper) As the American mother of two Japanese-American "hybrids" (yet another moniker for hafu/double/Japanese-plus-another ethnicity), I had high expectations before reading...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 12, 2012

Commuter love affair, Tokyo tales

TOKYO COMMUTE: Japanese Customs and Way of Life Viewed from the Odakyu Line, by A. Robert Lee. Renaissance Books, 2011, 214 pp., $22 (paper) Arrive in Tokyo via airport train, as most travelers do, and it quickly becomes apparent that the city's lifeblood is its world-class railway network, each line...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 5, 2012

Beginning of the world's end?

You may not believe so, but millions do. They're convinced that ancient Maya priests calculated Dec. 21, 2012, as the end of the world as we know it. These claims and warnings, prognostications and reassurances are on bookstore shelves, on websites, in museum exhibits and in tourist promotions. The global...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 27, 2011

Jewishness infuses the works of Ben Shahn — even his Japanese ones

What does it mean to be a Jewish artist or writer? Is one obliged to assert one's Jewishness — ethnically, religiously, culturally — in order to be seen as such? Or are all Jewish creators by definition "Jewish" creators, even those who create little with what can be considered "Jewish content"?...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Aug 7, 2011

Tadanori Yokoo: An artist by design

In conversation, Tadanori Yokoo jumps nimbly between the past and the present. One moment he's watching the sky glow red as bombs rain down on Kobe during World War II. The next he's riding in a taxi with Yukio Mishima. And then he's back in the present, here at his studio in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward, discussing...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jun 29, 2011

Local heroes take Japanese video games to the world

Japan may not be the all-conquering video-game powerhouse it once was, but there are still plenty of gamers in the West who want to get their hands on the latest "Mario," "Final Fantasy" or "Street Fighter" title. And it goes without saying that they want to play them in their own language — not in...
JAPAN
Jun 26, 2011

Top scientist in academic row

An article that helped Tohoku University President Akihisa Inoue win the Japan Academy Award has been retracted from a leading U.S. scientific journal after the author violated protocol by reusing his own previously published material without acknowledging it.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jun 26, 2011

Readers offer 3/11 insights, valuable resources

As Japan has struggled with the physical and emotional challenges of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March 11, and the ongoing nuclear crisis that resulted, I have written three Our Planet Earth columns related to those events: one on Japan's response (March 27); one on alternative...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 18, 2011

American woman pours self into noh

According to Rebecca Ogamo Teele, an American instructor, performer and mask carver for noh, falling asleep is a perfectly respectable response to attending such plays.
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Feb 16, 2011

Battle over cooking-website users is a recipe for all out war

Although things have been changing in recent years — as more Japanese women continue to work after marriage — in Japan it is still usually women who are expected to prepare meals for the family. And whether it be making bento (lunch boxes) for their husbands or children, or preparing the evening...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jan 30, 2011

Pushing the U.S. Constitution to the brink

NEW YORK — On opening day of the 112th session of the U.S. Congress, the members of the House of Representatives recited the U.S. Constitution. The Republican Party, now the majority, instituted the unprecedented step. The tea party instigated it.
LIFE / Digital
Dec 29, 2010

Living in Japan: There's an app for that

As 2010 draws to a close, smartphone use in Japan has risen to an all-time high, accounting for around 50 percent of all handset sales here. Yet it shames this columnist to admit that I'm still rockin' an old Windows 6.1 phone — insofar as a Windows 6.1 phone can be rocked at all — because as someone...
EDITORIALS
Dec 22, 2010

Cancun has done its job

When it comes to international climate negotiations, anything that is not a clear-cut failure can be called a success. That is the best justification for the "Cancun Agreements," the deal reached after two weeks of multilateral talks held earlier this month. While key disputes were not resolved, the...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 28, 2010

Tales of a Heian Casanova

Ariwara no Narihira (825-880), a Japanese Don Juan, a Casanova of the Heian Period (794-1185), a poet, one of the prime authors of "Ise Monogatari," is the hero of these 125 interconnected tales written in verse with prose links.
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 24, 2010

Key facts and figures

Key data drawn from numerous quoted sources here succinctly suggest the enormous range of problems and issues facing delegates to COP10 — and the world.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Sep 28, 2010

COP10 to take on genetic, indigenous issues

From Oct. 18 to 29, the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations' Convention on Biological Diversity, known as COP10, takes place in Nagoya.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 23, 2010

Reflections of Chekhov's Russia in modern-day Japan

"People compare me with Bertolt Brecht, and I am glad to hear that — but why won't anyone call me Anton Inoue?"
CULTURE / Books
Jun 6, 2010

Art rebel without a cause

Pulse waves from the art world of the early 20th Century may have been felt far and wide, but the movements, practitioners and individual works of art themselves were far from being globally coordinate.
CULTURE / Books
May 23, 2010

An epic slog through history

This doorstopper of a book focuses on American and Soviet rivalry in post-World War II Asia while providing an overview of dramatic developments in 14 nations across Asia over the past century or so. This is an ambitious agenda, one that proves too much for the author and, one might add, any weary reader...
CULTURE / Books
May 16, 2010

A splendid tour through the 'real' Tokyo

It is likely that as many people will appreciate Donald Richie's "Tokyo Megacity" as a tasteful addition to their living room decor as will open it, and that most who do open it will assiduously avoid Richie's text in favor of Ben Simmons' photographs.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Japan Pulse
May 13, 2010

The poor man's alternative to iPad, Kindle, et al.

Is EYE-Reader a dark horse that will trample the competition in Japan's e-reader market? Or is it just a picture frame?
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Dec 26, 2009

The industry of the under-motivated

"How do you do?" The man greets her in Japanese and bows in his doorway. He wears the same teasing grin and the same rumpled shirt as always. Even the cookie crumbs on his collar seem the same.
Reader Mail
Dec 6, 2009

Rare occasions to speak English

Regarding T. Mamoru Hanami's Nov. 29 letter, "Why pay just to learn to read?" (which was a reply to Shoko Tana's Nov. 26 letter, "Learning English to read a text"): First, I would like to point out to Hanami that very few Japanese need English for oral communication. The rare occasion would be an encounter...
BUSINESS
Dec 5, 2009

'Open skies' talks herald easing of U.S.-Japan flight curbs

Japan and the U.S. will try to reach agreement on the draft of an "open skies" treaty next week, clearing the way for carriers including United Airlines and All Nippon Airways Co. to seek antitrust immunity. The agreement would outline plans to erase government limits on flights between the two nations....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 3, 2009

Environment minister prepared for ringmaster's role at COP15

Environment Minister Sakihito Ozawa said Wednesday he is ready to exercise leadership as Japan's negotiator at next week's international meeting in Copenhagen on climate change and to work to ensure China and the United States commit to setting new reduction targets from 2013.

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan