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CULTURE / Books
Feb 26, 2012

A quintessential Korean epic to rival the very best of Tolstoy

LAND, by Pak Kyung-ni, translated by Agnita Tennant. UK: Global Oriental, 2011, Three Volumes, 1,172 pp., $187 (hardcover) Given its length — the 1,167 pages translated, in three volumes, into English, are only one section of a five-part, 6-million word epic — and given its scope, comparisons between...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 24, 2012

Kōji — Japan's vital hidden ingredient

The development of Japanese cuisine owes much to the humble kōji or kōji-kin. A type of fungus or mold, it is used in all kinds of foods and beverages. It's as important in Japan as the fungi, bacteria and yeast that give character to cheese, yogurt, wine, beer and bread are in the West. The difference...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 24, 2012

'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" was released last Christmas in the United States, slightly after the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. One would like to suppose that the filmmakers realized the crassness of opening a 9/11-themed film any closer to the actual anniversary, but I'd bet...
COMMENTARY
Feb 23, 2012

A false spring in South Asia

From the armed coup that recently ousted the Maldives' first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, to the Pakistani Supreme Court's current effort to undermine a toothless but elected government by indicting Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on contempt charges, South Asia's democratic advances...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 23, 2012

"The 250th Anniversary of Hokusai's Birth: Masterpieces from the Honolulu Academy of Arts"

The Honolulu Academy of Arts boasts a collection of some 10,000 ukiyo-e (woodblock prints) , around 5,400 of which were donated by the American author James A. Michener.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 23, 2012

"The 250th Anniversary of Hokusai's Birth: Masterpieces from the Honolulu Academy of Arts"

The Honolulu Academy of Arts boasts a collection of some 10,000 ukiyo-e (woodblock prints) , around 5,400 of which were donated by the American author James A. Michener.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2012

A 'stewpid' time to raise VAT

The International Monetary Fund has joined Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and leading politicians and bureaucrats in laying down a remorseless softening up barrage of facts, figures, argument and just plain determination that the country's consumption tax should rise as quickly as possible.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2012

Why Iran thinks it needs the bomb

Bombastic claims of nuclear achievement, threats to close critical international waterways, alleged terrorist plots and hints of diplomatic outreach — all are emanating from Tehran right now.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 21, 2012

Dangerous myth of China as a harmless tiger

Chinese dissident writers exiled to the West today get a very different response than Soviet writers received not so long ago.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2012

Myth of the U.S. president as master of events

Americans are presidency-addicted. We can't get enough information about our commanders in chief, yet there is a woeful misunderstanding of the office.
COMMENTARY
Feb 20, 2012

How the Arab Spring was hijacked

A year after the Arab Spring came to symbolize the ascent of people's power, hope has given way to a bleak sequel.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Feb 19, 2012

An ode to Japan's magnificent Sika Deer

Deep powdery snow is to a Sika Deer what a stage covered with fluffy feather pillows would be to a top-ranking ballerina. Both lead to loss of grace and floundering, for slim-footed deer and ballerina alike.
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...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Feb 11, 2012

TOEIC for Caribou

"Here's an idea. . . . Why not plug my book?"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 10, 2012

NNTT hopes Generation 2.0 hears 'Silence'

The late classical composer Teizo Matsumura, American film director Martin Scorsese, and playwright/director Keiko Miyata may seem an unlikely trio, but they share a reverence for "Silence," the 1966 novel by Shusaku Endo.
Reader Mail
Feb 9, 2012

'Couch-surfing' not for the fearful

What makes the Feb. 5 travel article "Yakushima free-stay takes some fearful turns" so special is that the place is so far from Tokyo that even The Japan Times sends a reporter here only when the trip is sponsored, and apparently has to rely on "freeters" to come up with something out of the ordinary....
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 8, 2012

Obama bows to Arab royalty in democracy push

Just after the first anniversary of the onset of the Arab Spring, the Obama administration announced in December an enormous arms sale to Saudi Arabia, with a price tag greater than the annual gross domestic product of more than half the countries in the world. The administration hailed the sale as a...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2012

Egypt muddies waters of relationship with U.S.

When the government of erstwhile U.S. ally Egypt shut down 17 Western prodemocracy groups, trashed their Cairo offices and slapped travel bans on some of their staff, political relations between Washington and Cairo hit a new and unexpected low.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Feb 7, 2012

Questions raised about account of Tokyo cop assault

Some readers' responses to the Jan. 24 Zeit Gist column by Simon Scott, headlined "American claims Tokyo cop assaulted son, 8":
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 6, 2012

Battlegrounds for bringing Wall Street to justice

What shall we make of the surprise pronouncement in President Barack Obama's State of the Union address that a belated investigation has been launched into the role of fraud in the financial crisis?
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2012

What does Egypt's military leadership want?

"Whatever the majority in the People's Assembly, they are very welcome, because they won't have the ability to impose anything that the people don't want."
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 1, 2012

Five myths about China's power

As China gains on the world's most advanced economies, the country excites fascination as well as fear, particularly in the United States, where many worry that China will supplant America as the 21st century's superpower. Many ask how China has grown so much so fast, whether the Communist Party can...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 1, 2012

Hamilton: U.K. has lost sight of the public benefits of higher education

Professor Andrew Hamilton became the first vice chancellor of Oxford never to have been educated at the university when he took the job in 2009. He is English, educated at Exeter University and Cambridge, but for the previous 28 years had lived in America, the last 13 of them at Yale University, as professor...
COMMENTARY
Jan 30, 2012

U.S. claims to be pushing reform of U.N. bodies, but campaign smacks of intrigue, shady politics

The country that has long been known to abuse its powers and privileges in the United Nations is now leading a campaign to reform the same organization. While U.N. reforms are welcomed, if not demanded, by many of its member states, there is little reason to believe the recent U.S. crusade is actually...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 29, 2012

Unconventional thinking is the way forward for Japan

Yubari, Hokkaido, claims several distinctions, few of them enviable. It is Japan's only bankrupt city, and also its most elderly. Forty-one percent of its sagging population of 13,000 (down from 117,000 50 years ago) is aged 65 or over. That's of nationwide significance because within 40 years, Japan,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 28, 2012

Kyoto-based Italian physicist blazes trail for foreign academics

Professor Giuseppe Pezzotti, 51, a materials scientist at Kyoto Institute of Technology, effortlessly switches from a newspaper interview in English to discuss research collaboration with a colleague in fluent Japanese. Even sartorially, he straddles East and West: While his torso is clad in button-down...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 25, 2012

Debunking five myths about Barack Obama

The president is a socialist.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 22, 2012

Fresh light on history books

POSTWAR HISTORY EDUCATION IN JAPAN AND THE GERMANYS: Guilty Lessons, by Julian Dierkes. Routledge, 2010, 224 pp., $130 (paper) The ways in which both Japanese and Germans remember and narrate the history of World War II have generated a vast literature in recent years. School education and textbooks...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 22, 2012

What to call baby?

While clearing closets at my parents' house in Nara in December following my mother's death the month before, I came across a large square card in a pile of old documents. A snapshot of a baby looking at a birthday cake was glued in the center of the card, and I recognized that it was me at the time...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jan 22, 2012

Changing self and systems for a leaner and greener Japan

Year in, year out, it never ceases to amaze me what a difference a day makes.

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake