Search - long form

 
 
COMMENTARY
Apr 28, 2010

U.K. overdoses on change

British politics has been turned upside down by recent events. The traditional two-party battle between Labour and Conservatives has been thrown into confusion by a big surge in support for a third party, the Liberal Democrats. The likely result could be a "hung parliament," with the Conservatives being...
JAPAN
Apr 23, 2010

Tokunoshima is a risky gambit

TOKUNOSHIMA, Kagoshima Pref. — When Tokunoshima, an island with about 26,000 residents officially governed by Kagoshima Prefecture but counted as part of the Satsunan Islands that lie closer to Okinawa than Kyushu, first emerged as a candidate host for U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, local reaction...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Apr 19, 2010

Playing ends off the middle

Komeito, the third largest political party in Japan, is striving not to antagonize but to be friends with as many rival groups as possible in a determined bid to win in the Upper House election scheduled for this summer. The principal reason for pursuing this tactic, which has been described by some...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 18, 2010

Artist and architect rethink the condo

Drab, repetitive, formulaic, plain: some of the more polite adjectives that might be applied to most condominium design in Japan.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Apr 17, 2010

Stakes high for Manchester derby

LONDON — When Manchester United beat Manchester City to the £30.75 million signing of Dimitar Berbatov from Tottenham two years ago, Reds fans were delighted they had pipped their wealthy rivals to the signature of such a talented striker.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Apr 16, 2010

Rowsom's role in Oita's turnaround worthy of honors

Brian Rowsom deserves to be on the short list of candidates for the bj-league's coach of the year honors.
JAPAN / POSTAL REFORM ROLLBACK
Apr 15, 2010

Reversal on deposit limit a major gamble for DPJ

The Cabinet's recent decision to accept a plan to double the ceiling on postal savings accounts to ¥20 million, as proposed by postal reform minister Shizuka Kamei, marks a drastic policy shift for the Democratic Party of Japan, which in the past argued the maximum should be halved from the current...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 9, 2010

Up from the underground: Womb turns 10

Since opening its doors in April 2000 with a live set from New York house legend Junior Vasquez, Tokyo's club Womb has been credited with doing more than other local venues to bring dance-music culture into the mainstream.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2010

The rising stars can walk proudly with giants

PARIS — In the aftermath of the G20 Pittsburgh Summit last year, European and American officials insisted that G20 membership was imposing "new responsibilities." They invited policymakers from the emerging giants to become more involved in designing a new global economic framework — implicitly suggesting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 2, 2010

'District 9'

In the immortal words of fictional rock stars Spinal Tap, it's such a fine line between stupid and clever. Further proof of this dictum comes this month from sci-fi flick "District 9," a South-African production featuring the talents of New Zealand's WETA digital effects studio and produced by Peter...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 29, 2010

India's budget boldly exempts toy balloons from excise duty

HONG KONG — Which country is growing at close to 8 percent a year but has the potential for double digit-growth, is already in the world's top 10 industrial powers but should be in the top three or four, has the best demographic profile of almost all developing countries but faces immense social and...
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 28, 2010

Death of Yeats end of Irish literary revival, says Pound, Noh enthusiast

June 5, 1939
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 26, 2010

Chronicling a collection

Last fall, Tokyo's Museum of Contemporary Art (MOT) quietly launched a series of exhibitions seeking new interpretive approaches to the institution's permanent collection of modern and contemporary art. Tucked away in a modest group of second-floor galleries, the first exhibition in the series, "Chronicle...
Japan Times
SOCCER / SOCCER SCENE
Mar 25, 2010

Honda breathes life into Japan's World Cup aspirations

When Keisuke Honda arrived at Narita airport late last month for Japan's Asian Cup qualifier against Bahrain, he insisted he was "no savior" for a national team that had seriously lost its way. But with every impressive performance he gives, the 23-year-old is finding it harder to get people to listen....
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / 2010 CENTRAL LEAGUE PREVIEW
Mar 25, 2010

Dragons ready to rain fire on rivals

The following is the second of a two-part preview for the upcoming Nippon Professional Baseball season. Team-by-team previews of the six Central League clubs are listed in order of predicted finish.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 23, 2010

Higher education: opening up or closing in?

First in a two-part series
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 19, 2010

Le Dessin: Designs for both palate and palette

It was one of those hot tips that come our way from time to time. This one, though, was delivered with a caveat: "A fantastic little French place, as good as any in town for the price; but the location's so obscure no one knows about it. It's called Le Dessin."
CULTURE / Books
Mar 14, 2010

Untamed past taken by the tail

Jid Lee, now a professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University, begins this memoir with the tale of the killing of her great-great-great-great- great-great grandmother by a tiger. A Buddhist monk predicted the death, saying it would bring rewards to her descendants. Her "sacrifice" is the touchstone...
COMMENTARY
Mar 13, 2010

Dim future for bluefin tuna

Everybody in the business knows that the Atlantic population of bluefin tuna is in worse trouble than the Pacific population, but how much worse?
COMMENTARY
Mar 8, 2010

New device apt to kindle greater interest in reading

The first thing that catches your eye when you open the yousho (imported books) section of Amazon Japan's home page is an advertisement for the Kindle DX Wireless Reading Device. The Kindle DX ad, which first appeared last summer, claims that a reader can perform a wireless download of any of more than...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 7, 2010

Way down south in Hateruma

In 1965, a Dutch anthropologist named Cornelius Ouwehand sailed with his Japanese wife, Shizuko, to the remote island of Hateruma to undertake research. The series of monochrome images they took of daily life, work and ritual there were eventually published under the simple title "Hateruma."
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Mar 3, 2010

Cowon puts sound before vision; Nikon camera zooms ahead

Sound choice: Korean maker Cowon is known for portable media players that have exemplary audio reproduction. Its V5HD, which is due to hit the Japanese market on March 5, follows the formula. It employs Cowon's new JetEffect 3.0 technology, which is intended to maximize the sound performance by offering...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 24, 2010

Confucius says reading on will help your Japanese

I remember the first kanji I ever wrote. In fact, I still have them — a Chinese aphorism roughly equivalent to "seeing is believing." In 1964, I awkwardly copied them out of a book on linguistics from my high school library in North Carolina. I was about to turn 17 and could not possibly have imagined...

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.