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CULTURE / Books
Jan 11, 2009

Learning life lessons in 83 days of death

A 35-year-old-man lies unconscious in a University of Tokyo Hospital intensive-care unit. He has been irradiated. Losing up to 20 liters of body fluids per day, the skin on half of his body is blackened, blistered, and falling off, his internal organs have failed, he is being kept alive by machines....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 6, 2009

Otaru ruling beats 'mob rule'

Paul de Vries' treatise on group accountability in Japanese society ("Back to the baths: Otaru revisited," Zeit Gist, Dec. 2) offered a new take on the now familiar story of the court case between Japan's naturalized enfant terrible, Debito Arudou, and the managers of the Yunohana public bath in Otaru,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jan 6, 2009

Academic career in Japan served as vital lesson in culture, says dean

Bruce Stronach, current dean of the Japan campus of Temple University, has a career in academia that spans two countries and over three decades. Sixteen of those years were spent with schools in Japan and have taught him much about Japanese society.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 1, 2009

Words as images

On a single white sheet, the kanji for "snow" — yuki — printed in black, is repeated exactly 1,352 times in a symmetrical grid formation. A 1970 work by Niikuni Seiichi, "flowery snow" (1970) is at once calligraphy, poem and picture. In the Chinese literati tradition — which was influential on...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2008

Deng legacy after 30 years

SINGAPORE — The approaching close of 2008 should remind us of the day 30 years ago that marked the onset of a chain of events that was to alter the course of Asian — and human — history.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2008

Will Europe rise to the Obama opportunity?

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Will 2009 and the beginning of Barack Obama's U.S. presidency mark the beginning of a new era in trans-Atlantic relations, or will the old divisions linger, nurtured by the depth and gravity of the economic crisis? Will the crisis lead to nationalistic and selfish attitudes on both...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 26, 2008

A turbulent 12 months

Like pretty much everything these days, the fortunes of the music business in 2008 were mainly tied to the global economy. CD sales have long been dropping steadily, mostly due to the steady increase in illegal downloading, but until this year, top artists could still count on fairly decent sales, and...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 26, 2008

Kicking back in Kurohime

A school friend of mine did his in Nagoya. An American I met the other day did hers somewhere in Kyushu. I was sent to central Hokkaido, where I did my one-month home stay in a tiny town called Otofukecho. I occasionally check the map to make sure it's still there. But, I have to admit, I've never been...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 18, 2008

The subcontinent shows its heart

Over the last decade or so, India has gone through unprecedented change, from largely missing out on the advances of the 20th century to rapidly becoming a leader of those in the 21st. But while the fragmented media coverage of the country hails its successful IT and biotechnology industries, it also...
BUSINESS
Dec 14, 2008

Global turmoil trumps trio's gripes

FUKUOKA — The global economic slump transcended historical and territorial rows in East Asia as Japan, China and South Korea met Saturday for their first trilateral summit and discussed ways to fight the financial meltdown.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Dec 11, 2008

Mao faces big challenge from Kim at star-studded Grand Prix Final

Mao Asada silenced her critics — at least temporarily — with her decisive victory in the NHK Trophy on Nov. 29.
COMMENTARY
Dec 5, 2008

Dissing those who give Dalai Lama an ear

HONG KONG — The decision by China to cancel, or at least postpone, a summit meeting with the European Union scheduled this week in Lyon, France, is unprecedented and shows the extent of its unhappiness with the Europeans in general and with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, in particular.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 2, 2008

End the violence against women and girls

NEW YORK — The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women was commemorated Nov. 25, and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is spearheading a global campaign, "UNiTE to end violence against women."
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Dec 1, 2008

Aso reveals more than wealth gap with kanji-reading blunders

So now we know. Aso the "manga" man cannot read Japanese. At least not when it is written in kanji. The newspapers have been full of revelations these past few weeks about Prime Minister Taro Aso's slipups in the art of kanji deciphering.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 30, 2008

Drawing new life out of an old story

RED COLORED ELEGY by Seiichi Hayashi, translated by Taro Nettleton. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 235 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Here's a rough synopsis of the plot of Seiichi Hayashi's "Red Colored Elegy": A young couple, committed to their art, struggle to keep themselves, their art, and their love alive....
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Nov 28, 2008

Where to view Christmas lights in and around Tokyo

It's that time of year again when the streets are filled with red and green decorations bathed in colorful illuminations. Department stores and other shops have prepared events for holiday shoppers, and it seems like the city is throbbing with excitement for the Christmas season. Here are some terrific...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 25, 2008

Room for Asian influence in G20 structure

SINGAPORE — Finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of 20 advanced and emerging economies have been meeting regularly for nearly a decade. But the decision to convene a summit of the G20 heads of government in Washington the weekend of Nov. 15 marked an important turning point in...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 24, 2008

Connecting the solutions while there's time

WASHINGTON — The world does not need to be reminded of the urgency of this historical moment. We sense it every day in the news. One day a major bank, insurance company, or automaker announces a record loss. The next brings word of the impact on nations and peoples least able to cope with these blows...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 23, 2008

Judging Japanese architecture as the epitome of environmental art

"We sense the natural in things that form a happy link with their surroundings. . . . A natural architecture is architecture that creates this propitious connection."
Reader Mail
Nov 9, 2008

More of the same talking points

Regarding the Nov. 4 article "Axed ASDF chief hawk till the end; no apology": For those who have yet to read the entire essay written by former Air Self-Defense Force chief Gen. Toshio Tamogami, I wouldn't bother. With one exception, there are no new revelations. It seems Tamogami merely took the overused...
EDITORIALS
Nov 8, 2008

Boost civilian control of SDF

The Tokyo District Court on Wednesday sentenced former Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya, who served as the Self-Defense Forces' top nonuniformed official from August 2003 through August 2007, to 2 1/2 years in prison for taking bribes worth some ¥12.5 million and ordered him to pay the same amount...
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Nov 4, 2008

Asa out again — but the show goes on

Intentional or not, Asashoryu has done it again. In the run-up to the Kyushu Basho, he has stolen the spotlight.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
Oct 30, 2008

Hara makes right call with Giants

Yomiuri Giants manager Tatsunori Hara cried last season after the Chunichi Dragons sent his team into a long offseason with a 3-0 sweep in the second stage of the Central League Climax Series.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Oct 25, 2008

The melting pot of 2008

Today's fun fact is that 2008 marks the 100th year since the coining of the term "melting pot" to describe the multiethnic stew that then comprised the American populace. "Then" refers to the years when immigrants flooded over the ocean in a great global warming of the pursuit of opportunity.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Oct 19, 2008

Hear yea: 'This country is rotten!'

Barack Obama hasn't yet lived long enough to win the United States presidency; he has, however, influenced Japanese comedy television, where, true to his mantra — or perhaps because of it — "change we can believe in" has already occurred.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Oct 18, 2008

Full steam ahead for England as Capello pushes all the right buttons

LONDON — For £6 million a year success should be almost guaranteed, but football does not always work like that. However, at the moment Fabio Capello's salary is looking a bargain because on Planet Football managers and players can earn vastly inflated salaries as long as the team is winning.
COMMENTARY
Oct 8, 2008

The truth comes too late

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was well aware that he resembled the generals who join a peace movement as soon as they retire. "I have not come here to justify my actions over the past 35 years," he said. "For a large portion of that period, I was unwilling to look reality in the eye."
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Oct 8, 2008

Murakami case shows JSF short on skater support

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.''

Longform

An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow it