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CULTURE / Books
Oct 21, 2007

Sun Piao: Shanghai's answer to Dirty Harry

Citizen One by Andy Oakes. London: Dedalus, 2007, 434 pp., £9.99 (paper) Innocent young women are being horribly tortured and murdered. Next to die are the cops who investigate. Only someone with tremendous power and influence can kill with such impunity.
EDITORIALS
Oct 19, 2007

Confidentiality of a murderous motive

Public prosecutors have arrested a Kyoto psychiatrist on suspicion of leaking secret investigative materials to a journalist on a 17-year-old boy who was tried in family court in connection with a fire that killed his stepmother and two siblings. The freelance journalist later published a book using...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 18, 2007

A film director in the theater

Daisuke Tengan is an acclaimed filmmaker, but search for him on the Internet and the first thing you'll discover is that he's the son of director Shohei Imamura, who won the Palme d' Or at the Cannes Film Festival for "Narayamabushiko" in 1983 and "Unagi" in 1997.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Oct 17, 2007

Individual variations and a sense of identity

I have recently returned to Japan from five astonishing weeks in the neotropics. Exploring and observing the riches of Brazil's Atlantic rain forest and Pantanal (the world's biggest wetland area) has left me overwhelmed by their biodiversity.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Oct 16, 2007

No-tell love hotels cash in catering to the carnal

In any town bigger than a hamlet, you are sure to find a patch of gaudy hotels styled after rococo palaces, Grecian temples, even rocket ships. Some sport a miniature Statue of Liberty on the roof, others lurid neon signs.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 16, 2007

The faces behind the numbers: A day feeding Tokyo's hungry

Last in a two-part series O n a typical Saturday evening, I stroll around the bustling streets of Shibuya with my friends, dressed up, heels clicking, ready to hit a couple of trendy shops. The chilly breeze puffs up the hairs on my arms and I shudder — winter is approaching. We chat about school,...
Reader Mail
Oct 14, 2007

Tired myth of uniqueness

In her Oct. 7 book review of Alan Macfarlane's "Japan Through the Looking Glass," Mariko Kato writes "It is fully known that Japan -- despite being the world's second-largest economy and a hyperproductive civilization -- is utterly different from the West."
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 14, 2007

Nagai Kafu's geisha: expurgated, revised, then finally fully exposed

Rivalry: A Geisha's Tale, translated by Stephen Snyder. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007, 166 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Komayo, widowed young, resumes her life as a geisha, taking up with a former patron who wants to redeem her. She, however, falls in love with a young actor specializing in female...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Oct 12, 2007

Britain is finally waking up to the unmistakable smell of sake

I recently returned from Britain, where I took part in some events sponsored by the Japan Central Brewers' Association and the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation. I was impressed by the quality and the sheer variety of sake offered by Japanese brewers and enthusiastic local distributors such as Tazaki Foods....
JAPAN
Oct 11, 2007

Osaka mayor expected to prevail despite policy, financial snafus

OSAKA — Osaka Mayor Junichi Seki is expected to be re-elected when voters go to the polls Nov. 18, despite public anger over the city's problematic assimilation assistance policy for descendants of the feudal outcast class, failing public works projects and a lack of appeal among his peers, even in...
COMMENTARY
Oct 11, 2007

'Silly summit' produced serious results

LOS ANGELES — It sure opened up as one big oddball of a summit.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 7, 2007

Stepping into the alternate world of Japan

JAPAN THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: Shaman to Shinto, by Alan Macfarlane. Profile Books Ltd., 2007, 256 pp., £16.99 (cloth) Reviewed by MARIKO KATO "In many ways I was like Alice, that very assured and middle-class English girl, when she walked through the looking glass."
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 5, 2007

Believers make good rebels

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, New York — It has become fashionable in certain smart circles to regard atheism as a sign of superior education, of a more highly evolved civilization, of enlightenment.
BUSINESS
Oct 4, 2007

DHL calls for change of views

Asked to name the largest German employers in Japan, names most likely to come to mind would be car makers, auto parts manufacturers, or pharmaceutical giants. The second-largest is, in fact, DHL, the world's leading international express and logistics company. In Japan, DHL aims to continue its double-digit...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2007

Heading for a French Sixth Republic?

PARIS — Nearly 50 years after the creation of the Fifth Republic by Gen. Charles de Gaulle, French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to change France's fundamental institutions. An expert council will send him its proposals by Nov. 1.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 1, 2007

'Doing something' may pose perils during a credit crunch

PRINCETON, New Jersey — Every financial crisis is inherently unknowable — before it occurs, and as it occurs. By contrast, we understand past crises very well. Accountants go over the books, the participants tell their tales to the newspapers (or sometimes before a judge), politicians explain why...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 1, 2007

Holding hands within the limits of decency

MADRAS, India — The perception of sex and morality is once again creating problems in India.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 30, 2007

The Murakami addiction

Murakami Haruki: The Simulacrum in Contemporary Japanese Culture, by Michael R. Seats, 2006, 384 pp., $70 (cloth) Haruki Murakami's novels have much in common with potato chips. Both are often addictive and both are often ultimately unsatisfying. Yet one can't help but buy another bag of chips at the...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 30, 2007

Beyond darkness: sleepless in Tokyo

After Dark by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin. Knopf, 2007, 208 pp., $22.95 (cloth) If New York is the city that never sleeps, Tokyo is the city of sleepless souls — or so it appears in the cinematic narrative of "After Dark," among the most hauntingly detached of Haruki Murakami's nine novels...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 30, 2007

Sophistication from improvisation

Kitano Takeshi. London: British Film Institute, 2007, 272 pp., with photos. £16.99 (paper) This is a brilliant book on a mercurial subject. Takeshi Kitano is an actor and film director, ubiquitous on television as well, who has become a media event. His persona has splintered and he stands Janus-faced...
COMMENTARY
Sep 28, 2007

The politics of assassination

LONDON — The assassination of Lebanese politician Antoine Ghanem on Sept. 19 is likely to be used, predictably, to further U.S. and Israeli interests in the region. Most Western and some Arab media have argued that Syria is the greatest beneficiary from the death of Ghanem, a member of the Phalange...
Japan Times
CULTURE / OTAKOOL
Sep 27, 2007

Akihabara's awful truths

While the Establishment packages Electric Town as a mecca for manga and anime obsessives, and a magnet for camera- toting tourists, the reality differs: 'Akiba' is alienating the geeks who once made it great
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 27, 2007

Why do performing arts have a 'dead-end feeling' in Japan?

Tarahumara is a mysterious area deep in Mexico's Sierra Madre mountains. Dancer Hiroshi Koike chose the enigmatic name for the dance-drama company he founded in 1982 because he aimed to create beautiful performances that transcend genre.
COMMENTARY
Sep 25, 2007

Ugly truth of antiwar lefties

NEW YORK — Although its appearance in The Nation guaranteed it would receive scant notice, a July 30 essay by Alexander Cockburn was one of the first to seriously address the most troubling internal contradiction of the anti-Iraq War left. War, everyone knows, is a zero-sum game. For one side to win,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Sep 23, 2007

Cellphone bards hit bestseller lists

Like many other young Japanese, Rin, 21, punches her mobile phone keys very quickly. Holding her phone with two hands, and moving her thumbs deftly and smoothly, she quickly generates sentences on the small screen.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Sep 23, 2007

Japanese: A language in a state of flux

Languages are never static. They change and evolve with people over time. They also interact with other languages, and through an endless cycle of loaning and borrowing of words, ideas and concepts are shared, exchanged and nurtured across national and cultural boundaries.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 20, 2007

Worldwide bubble trouble

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut — The future of the housing boom, and the possible financial repercussions of a substantial price decline in coming years, are a matter of mounting concern among governments around the world.
JAPAN
Sep 20, 2007

Ishihara's new right-hand man settles in

All eyes were on Naoki Inose as his new career as a politician got into full swing Wednesday with the opening of the first session of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly.
COMMENTARY
Sep 20, 2007

Another Japanese prime minister falls

LOS ANGELES — Japan is of gigantic importance to the United States and to the world. This nation — of 127 million people squeezed into one relatively small island — developed into the second-largest economy in the world.
Reader Mail
Sep 19, 2007

Statistical generalizations miss

I feel that author Agnes Chan shows very limited knowledge about India. In her Sept. 6 article, she makes sweeping statements such as: "Fifty-four percent of Bombay's 16 million residents live in the slums. Only 25 percent live in what would pass in developed countries as apartments and houses."

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