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CULTURE / Art
Apr 29, 2011

ArtGig offers 'Dirty, dirty! Sex, sex!' — for free

When curator Shai Ohayon says he's organizing 12 hours of "dirty, dirty, sex, sex" in Shinjuku, he's not making a sordid offer.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Apr 24, 2011

Gaming Moto Azabu

Rather than dwell on the dark side of life at this time, I decide to get my game on by heading to a store just off Azabu-Juban's main shopping street in central Tokyo's Minato Ward. Max Game, at the foot of Kurayamizaka (Dark Slope), is surrounded by kids of all ages sitting at tables, strategizing and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 15, 2011

There are oppositions that attract

Japan's limited progress at Tohoku's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant after damage from the Great Eastern Japan earthquake and tsunami makes the March opening of this Taro Okamoto exhibition seem apocalyptic. Okamoto's unique avant-garde style was deeply influenced by the West. He found contradictions...
EDITORIALS
Apr 10, 2011

To 'hanami' or not hanami

As the annual hanami season arrives in the Japanese archipelago, cherry-blossom lovers are wondering whether they should go out and enjoy them. After the devastation of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in the Tohoku-Pacific region, many have suggested that this year's hanami parties should be prohibited....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 8, 2011

'Mama Bush' puts black women in a powerful light

Based in New York, Mickalene Thomas is known for mixed-media paintings, photographic collages and videos that explore representations of beauty in art history and pop culture through images of African-American women.
JAPAN
Mar 29, 2011

Season of special poignancy

The cherry trees will soon blossom in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 26, 2011

Canadian writer draws on creators' support for Tohoku

News stories around the world reveal a deluge of incomprehensible sameness, the debris of aggregate destruction overshadowing an area known for its rugged beauty and strong individuals.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 25, 2011

The high altitudes of airplane aesthetics

Aeronautical science has always been a hotbed of innovative technology. Changes in human society, such as improved global networking and an increase in travelers has meant that aircraft design has always been dynamic, improving to meet passengers' military and others' expectations and demands.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 6, 2011

Ailing Japan Inc. must combine tradition with a new world view

One of the clearest memories I have of my Los Angeles childhood revolves around a car. By the early 1950s, my parents had managed to eke their way into the middle class; and for Los Angelenos, nothing signified that social status more than the automobile. For my dad, the symbol of this par excellence...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 5, 2011

Less is more for Japan travel buff

Harry Cheng, a globe-trotter who travels about 320,000 km a year, believes a simple list of names is enough to stir people's interest in scenes they haven't seen before. With this belief, he will soon launch a unique travel guide dedicated to recording travel experiences in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 4, 2011

Tadasu Takamine shocks us, yet again

In their endless efforts to make us see things in new ways and generally mess with our minds, contemporary conceptual artists such as Tadasu Takamine may often do more to distort their own view of the world than change the way the wider public sees it. This would explain why, in 2004, Takamine attempted...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 30, 2011

Murin-an Garden: an ode to water

Surprisingly, as modernization swept through Japan in the Meiji Era (1868-1912), the number of traditional gardens increased. The clients, though, were now of a different order. Instead of the shoguns, their court aristocracy and feudal lords, the new patrons of these meticulously crafted sites of reflection,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jan 30, 2011

Japan's nail-art pioneer recalls the early years

Sachiko Nakasone, Japan's pioneer nail technician and principal of NSJ Nail Academy in Tokyo, first recalls seeing signs for nail salons in 1972 when she visited Long Beach, California, as a hair stylist with a Japanese advertising agency.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jan 9, 2011

The narrow roads of Senju

In the frantic yearend season known as shiwasu (lit. "teachers running"), when even dignified people grow harried, a friend invited me to play hooky from the madness and take a ramble together around her Tokyo neighborhood. Since the gift of time together is a great one, I hopped the next train to Senju...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 31, 2010

2010 top movies: Japan feels a crazy little thing called love

This was the year of love in Japan. Not that there was a sudden rise in the marriage rate (ain't happening), but you could sense a certain savviness about love-related issues that wasn't present before.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 19, 2010

Final word on the year's best reading

A tale of love, murder, intrigue, and cultural identity, Mitchell takes the form of the historical novel and worries it like a chew-toy. Yet, rather than destroy the genre, he embellishes it, heaps poetry onto research, gazing with a precise and incisive eye back into the past. This is Nagasaki, the...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 11, 2010

Aging naturally and gracefully

The current Visit Japan campaign, where the government hopes to hit 10 million foreign visitors by the end of 2010, should be courting the American baby boomers — 78 million people between the ages of 50 and 70. We could call it the Visit Aging Japan Campaign.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Nov 21, 2010

The explosion of life: uprising

First of two parts
COMMUNITY
Nov 20, 2010

A modern-day alchemist melds senses of sight, smell

On the back of Maurice Joosten's business card, a silvered phrase floats across the otherwise blank expanse: "Solve et Coagula" ("Dissolve and Unite"). For Joosten, 48, this ancient dictum of alchemy provides a motto linking his work as an artist, aroma designer and yoga instructor.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 19, 2010

The man who popularized the Edo pleasure district

The Yoshiwara pleasure district of Edo (old Tokyo) has often been immortalized in word and image for the exquisite carnal pleasures it offered.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 19, 2010

Rethinking traditional urushi lacquerware

London, it appears, is a good place to learn about both past and present Japan. Last year, as Britain celebrated 150 years of cultural exchange with Japan, it hosted a number of major shows, including a large-scale matsuri (festival) in Spitalfields Market, a comprehensive exhibition of Utagawa Kuniyoshi...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 29, 2010

'Raiou (The Lightning Tree)'

When Ryuichi Hiroki had a big hit last year with "Yomei 1-kagetsu no Hanayome (April Bride)," a drama about a young woman's struggle with terminal breast cancer, I was glad for him. In a directing career of two decades, he had never enjoyed this sort of commercial success and, unlike the hacks who serve...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 15, 2010

'Cheri (Watashi no Kawaii Hito Cheri)'

"After 40, a woman doesn't need a lover so much as a good PR agent." That would be a great quote for the mythos surrounding Cleopatra, the global metaphor for ageless beauty of the past three millenniums. Besides her hefty cache of personal charms, she knew the value of self-promotion — you can't just...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Oct 14, 2010

Fashion retailer Choichiro Motoyama

Choichiro Motoyama, 89, is a pioneering Japanese retailer who has brought some of the most famous European fashion brands to the Far East. In the 1960s, he was the first to import Gucci, Hermes, Loewe, Ferragamo, and then later Etro, to Japan. Through constant study and travels, Motoyama developed an...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 1, 2010

'Nanase Futatabi: The Movie (Nanase Again)'

Some genres of Japanese movies are hard to "place" for Westerners, since they have no precise Hollywood equivalent. The ero guro (erotic and grotesque) genre, for example, is often lumped into the horror category by overseas festivals and DVD distributors, but the films are usually less about jack-in-the-box...
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 12, 2010

Aging through the ages

"If only, when one heard That Old Age was coming One could bolt the door Answer 'not at home' And refuse to meet him!" (Anonymous, "Kokinshu" Imperial poetry anthology, 10th century)
COMMENTARY
Sep 6, 2010

The Australian 'distance'

"Beauty of Distance" is the title of this year's Sydney Biennale of modern arts. The title is obviously an echo and ironic association with the famous book written about Australia titled "Tyranny of Distance," which depicted the dilemma of Australia associating mentally with Europe (England) yet being...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 3, 2010

Contemporary ceramics update the tea ceremony

The Way of Tea has for centuries been a cornerstone of Japanese culture and aesthetic beauty. An old Japanese proverb states: "If a man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty."

Longform

Eme-Ima Kitchen is one of over 10,000 kodomo shokudō in Japan. A term first used in 2012 to describe makeshift eateries offering free or cheap meals to disadvantaged kids, it now refers to a diverse range of individuals, groups and organizations working to provide not only food but a sense of belonging to both children and adults.
Japan’s ‘children’s cafeterias’ are booming — but is that a good thing?