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LIFE
Jul 22, 2012

Taxi facts and figures to impress your driver

Next time you're in the back seat and tired of watching the meter clock up, use these ice-breakers to get the conversation flowing in your driver's language.
Reader Mail
Jul 22, 2012

Avoid tabloid-style headlines

Regarding the July 15 Kyodo article "Police to grill 300 pupils, parents over boy's suicide": Police to "grill" pupils? Seriously? Are they going to deny them cigarettes and really give them the third degree? Inappropriately dramatic headlines like this always make me visualize gray-haired editors fondly...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 22, 2012

The spirit behind Japanese cohesion

Building Democracy in Japan, by Mary Alice Haddad. Cambridge University Press, 2012, 270 pp., $20.34 (paperback) Mary Haddad seeks to refute those non-Japanese scholars who are dismissive of Japanese democracy because it doesn't measure up to western standards. She argues that they overlook and marginalize...
LIFE
Jul 22, 2012

Talking the talk

Taxi-business jargon is a lingo all of its own. Here's a sample of the way those drivers think:
COMMENTARY
Jul 20, 2012

Overhauling the anachronistic U.N. groupings

Come October, Australia will be competing with Finland and Luxembourg for two of this year's five elected two-year seats on the U.N. Security Council. Why against Finland and Luxembourg and not others also contesting for the total of five seats up for grabs? Well might you ask.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Jul 20, 2012

Special Japanese breakfast in Hakone

The Odakyu Hotel de Yama in the resort area of Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture, is offering an accommodation package that comes with the hotel's special Japanese breakfast, through Aug. 31.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 20, 2012

Just what's so brave about 'Brave'?

"Wall-E" was a brave endeavor. A kids' film where the main character can't speak: That must have been a hard sell, and a risk in itself. But it paid off, creating one of the most emotionally charged films of 2008. "Wall-E" taught a moral lesson about our consumerist behavior; a lesson that transcended...
EDITORIALS
Jul 20, 2012

Eroding the no-war principle

A series of recent events have shed light on the hawkish nature of the administration of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. It is taking one step after another to undermine the no-war principle of the Constitution.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 20, 2012

Property mogul Mori bets $202 million on China

Billionaire Akira Mori, the owner of Japan's most profitable closely held developer, said he has formed a company to invest in China and advise Japanese companies on expanding there.
Reader Mail
Jul 19, 2012

The threshold of responsibility

In his June 25 article, "Irony of being in the company of '12-year- olds," Hiroaki Sato uses dubious rationalizations for Japanese war crimes 70 years after the fact. Sato points out American Gen. Douglas MacArthur's view of Japan as a nation of 12-year-olds, when actually it was Emperor Hirohito who...
Reader Mail
Jul 19, 2012

BBC's Olympics commentary

A word of explanation is owed to foreign observers of the upcoming Olympics in London (July 27 to Aug. 12). During the last Commonwealth Games, some non-Britons were puzzled as to why the BBC often referred to medal winners as "proud Scots" or "proud Welsh" etc., while English winners were always "British."...
COMMENTARY
Jul 19, 2012

Time to dial down Senkakus friction

Japan's ambassador to China warned last month that plans by the Tokyo municipal government to buy islands in the East China Sea claimed by Beijing but administered by Japan could trigger an "extremely grave crisis" between East Asia's two top powers.
COMMENTARY
Jul 19, 2012

Character assassination on the campaign trail

It's getting down and dirty in election land. Last week, President Barack Obama's campaign suggested Mitt Romney might be guilty of a felony for filing misleading papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission (a charge The Washington Post discounted); and Romney's team aired a new ad portraying...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 19, 2012

Fuji Rock embraces Kilimanjaro blend

It may be tough to tell from both acts' music and sense of style, but without the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Saitama funk sextet Mountain Mocha Kilimanjaro would be a very different band.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 19, 2012

Greeen Linez debut revisits Japan's City Pop summer jams of the past

Nostalgia is nothing new in popular music. A disco revival during the 1990s (think Deee-Lite), led to a renewed fascination with the 1980s during the 2000s (think Chromeo and a synth-pop boom) and that decade even started seeing a '90s revival toward the end of it.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 18, 2012

'Picking' a winner in Afghanistan

American debates over the war in Afghanistan tend to focus on how fast we can get our troops home and whether we can work with President Hamid Karzai's government to negotiate a peace deal with the Taliban. But at least as important to whether the country will hold together, and whether a return of the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Jul 18, 2012

Japan's LINE social network could challenge global competitors

LINE is a cross-platform communication service and app, offered for free by Naver, from NHN Japan. The basic functionality allows users to send text messages and to make free calls with other users who have the app installed on their smartphones. The service launched just 13 months ago, on June 27, 2011,...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 18, 2012

Honda, Toyota blunt N. American job losses

Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp.'s North American plants, stalled by parts shortages a year ago, are leading an industrywide assembly surge buoying cities from the Midwest to the Deep South amid a languid U.S. economy.
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Jul 17, 2012

Nakahata's BayStars need results to go with new attitude

After batting practice prior to a game against the Hiroshima Carp, Yokohama BayStars manager Kiyoshi Nakahata walked past a throng of fan club members on his way to the clubhouse.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / INDIA-JAPAN SYMPOSIUM
Jul 17, 2012

Japanese investments to rise despite India's recent slowdown

Japan's business ties with India look set to expand further as the pace of investments by Japanese firms continues to accelerate, despite a recent slowdown of the Indian economy and the country's twin deficits, experts and people involved in bilateral relations said at recent events in Tokyo.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 17, 2012

Should Tepco customers foot bill for nuclear fiasco?

Tokyo Electric Power Co. is desperately trying to raise prices to cover the drastic rise in thermal fuel costs caused by its triple-meltdown disaster at the poorly protected Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
COMMENTARY
Jul 16, 2012

Why 'Burma' should remain the country's name

Myanmar's electoral commission has told opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to stop calling the country Burma and instead call it Myanmar, its official name.
EDITORIALS
Jul 15, 2012

Alternatives by Mr. Ozawa

Former Democratic Party of Japan chief Ichiro Ozawa, who bolted the DPJ to protest against Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's plan to eventually double the consumption tax rate from the current 5 percent to 10 percent from October 2015, inaugurated a new party on July 11 together with 36 other Lower House...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 15, 2012

On the trail of treasures at Kyoto's Toji Temple

The man unfurled the scroll and hung it on the wall of the makeshift tent to reveal a majestic mountain soaring to the heights in bold black brush strokes. It was a scene showing nature in all its grandeur dwarfing a lone human figure halfway up the mountain.
OLYMPICS
Jul 15, 2012

Speculation increases on who will light flame

There's plenty of speculation and anticipation about who will light the Olympic flame on July 25 at the London Games Opening Ceremony.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jul 14, 2012

The fear of phobias

A peek at "The Phobia List," a webpage cataloging the accrued fears of our mighty human race, finds a list of over 500 documented phobias.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 13, 2012

High price of the most gorgeous show in town

Note to self: Never be a young woman in Japan. It's just too harrowing.

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?