Search - culture

 
 
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Apr 8, 2017

Disputatious legacies: examining the historic ties that bind Okinawa and China

Commenting on the pervasiveness of his own culture while on a trip to Indonesia, the Nobel Prize-winning poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote, "I see India everywhere." A traveler to Okinawa today from continental Asia, might well say, "I see China everywhere."
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 30, 2015

Reappearance of old faces on Toshiba board questions commitment to reform

Scandal-hit Toshiba Corp. appointed new board members at an extraordinary shareholders meeting, vowing to improve its corporate culture and governance.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Aug 19, 2013

The world's a stage, but you don't have to play along

On the night of April 18, three days after the Boston Marathon bombing, a side-drama to that story unfolded between three men as they criss-crossed the city, a performance staged partly in the theater of culture.
Japan Times
LIFE / CULTURE SMASH
Mar 13, 2013

The online anime revolution has finally ignited in Japan

The first question after a panel I once chaired at an anime convention in the United States sounded innocent enough. "So, what do you guys think about Crunchyroll?"
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 19, 2012

Outsider of sorts champions his, Okinawa's cultural roots

When observing the history of Okinawa, one can't ignore the fact that since before World War II it has produced more emigrants than any other prefecture except Hiroshima.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 26, 2012

Witnessing China's new cultural revolution

Chinese culture is on the long, slow rebound. Back in 1989, the Chinese government was shocked by the sudden appearance in Tiananmen Square of an icon of Western culture. This was a ten-meter-tall statue created by protesting students that was modeled on the Statue of Liberty, and called the "Goddess...
CULTURE / Art
Jan 26, 2012

Witnessing China's new cultural revolution

Chinese culture is on the long, slow rebound. Back in 1989, the Chinese government was shocked by the sudden appearance in Tiananmen Square of an icon of Western culture. This was a ten-meter-tall statue created by protesting students that was modeled on the Statue of Liberty, and called the "Goddess...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 11, 2011

Japanese artistry, by design, melds time and space into all its creations

Among the greatest of Japan's gifts to the world is surely the gift of design.
COMMENTARY
Mar 10, 2009

Toward a globalized Asia

As a result of globalization, intellectual frameworks and paradigms for forming cultural policies are shifting, especially regarding cultural activity in international contexts.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Mar 4, 2009

AltJapan

Author and translator Matt Alt runs AltJapan, an entertaining and informative blog launched in 2006. Calling it a "digital scratchpad," the Maryland native writes about a wide variety of Japan-related subjects, ranging from the role of Lolita girls in military simulations to the majesty of Japan's toy...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 2, 2008

Soft power is key to Japan reshaping its identity abroad

In February this year, a Japanese university student scribbled her name and that of her college on the walls of Florence's Duomo. The following month, the university received complaints from Japanese travelers embarrassed to find Japanese graffiti on a World Heritage Site. In June, after another Japanese...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 29, 2007

Not all nonsense is silly

Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times, by Miriam Silverberg. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007, 370 pp., with many illustrations $49.95 (cloth) From the late 1920s on, the impact of the modern on traditional Japan had become so noticeable that some new terminology...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 19, 2007

Music busts myth of monocultural Japan

On the 30-odd subtropical isles of the Ogasawara Island chain that lie sparkling in the South Pacific, some 1,000 km south of Tokyo, there exists a unique music and dance form classified as an Intangible Cultural Property of the capital. Historians have traced the evolution of this performing art to...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 10, 2004

Nothing fishy going on here

TSUKIJI: The Fish Market at the Center of the World, by Theodore C. Bestor. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2004. 411 pp., $24.95 (cloth). A superb study about the people, pandemonium and relationships that define the Tsukiji fish marketplace, Theodore C. Bestor's "Tsukiji" is enriched by more than...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 1999

Russia's Jewish homeland: a Stalinist experiment in social engineering lingers on

BIROBIDZHAN, RUSSIA -- Mikhail Kul was a soldier in the Soviet Army that helped defeat Germany in 1945, but he returned home to find that the Holocaust had emptied his Ukrainian village of most of its inhabitants.
Japan Times
PODCAST / deep dive
Apr 5, 2023

What should you expect when you land a job in Japan?

What is it like to work in Japan? With the number of foreign residents slowly rising, we take a look at what they might be in for when it comes to the country’s corporate culture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 8, 2023

‘A Kamigata Anthology’: Everyday enjoyments of everyday people

The collection chronicles the rise of the “commoner arts' through genres like travelogs, poetry and easy-reading books that entertained the masses during the Edo Period (1603-1867).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / Longform
Feb 13, 2023

Museums in Japan adjust to life after COVID-19

The country’s cultural spaces are looking to rethink their role in society as they face an uncertain future due to increased competition and an aging population.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Nov 27, 2022

The secret ingredient of America's trendiest bars: Japan

There may be no definition better than Japan's indelible cocktail culture other than this: You know it when you see it — and taste it.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Feb 1, 2020

Back to the future: The world celebrates the 50th anniversary of Doraemon

As the blue robot cat turns 50, we examine the past, present and future of a Japanese icon.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Dec 21, 2019

Jomon revival: Interest in Japan's indigenous hunter-gathers grows

From his hilltop studio in the suburbs of Tokyo, Taku Oshima is reviving an ancient form of body art tradition he believes was practiced by the indigenous hunter-gatherers that inhabited Japan thousands of years ago.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Nov 23, 2019

Fancy footwork: Japan's break dancers lay the groundwork for possible Olympic glory

Roars cascaded throughout the Salle Bellegrave's bleachers in the French city of Bordeaux earlier this month, filling the event space and reverberating into the virtual realm of shared (and reshared) stories on Instagram.
Japan Times
Events
Mar 16, 2019

Irish eyes are smiling in Japan

The first ever St. Patrick's Day parade in Tokyo made history for a number of reasons — least of all for the fact that it was the first such parade in Asia, and it unfolded on a sidewalk in Roppongi.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Oct 20, 2018

Japonismes 2018 seeks to break down cultural stereotypes

A stupendous full autumn moon, bright orange and fat, flashes intermittently between the nondescript high-rise flats and offices on the drive to Charles de Gaulle Airport. It's an apt and beautiful reminder of one of the events that we, a group of Tokyo-based editors and writers, were invited to see...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 8, 2017

Living doll: Licca-chan's legacy lives on

As Takaratomy's popular toy celebrates its 50th birthday, we examine how it has evolved over the past five decades to reflect the times.
Japan Times
JAPAN / WORLD FORUM ON SPORT AND CULTURE
Oct 19, 2016

Global events serve to deepen ties

The World Forum on Sport and Culture has opened.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 4, 2016

Reconnecting Japan's ancient cultural hub

"When I visited Todaiji Temple in Nara, just after I arrived as a Chinese student in Japan about 30 years ago, I felt somehow nostalgic as it had an atmosphere of old China," says Cai Guo-Qiang, as he explains his work for Culture City of East Asia 2016, Nara, a cultural project that launched in March....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Oct 1, 2014

Readers' letters: Ian Thorpe, the Yushukan, racism, teaching English, tipping and sunlight

Some emails received in response to recent Community articles.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 18, 2014

A rational conversation on whaling

On both sides of the Japanese whaling debate, there is a pressing need for critical reflection on the logic used and the realities presumed.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?