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COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jun 27, 2005

Shining a light on Turkish-Japanese ties

NEW YORK -- Selcuk Esenbel was in town. For many years now a professor of history at Bogazici University, Istanbul, Selcuk was, when I met her more than 30 years ago, studying Japanese history at Columbia University. The fruit of that study is her 1998 tome, which she gave me during her previous visit...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 26, 2005

Opportunities go begging as the blind follow dissembling blind

Japan and Australia are natural partners.
JAPAN
Jun 26, 2005

State, religion must not mix if Japan is to shed negative prewar legacies

Prime ministers must not visit Yasukuni Shrine if the constitutional principle of separation of state and religion is to be observed, according to an expert on Yasukuni issues at the University of Tokyo.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 26, 2005

Hokusai: From East to West and back again

HOKUSAI AND HIS AGE: Ukiyo-e Painting, Printmaking and Book Illustration in Late Edo Japan, edited by John T. Carpenter. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers/Hotei Publishing, 2005, 357 pp., 227 color & 126 b/w photos, $125 (cloth). The West first discovered the art of the Japanese woodblock print. Though popular...
EDITORIALS
Jun 24, 2005

Okinawa is the best teacher

For people of Okinawa Prefecture, June 23 carries a special meaning. On that day in 1945, as the Battle of Okinawa entered its last phase, the Imperial Japanese armed forces ended organized resistance to the U.S. armed forces in the Mabuni area on the southern tip of the main island of Okinawa.
JAPAN / A GENERATION CLOCKS OUT
Jun 24, 2005

Companies eager for baby boomers to retire with lots of money and time

The looming retirement of the baby boomer generation has become a national concern as it will cause a drastic decline in the labor force, but some firms are excited about the massive shift.
COMMUNITY
Jun 21, 2005

Should we hunt whales?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for shooting whales. Get a bunch of tourists, put them on boat, send it out to the North Pacific and let them fire off some rounds for an hour or two. Of course the ammunition used would be Kodak and Fuji stock, but it's a lot more humane than blowing them up. And it doesn't...
JAPAN
Jun 17, 2005

Suspended sentence of racy comics publisher switched to fine

The Tokyo High Court on Thursday reduced the sentence imposed by a lower court on a comic book publisher who was convicted of distributing obscene comic books featuring graphic sex scenes.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 3, 2005

Lowly loincloth making a comeback

Tartan, paisley and geometric patterns in red, blue and other colors are catching the eyes of young shoppers in the men's clothing section of Mitsukoshi Ltd.'s Ginza store.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
May 30, 2005

China wasn't always so critical of Japan

NEW YORK -- Yet another round of Chinese and Korean protests against Japan for allegedly downplaying its past deeds in historical reconstruction came and went (or almost). This time, though, I was reminded of one thing I should have remembered from four decades ago: China used to turn a completely different...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 29, 2005

In the spirit of humanism

THE CINEMA OF GOSHO HEINOSUKE, by Arthur Nolletti, Jr. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005, 243 pp., with photographs, $27.95 (paper). Though Heinosuke Gosho (1902-1981) is remembered in Japan where his films are still occasionally shown, he is all but unknown abroad. This neglect is not due...
COMMENTARY / World
May 25, 2005

Too soon to let computers replace university libraries

at Houston has announced that it is removing almost all the books from its undergraduate library to provide space for a digital learning center, where students can use computers to access a wide variety of information. University officials are proud to be leading a trend. It is good to see academia catching...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 22, 2005

Rambo comes marching home

"I broke down on the flight back from Vietnam, went crazy, shouting, screaming. It took several men to restrain me. . . . For years it was all I could think about, going home. Then when it finally happened, I snapped."
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
May 19, 2005

Big names, big games, big show

The real "Bond . . . James Bond" is coming to video games. Electronic Arts has signed Sean Connery to reprise his role as British agent 007 in the video game version of "From Russia with Love."
EDITORIALS
May 14, 2005

A Holocaust memorial

A monument 17 years in the making officially opened Tuesday in the heart of Berlin. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe -- a city block of blank gray concrete slabs or pillars erected near the German Parliament building -- drew predictably mixed responses. Yet, by all accounts, its American architect,...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 13, 2005

Tsutsumi used culture to amass, retain iron grip on power

"If you want Sundays off, don't be a manager in my company."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
May 10, 2005

What you reading these days?

Lisa Jarvis Student, 21 Harry Potter. The whole series is really great, but I'm a big fan of "Prisoner of Azkaban." I have a lot of friends who like it so it's interesting to sit down and talk about it.
Japan Times
Features
May 8, 2005

It's time to get out there and grrrrrrrill!

Years ago, at a friend's house in Kobe, an intense argument broke out between the Americans and Australians present. It turned into quite a searing row, and for a while it threatened to inflame tempers and disrupt the otherwise festive occasion.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 2, 2005

Coating the truth to make fiction

THE COAT THAT COVERS HIM AND OTHER STORIES, by Michael Hoffman. Authorhouse, 2004, 632 pp., 2,940 yen (paper). Japan, having contrived the image of itself as a manifestly gentle society, the spiritual home of garden gnomes and all that is cute and cuddly, is now awakening to a manifestly dysfunctional...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 2, 2005

Sexual, visual politics: from shunga to shojo

GENDER AND POWER IN THE JAPANESE VISUAL FIELD, edited by Joshua S. Mostow, Norman Bryson and Maribeth Graybill. Honolulu: Hawai'i University Press, 2003, 292 pp., 7 color plates, 106 b/w illustrations, $36.00 (cloth). The original impetus for this interesting volume came during the 1994 Kyoto Conference...
COMMENTARY / World
May 2, 2005

Strong apology needs a willing recipient

HONOLULU -- The issue of Japan's apology for invading China from 1931 to 1945 and occupying Korea from 1910 to 1945 just won't go away, for two reasons:
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 30, 2005

Are dress codes key to global warming?

Just as a 1,000-km journey begins with a single step, it seems that the arduous process of reducing Japan's greenhouse gas emissions starts with the simple removal of a few neckties.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 24, 2005

It's not cartoons, it's education

JAPANESE THE MANGA WAY: An Illustrated Guide to Grammar & Structure, By Wayne P. Lammers. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2005, 312 pp., 500 b/w illustrations, $24.95 (paper). Wayne Lammers is among the best of the younger translators of Japanese to English. He has rendered such classical texts as Fujiwara...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 24, 2005

Documenting hell on Earth: At a theater near you

Because of the dangerous situation there, none of the commercial Japanese TV networks have staff correspondents in Iraq. On-site reporting that's shown on Japanese TV is from either other countries' news organizations or freelance Japanese reporters, the most prominent of whom is probably Takeharu Watai,...
JAPAN
Apr 24, 2005

N.Y. Times bureau chief honored

Internationally recognized journalist and author Howard W. French was awarded an honorary doctorate Saturday in Tokyo in recognition of his years reporting on Asia as chief of The New York Times' Tokyo and Shanghai bureaus.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 24, 2005

Time for some Showa trivia and Heisei melodrama

GEISHA -- HARLOT -- STRANGLER -- STAR: A Woman, Sex & Morality in Modern Japan, by William Johnston. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, 245 pp., $29.50, (cloth). ISOLATION, by Christopher Belton. New York: Leisure Fiction, 2003, $6.99, 372 pp., (paper). To be honest, I've never really understood...
JAPAN
Apr 19, 2005

History not key issue: Chinese in Japan

OSAKA -- The current tensions between Japan and China have less to do with history textbooks and more to do with a long-term political and economic rivalry, according to some knowledgeable Chinese living in Japan.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Apr 17, 2005

'Man Friday' recalls time in line at Japan's first record expo

With the 2005 World Expo Aichi in full swing until September in Nagoya, it may come as a surprise to some that Japan's first world exposition was to have taken place as long ago as in 1912. But that was cancelled due to the death of Emperor Meiji. Another one, to have run in conjunction with Tokyo's...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 10, 2005

Impermissible surrender and its consequences

THE ANGUISH OF SURRENDER: Japanese POWs of WWII, By Ulrich Strauss. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004, 282 pp., $27.50 (cloth) It is well known that in World War II Japanese soldiers rarely surrendered, and fought to the death rather than bring dishonor to their families. Their having been...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 3, 2005

Religious liaisons: A voice from the void

LETTERS OF THE NUN ESHINNI: Images of Pure Land Buddhism in Medieval Japan, by James C. Dobbins. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004, 261 pp., with b/w illustrations, $60 (cloth). In 1921 a cache of papers was found in the archives of the Nishi Honganji temple in Kyoto. They were written by a...

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.