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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Sep 7, 2010

Readers offer their thoughts on jettisoning JET

Following are a selection of readers' responses to the July 27 Zeit Gist column headlined "Ex-students don't want JET grounded" by Eric Johnston and Kanako Nakamura:
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Sep 5, 2010

Chickens at (almost) every turn

Go wherever you will in the world but you'll never be far from a chicken.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 5, 2010

Lofty tonic in the heat

So what do you do when it's summer in Japan and the heat and humidity have become just plain silly?
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 5, 2010

Take it slow — but only if it suits you

Slow Life Japan is a sort of movement, or rather an antimovement, that sprouted here and there in the 1990s, little islands of quietude amid the ultra-fast life that had come to seem as unquestionable as modernity itself. Production, consumption, growth, activity, exhaustion — all very well, but what...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 4, 2010

Judgment draws near in whale-meat trial

In 2008, two officials of Greenpeace Japan presented to prosecutors what they described as evidence of a Japanese whaler's embezzlement of whale meat and asked them to investigate.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 3, 2010

Festival marks blip on the radar for chiptune

Taking Nintendo's Game Boy to places it was never meant to go, a lineup of international chiptune artists will be converging on Koenji High this weekend for Japan's first ever Blip Festival. The roster includes acts such as Nullsleep from New York, who takes a blowtorch to sweet "Super Mario" style ditties,...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Sep 2, 2010

The upside and downside of the heat wave, fruit-wise

When global warming gives you a heat wave, grow more tropical fruit.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 2, 2010

A shift in strategy needed to revive Japanese industry

Against the backdrop of intensifying Japan-U.S. trade frictions in the 1980s, it was considered for some time that Japan's economic power was a threat to the United States. This country's high rating has since declined, however, giving way to comments like "Japan has disappeared from the world's radar...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 1, 2010

Kyoto's Miyako at 120, inn for the long haul

KYOTO — In a city where some traditional inns are more than 400 years old, the Westin Miyako Kyoto, which celebrates its 120th anniversary this year, is a relative newcomer to the world of Kyoto lodgings.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2010

A hopeless cause without nuclear power

HONG KONG, PACIFIC PERSPECTIVES — Ask the average environmentally concerned person how our power generators will achieve the tough emissions reductions needed to play their part in cutting global warming, and you will probably get a simple, clear answer: wind and solar.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 29, 2010

How Japan embraced the advent of cinema

Japanese cinema was different from the very start. In the days of the silent movie, recitators called benshi, took it upon themselves not only to interpret the action, but to add their own vocal and acting embellishments as self-appointed supra-dramatists.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 29, 2010

New look at old Edo's window to the West

Japan's seclusion policy (sakoku) from the early 17th to the mid-19th century is commonly studied from the point of view of the bakufu, the Tokugawa government in Edo that exercised central control over the other domains of the realm.
JAPAN / Q&A
Aug 28, 2010

Shedding light on death penalty

Justice Minister Keiko Chiba, who will probably be replaced next month because she lost her Diet seat in the July 11 Upper House election, allowed journalists for the first time Friday to enter the Tokyo Detention House's execution chamber.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 27, 2010

In the absence of information comes greater imagination

The 1990s saw the rise of what at the time seemed an important generation of Japanese female photographers. This included Junko Takahashi, HIROMIX, Rika Noguchi, Mika Ninagawa and Tomoko Sawada. While much of this new wave — most notably the narcissistic soft-porn of HIROMIX and the cosplay outings...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 26, 2010

Key to happiness has problematic flip side

NEW HAVEN — I admit that it is an unusual way to see the world, but when reading the newspaper, I am constantly struck by the extent of human kindness. The newest bit of good news comes from The Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College, which estimates that Americans will give about $250...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 26, 2010

All for the love of Tajima cows

When you hear the term, "Kobe beef," a few things are likely to come to mind: the velvety, fatty richness of the meat, the extraordinarily high price of a steak and the lavish lifestyle of the cattle. The pampering these cows receive is renowned and the image of beer-chugging bovines has been seared...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Aug 25, 2010

Big (only) in Japan? Oshibori

Oshibori: a Japanese tradition of hospitality that never grows old ... but go easy on the body-wiping.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 24, 2010

A new generation's search for ground zero

An estimated 140,000 were killed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, another 70,000 in Nagasaki, with thousands more succumbing to radiation-related illnesses in the months and years that followed. Shocking statistics like these are supposedly etched in history, taught in classrooms across Japan and...
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Aug 22, 2010

Inui, Cerezo outplay Antlers in big match

KASHIMA, Ibaraki Pref. — Cerezo Osaka denied Kashima Antlers top spot in the J. League table and leapfrogged the defending champion into second place for good measure with a 1-0 win on Saturday.
JAPAN
Aug 21, 2010

Tattoo as art on human canvases

The human body becomes a canvas in the hands of tattoo artist Horiyoshi III. Each dot, each line is carefully engraved, until gradually it becomes a colorful masterpiece.
EDITORIALS
Aug 21, 2010

Pension reform urgently needed

In fiscal 2009, the premium payment rate for the kokumin nenkin pension, which is mainly for self-employed and jobless people, dropped to its lowest ever at 59.98 percent. The rate is 2.1 points less than in the previous year and fell for the fourth straight year. It is an ominous sign that the premium...
JAPAN / JAPANESE LANGUAGE EDUCATION
Aug 20, 2010

Rewards, roadblocks for volunteer teachers

Ikuko Sahara, representative of a volunteer group teaching Japanese to foreigners in Tokyo, knows it's no picnic living in a foreign country without being familiar with the language.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 20, 2010

Kanagawa taverns with brews of note

When we find ourselves thirsty in Yokohama, we know exactly where to head. Our latest favorite watering hole in the city is Pivoya, a small pub that specializes exclusively in beer from the Czech Republic. It's in a quiet, out-of-the-way locale but definitely worth tracking down.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 20, 2010

August Beer Club: Beers that taste great in August

In this punishing heat, a lot of people complain they have lost all appetite for food. We say: Change your definition of the word "food." At this time of year, we gain a significant proportion of our nourishment from that most essential of food groups: beer.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Aug 15, 2010

Pavlicevic sets sail in Shimane

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with personalities in the bj-league, which begins its sixth season in October. Coach Zeljko Pavlicevic of the expansion Shimane Susanoo Magic is the subject of this week's profile.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Aug 15, 2010

Relics of Ice Age Japan

Scrambling across hillsides may not be everyone's cup of tea, but we naturalists are determined folk and take such activities in our stride when exploring our environment.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 14, 2010

Detroiter puts golf on his English, boosts students' lie

Detroit-born Bob White has been in love with golf since he picked up one of his father's clubs at the age of 8. There were no kids' size clubs in the late 1950s, he recalls. You just did the best you could with what you had.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat