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Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Jul 9, 2013

Can METI's ¥50 billion fund unfreeze 'Cool Japan'?

Naysaying is almost always risk-free, especially if you do it online. If you're a cynic, you're usually right, and if you're wrong, you can just delete those errant tweets and posts and join the party.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Nov 3, 2012

Free magazines zoom in on all things Japanese

While English-language magazines in Japan are fast becoming a species in danger of extinction, Europe is experiencing a renewed interest in this country thanks to a veteran French journalist who since 2010 has been publishing Zoom Japon (and its English version, Zoom Japan), a free monthly magazine about...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Aug 28, 2012

Paid leave, advice for foreign parents, JET's value: readers' views

Uncompetitive Japan Inc. Not being a Japanese person employed in a private Japanese company, it is hard for me to imagine the hardship experienced by the writer of the July 17 Have Your Say letter ("Working employees to death"). I can, however, say with a high degree of confidence that laws mandating...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jul 10, 2012

Scholar urges fresh look at rich Ainu heritage

Shunwa Honda, a renowned scholar of indigenous ethnic groups, emphasizes that the Japanese people need to create a stage for the nation's indigenous Ainu, who "still suffer from not having their voices heard properly in society."
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jul 3, 2012

Strong winds linger from the microaggressions tempest

Readers' responses to Debito Arudou's May 1 Just Be Cause column, "Yes, I can use chopsticks: the everyday 'microaggressions' that grind us down," his followup June 5 JBC column, "Guestists, Haters, the Vested: Apologists take many forms," and Colin P.A. Jones' counterarticle, "Much ado, but microimportant"...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 24, 2012

Troupe takes Japanese folk tales abroad

A Tokyo-based actors' group working to spread Japanese folk culture abroad is now helping the Japanese-Brazilian community preserve the culture of their ancestors.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 19, 2011

Art in the realm of the sense of smell

In the battle between sight and smell, sight usually comes out on top as the more valued sense. But while our visual sense supplies us with copious and precise information about the world around us and allows us to appreciate images of beauty, our olfactory sense often has a firmer grasp on our moods,...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 23, 2011

Is 'Galapagos-thinking' Japan back at its evolutionary dead end?

There are expressions that buzz like busy little bees and ones that don't buzz anymore. One of the dead-bee buzzwords in Japan is shimaguni konjo, meaning "island mentality." As for a buzzword for 2011, you'd be hard put to find one more busily doing the rounds than garapagosu, which references the Galapagos...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 8, 2009

As prospects darken, Japan's voters need that vision thing again

When James Carville, a political consultant to Bill Clinton, coined the phrase "It's the economy, stupid" for the candidate's 1992 presidential campaign, little did he know that he was speaking for the general election in Japan in 2009 as well.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Feb 22, 2009

'Sustainability' in a Japanese way

Takeshi Hara is an accomplished journalist, author and educator, and at 70 years of age he could easily choose to rest on his laurels.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 29, 2008

Foreigners flourish in the realm of Japanese arts

Japan has come a long way since the era of Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), arguably the world's most famous and certainly the first Western Japanophile. Before Hearn, a Greek-Irishman who married the daughter of a local samurai in remote and rural Shimane Prefecture, and also took on Japanese citizenship,...
Japan Times
LIFE
May 28, 2006

Manga by any other name is . . .

With the video-game business now outgrossing Hollywood's box office, and anime being distributed to destinations as diverse as Patagonia and Phuket, the influence of Japan's entertainment industry on young people worldwide has never been as powerful.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 30, 2006

When in doubt . . . dust off a fervor so infamously fatal

Agreat debate is raging in Japan, and it is not about economics or politics . . . well, not ostensibly so. It is about semantics. And yet, the outcome may have as much impact on the future of this country as many more seemingly concrete issues.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 20, 2005

Tagging in Mito galleries

"Street culture" and graffiti came into Japan around the 1990s, primarily as a fashion trend that accompanied the spread of hip-hop music and skateboarding. Traditionally, of course, it has grittier associations with American slums and ghettoes, where it became, at its most politically conscious, an...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 10, 2005

New horizons beckon as Train Man heads nowhere fast

The Japanese nation seems to be firmly in the grip of the otaku.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Aug 30, 2004

Fear of cultural decline: the next chapter

NEW YORK -- Every August my wife Nancy and I leave New York to go south to spend two weeks at a friend's summer house at Sunset Beach, North Carolina. Driving leisurely, mainly so we can ride ferries on Delaware Bay and on Pamlico Sound, we stop for two nights on the way, usually lodging in Onley, Virginia,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 6, 2003

Popping up everywhere

GLOBAL GOES LOCAL: Popular Culture in Asia, edited by Timothy J. Craig and Richard King. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002, 310 pp. with illustrations, $24 (paper) It is commonly observed that as the political hegemony of the West has grown, so has its cultural dominance: Mickey Mouse, Elvis...
JAPAN
May 1, 2001

Release of bilingual CD aims to soothe Tokyo-Seoul discord

Cultural exchanges between Japan and South Korea have made steady progress since the first deregulation of Japanese popular culture in South Korea in 1998, according to Kiyomi Kaneko, secretary general of the Foundation for Promotion of Music Industry and Culture (Promic).
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 26, 2000

With affluence comes intellectual decay

Among the intellectuals it is not hard to detect the New Pessimism; among the citizenry, the Same Old Apathy. Today I wish to focus on the former.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Dec 18, 2022

A musical history told through centuries of Japanese literature

The modern ear, tuned to the aesthetics of a different timbre, may find that one era's beauty is another's cacophony.
Japan Times
SOCCER / World cup
Nov 27, 2022

Carlos Queiroz tells Jurgen Klinsmann to quit FIFA role over 'outrageous' Iran rebuke

Iran plays the United States in a decisive Group B match on Tuesday and has a chance to reach the last 16 for the first time ever.
Japan Times
PODCAST / deep dive
Nov 16, 2022

Samurai Blues: The J. League, the World Cup and Japan’s place in global soccer

Sports writer Dan Orlowitz joins the show to catch us up on where Japan stands in the global soccer landscape and the controversies swirling around the host nation of Qatar.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 29, 2022

In pushing adventure travel, rural towns see paths forward

Where tourists who flock by bus clog up sidewalks and restaurant reservation slots, those who travel further afield bring some positive baggage with them.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues
Aug 22, 2022

Hong Kong migrants seek to build a new life in Japan

With tens of thousands of residents reportedly leaving the territory following China's security crackdown, some are choosing Japan as their new home.
Japan Times
GLOBAL INSIGHT / Oman report 2022
May 10, 2022

Oman invites Japanese investment for mutual gain

What is your assessment of relations between Oman and Japan?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Regional voices: Chubu
Mar 28, 2022

From Gifu to the world: LA exhibition to showcase traditional Japanese pottery

“The Art of the Ramen Bowl” features bowls made by potters in the Tono region of the former province of Mino, and aims to introduce the rich art of their pottery to the world.

Longform

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