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BUSINESS
Jan 14, 2017

Chinese, Germans seek to turn Chernobyl wasteland into solar park

Chinese and Germans are among dozens of investors taking Ukraine up on its offer to turn the grounds of one of the world's worst nuclear disasters into a massive solar park.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 12, 2017

'Garage Rockin' Craze': 'It's not about fame, they want 15 minutes of fun'

Mario Cuzic used a video camera to face the question that keeps many expat English teachers up at night: What am I going to do before I head back home? His answer, "Garage Rockin' Craze," is a documentary on the history of Japan's underground garage rock scene that has nurtured internationally renowned...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 11, 2017

Cliff Martinez: composing through the chaos

So much movie music sounds like just that: movie music. It's rare these days to come across a score with character that really makes you sit up and listen.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jan 11, 2017

Secondhand bookshop exorcizing ghosts of the past

The first floor of the crumbling art deco building where my daughter lives in Riga, Latvia, houses a well-patronized secondhand English bookstore. I've bought several titles there. It led me to wondering why a business of this kind, a social space for readers, can thrive in the tiny Latvian capital,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 11, 2017

Japanese women see aspirational qualities in 'de facto first lady' Ivanka Trump

Miyu Toyonaga was thrilled when she discovered who had visited her Instagram account last April. It was Ivanka Trump, her fashion icon, and she had liked a photo of Toyonaga with a leather clutch purse from Ivanka's namesake brand.
Japan Times
Figure Skating / ICE TIME
Jan 10, 2017

Orser's 'Rink of Champions' has a new one in Cha

This season has seen the emergence of several young stars on the skating scene. Perhaps no one has made as big of an impact as South Korea's Cha Jun-hwan, who became the men's national champion on Sunday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 10, 2017

Jochen Lempert: The photographic seer

Jochen Lempert's exhibition "Fieldwork" at the Izu Photo Museum has an ageless feel to it. The intentionally low contrast pictures of wildlife and natural phenomena almost look like they could be archive photos unearthed from the mid-19th century. However, they also have the cool nonchalance of 1970s...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 10, 2017

Namikawa Yasuyuki and Japanese Cloisonne: The Allure of Meiji Cloisonne — The Aesthetic of Translucent Black

Jan. 14-April 9
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 7, 2017

Figuring out Japan's unsolved mysteries

As a visit to any large public library or online search will reveal, Japan boasts a superb body of crime literature, both fiction and nonfiction. Among these, English readers may be most familiar with a half-dozen works by Seicho Matsumoto (1909-92). Many of his novels, such as "Kuroi Fukuin" ("The Black...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 6, 2017

Richie Hawtin: Pairing Japan's best sake with techno

Richie Hawtin needs no introduction to anyone familiar with electronic music. For 25 years, this Berlin-based, English-Canadian DJ has been at the forefront of techno and he continues to play at major music and art events around the planet.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jan 6, 2017

Chatty and funny, elite North Korean defector becomes media star in South

South Korea's newest celebrity took an unusual route to the nation's TV screens — years spent working his way up through the ranks of North Korea's diplomatic corps, followed by months secluded in the custody of the rival South's spy agency.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Jan 6, 2017

Film director on a mission to convey Okinawa protests over U.S. forces

In late December, work to relocate U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma was resumed at its Okinawa replacement site in Nago to the fury of locals who fear the project will destroy their lives and the environment.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 5, 2017

Tokyo-based luthier who replicates storied violins is one of a kind

Throughout the history of classical music there have been composers who, in moments of inspiration, created masterpieces that have stayed with us for centuries. Just as important are those musicians who, through their own virtuosity, re-create those masterpieces — a talent that was particularly appreciated...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 5, 2017

Drunken monkeys and the evolution of boozing

If alcohol makes you feel sick rather than drunk, you may have a gene mutation that protects you from alcohol impairment and alcoholism.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 4, 2017

Impotent Democrats won't be America's savior

Americans who oppose Trump shouldn't waste time waiting for the Democratic Party to take action against him.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 4, 2017

Putin's Russia: the enigma continues

In the end Vladimir Putin will be gone and Russia will return to a different kind of greatness.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 4, 2017

McDonald's opens shop near Vatican, upsetting purists, cardinal, but not nuns

McDonald's has opened a franchise just steps away from the gleaming white marble dome of St. Peter's Basilica, giving indigestion to some cardinals and local business owners.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jan 3, 2017

Karl up to old tricks with new book

Many who know George Karl will tell you there's a good side, welcoming, generous, warm and funny, though George works very hard to hide it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 3, 2017

'50th Anniversary Exhibition: Iwasa Matabei and Genji-e — Challenging the Classics'

Jan. 8-Feb. 5
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 3, 2017

'Sacred Island of Okinoshima in Munakata Region and the Yamato Imperial Court'

Jan. 1-March 5
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 2, 2017

As world closes doors to refugee surge, Aceh aid expert urges Japan to open up, play lead role

The global refugee crisis is stoking anti-immigration sentiment in Europe and the United States, but Japan could take the initiative to become a leading voice to protect those who are displaced, an expert on assistance to such people in Asia has said.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 31, 2016

New year, new you: What to expect personally and professionally in the Year of the Rooster

If you haven't made a New Year's resolution or have been too busy for the customary ōsōji (big cleanup) this holiday season, there is still time, according to feng shui. Under the Chinese philosophical system, the new year is marked by the lunar, rather than Gregorian, or solar, calendar, giving us...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 31, 2016

Japan and the world enter a long night of 'post-truth'

In an essay titled "The Future of Mankind," British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) laid out three possibilities: "The end of human life," "a reversion to barbarism" or "unification of the world under a single government." He saw the third as the only alternative to either of the first two....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 31, 2016

Misuzu Kaneko: A deeper empathy for the natural world

In her brief life, Japanese poet Misuzu Kaneko (1903-1930) produced a body of work with themes that are every bit as relevant today as when she first put pen to paper nearly 100 years ago. Ostensibly a writer of poems for children, Kaneko's work reveals a deep respect for the environment and an awareness...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / NATURE'S PANTRY
Dec 30, 2016

The flexibility of 'osechi ryori,' Japan's traditional New Year's food

During the New Year's holidays, many Japanese eat osechi ryōri, a collection of traditional foods developed during the Heian Period (794-1185). It originally consisted of fish or vegetables simmered in soy sauce and sweet mirin but, as the years passed, other foods were incorporated into the compendium...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 29, 2016

Head to your local shrine or temple this new year

The sounds of joya-no-kane, the traditional ringing of temple bells 108 times on New Year's Eve, will soon fill the air as Japan gets set for one of its biggest holidays.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 28, 2016

Mount Meru: for those who like to aim high

If Mount Everest is the iconic goddess of mountains, then Meru in the Indian Himalayas is the unattainable, unknowable bad-ass rock star, beckoning to a chosen few from an impossibly remote place high in the sky. Unlike Everest, Meru isn't famed for its legendary climbs and world records. New Zealand...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Dec 28, 2016

What's in a surname? It depends on who you ask

Some women want to keep their maiden names after marriage, yet many others choose not to.

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