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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Feb 13, 2019

Starting fresh in Tokyo is easier than you think

I know what you're thinking: Moving to Tokyo is going to be a whole world of stress. That's what I thought at least. There was the language barrier, the fact that I had no idea where in the city I wanted to live and the innumerable articles I'd read online providing helpful information on just how next-to-impossible...
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2018

Japanese buzzwords of 2018 nominees reflect myriad influences and issues

Thirty candidates for buzzword of the year, announced Wednesday, highlight the numerous scandals that rocked Japan's amateur sports, the brutal summer of natural disasters as well as the country's response to the worldwide #MeToo movement against sexual harassment.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 16, 2018

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen dies of cancer at 65: family

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, the man who persuaded school-friend Bill Gates to drop out of Harvard to start what became the world's biggest software company, died on Monday at the age of 65, his family said.
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Oct 6, 2018

Social media lambaste 2020 Olympic volunteer program

Organizers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics have started accepting applications from those hoping to volunteer at the games a little less from two years from now. As you might suspect, Japan’s online community had plenty to say about the issue from the second it went live.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 10, 2018

How three women shattered glass ceilings to become the first female chief economists at global banks

There's a particular telephone conversation that HSBC Global Chief Economist Janet Henry has down pat.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / WELL SAID
Jul 16, 2018

There's quite a lot you can do in Japanese with 'nakanaka'

Introducing some uses of the word u306au304bu306au304b (quite)
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 10, 2018

How the world will look at mid-century

By 2050, the world will look very different than it does today.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 24, 2018

Masatoshi Naito: 'The other face' of Japan

When Masatoshi Naito first began researching Tohoku folklore, he expected to find places 'haunted with a macabre atmosphere.' Instead, he stumbled into a vivacious traditional society 'filled with elderly women who throw boisterous bashes all night long.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 19, 2018

Through the lens: Japanese photographers explore nuclear narratives

Whether it's the work of Robert Capa in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) or Richard Drew's iconic "Falling Man" picture of a man free-falling from the World Trade Center in 2001, photography has provided us with the images that we've used to visualize every disaster of the 20th century and beyond. But...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 8, 2018

Japanese scholar challenges conventional business school model, seeks to nurture new type of leader

When in the 2000s the world saw ripple effects of the massive accounting fraud of U.S. energy giant Enron Corp. and the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., business management expert Tomoyoshi Noda was flooded with messages questioning the skills of business leaders whose actions...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2018

Stephen Hawking and the unconstrained mind

The British physicist's work may have been esoteric, but his life helped shape how we see the world.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Feb 25, 2018

Lessons on life, love and compassionate leave from a silly old bunny

Having just suffered a string of painful losses, this month I will explore compassionate leave (kibiki kyu016bka), the days you take off in Japan after the death of a close family member.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jan 7, 2018

More readers' responses to Japan Times Community articles from 2017

A selection of unpublished letters about Community stories from the second half of last year.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?
Dec 16, 2017

Solitary mosaic artist Takako Hirai chips away at expression

In a cramped studio in Ravenna, Italy, Takako Hirai runs her finger along the cracks in a mosaic artwork depicting dappled light in a park. The spaces between the tiles, she explains, determine the flow and movement of a mosaic, even more than the arrangement of the pieces themselves — as if meaning...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 11, 2017

Do you know your own productivity?

Becoming more productive is a goal that everyone can achieve with the right effort.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 2, 2017

Yasunari Kawabata's surrealist window on the world

Opening with one of the most famous lines in Japanese literature — "Emerging from the long border tunnel, they entered snow country," shifting us at speed from the darkness of the tunnel into the bright light of the snow — Yasunari Kawabata's novel "Snow Country" tells of a city-dwelling, worldly...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?
Oct 21, 2017

Cultural disorientation is dancer Yumi Umiumare's artistic drive

At a certain level, the act of resettling overseas unsettles the idea of home itself. It ruptures the narrative of belonging that we construct through attachments to people and places. For the immigrant, home is no longer an immutable fact, but a space between memory and desire — always elsewhere....
Japan Times
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Oct 6, 2017

England uninspiring in victory over Slovenia

Gareth Southgate wanted England to qualify for the 2018 World Cup finals in style. Harry Kane's late winner in the 1-0 win over Slovenia on Thursday sealed England's place in Russia, but a match of numbing tedium was so poor Sunday's now academic final group match in Lithuania will test the loyalty of...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Sep 25, 2017

Learn Japanese as you travel the world

Japanese guidebooks are more than just vocabulary lessons. They provide subtle insight into Japanese grammar as well.
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Sep 3, 2017

How Japan got new contract law it neither wants nor needs

One possible explanation for the inexplicable change in contract law: It is a giant experiment driven by academic hubris and bureaucratic ambition.
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Aug 16, 2017

Dentsu may not escape with summary justice

Last month, a Tokyo summary court judge ruled that advertising giant Dentsu would not get away with just paying a fine for violating the Labor Standards Act attributable to a culture of excessive overtime blamed for the death of several employees. The company will have to endure scrutiny of its employment...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?
Jun 24, 2017

Nobuko Kiyomiya: Judging a bookbinder in France by her covers

Kiyomiya is keeping alive a way of thinking about books that may be finding itself under threat in our world of Kindles.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
May 1, 2017

Three years after Japan signed Hague, parents who abduct still win

Despite winning return orders in court, foreign fathers are treated like offenders.
JAPAN / History
Apr 29, 2017

Power politics: Japan's most popular political platforms

Looking back at some of the political platforms that have been heavily endorsed by voters over the past century in a bid to predict where the country might be headed under the 'third generation' of postwar Japanese.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 26, 2017

'Blade of the Immortal': Film version of manga hit goes overboard in its execution

Based on Hiroaki Samura's long-running (1993-2012) manga, the samurai swashbuckler "Blade of the Immortal" promises the sort of fun, over-the-top action that has long been a trademark of its director, Takashi Miike.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 1, 2017

What, if anything, makes Japan unique?

In February, American comedian Atsugiri Jason remarked on a Fuji TV talk show that one of the "demerits" of being a foreign TV personality in Japan is that he can't publicly say he thinks those aspects of Japanese culture which Japanese people believe are "uniquely amazing" are not, in fact, uniquely...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 25, 2017

Polish film director Andrzej Wajda represented the voice and conscience of a nation

"I stood here just after the end of the war," Polish film director Andrzej Wajda said. "I was only 19 years old. The entire area was flattened, just rubble. The Stare Miasto (Old Town) was one big gaping pit that I stared into."
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / PHOTO ESSAY
Jan 21, 2017

Purified by the water and fire of Japan in Wakayama

On the polished stones of Ojigahama Beach in Shingu, Wakayama Prefecture, a group of men stand in the February cold. Dressed in long athletic coats they look like a marooned football team. They've come for shiogori, a saltwater baptism to cleanse body and mind and the first act of one of Japan's two...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 7, 2017

Defining J-Horror: The erotic, grotesque 'nonsense' of Edogawa Rampo

In Japanese literature, there is a type of horror story that centers on an individual's obsession with a single idea. It arises from the most innocent and everyday circumstances, but gradually this single idea becomes all-consuming, blurring the line between sanity and madness. In some cases, the transformations...

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami