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Reader Mail
Jan 9, 2011

Cycle of anxiety curbing growth

After reading Minoru Matsutani's Jan. 5 article, "20-year slump spawns anticonsumption generation," I began to worry about the Japanese economy, because I think the downturn in consumption will hurt economic growth. I had not heard of the "anticonsumption generation" until now.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 9, 2011

Adoor: India's master storyteller of the silver screen

ADOOR GOPALAKRISHNAN: A Life in Cinema. The Authorized Biography, by Gautaman Bhaskaran. Penguin, 2010, 281 pp. (hardcover) Celebrating the centenary of Akira Kurosawa last year, Donald Richie, the noted writer on Japanese films, observed that Kurosawa believed that he existed only through his films....
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 9, 2011

Serendipity set a course to fish the high seas

In 1969, I was living at Hapuna Beach on the Big Island of Hawaii. I was 25 years old and had recently taken a leave-of-absence from Southern Illinois University, where I'd been a PhD candidate and an instructor in the English department. As I'd spent 20 of my 25 years in schooling by then, it seemed...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 8, 2011

Ex-MP revisits Okinawa's Koza Riot

On a mild December night in the city of Okinawa, Bruce Lieber, a 61-year-old Ohio native, found himself surrounded by a cluster of Japanese journalists. Photographers and TV crew jostled for position while reporters asked him how it felt to be back on the island.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 7, 2011

The Kandinsky narcissistic blues

Anyone who has seen the unrefined figurative works of Mark Rothko can easily understand why he later turned to his abstract Color Field works. Because of examples like this, there is always a suspicion that abstract art is merely the last refuge of the technically inept. Wassily Kandinsky — often seen...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 7, 2011

Buzz overseas spells success at home

For Japanese music acts, success abroad has traditionally been the reserve of noise-rock bands such as Boredoms and Melt-Banana, for whom potential barriers like language or cultural disparities do little to hinder their pursuit of abstraction. More conventional Japanese indie bands have traditionally...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 5, 2011

20-year slump spawns anticonsumption generation

Buying a car is idiotic. It's better instead to have ¥10 million in the bank.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Dec 30, 2010

New rain-check refunds gamble on the weather

A 'weather insurance plan' sounds like a good deal for travelers, but read the fine print before you book.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2010

Piyasvasti battles Thai Airways' beasts

ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Dec 26, 2010

Your money or your life: Where happiness lies

Year-end holidays always elevate hopes for happiness, but with expectations set high it is not surprising that they often seem to bring depression and loneliness instead.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 26, 2010

A clean slate for this year's media awards

Media persons of the year: Toshikazu Sugaya and Atsuko Muraki
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 25, 2010

Happily lost in the 'empire of signs'

Signs and symbols play an ever-growing role in our increasingly complex society. In this respect, Japan — the "empire of signs," as French semiologist Roland Barthes called it back in 1970 — strikes and confounds the foreign visitor with a vast array of alphabets, shapes and designs.
CULTURE / Film
Dec 24, 2010

'Tron: Legacy'/'Mikokai Eigasai'

"Tron: Legacy" is one of those movies that makes you stop and seriously wonder whether there isn't some kind of Stupid Test you have to pass in order to be allowed to work at a studio these days.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 24, 2010

Meet some famous Japanese ghosts of publishing

We live in interesting times. Because of the Internet, old familiar media formats are breaking down or going through changes. More and more printed word publications are going out of business or finding new life online. The old LP/album format is essentially an anachronism in an iPod-centered universe....
COMMENTARY
Dec 21, 2010

Merits of a Singapore-Australian exchange

SINGAPORE — Australian regulators and politicians must decide soon whether the proposed $8 billion takeover of the main stock market operator, ASX Ltd., by the Singapore Exchange is in the national interest.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 19, 2010

To students of English, the Spanish Armada has a lot to answer for

Second of two parts
LIFE / Travel
Dec 19, 2010

Savor Yufuin's peaceful charms

Set your travel planning to autopilot and — if you are in northern Kyushu in need of the thermal succor only a hot-spring bath can lend — you are sure to be drawn by the gravitational pull of Beppu, the brash town in Oita Prefecture that is the onsen king of Japan and knows it.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 19, 2010

University grads need to expand their horizons

A man I sometimes work with built a house in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, about 10 years ago when he was 30 years old. At the time he was working for one of Japan's most prominent trading companies, and had been ever since he graduated from university. He chose Hiratsuka because it's on the JR Tokaido...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 18, 2010

WikiLeaks' flawed answer to a flawed world

NEW YORK — Long ago, I wrote about the Internet pioneer Julf Helsingius, who ran a precursor to WikiLeaks called anon.penet.fi. As I said then: "Anonymity in itself should not be illegal. There are enough good reasons for people to be anonymous that it should be [allowed] — at least in some places...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Dec 14, 2010

For writer, languages are his 'darling'

Writer Tony Laszlo, 50, has a strong passion for languages. He speaks 10, including English, Japanese, Chinese, Greek, Turkish and French. As a writer, he uses both English, his mother tongue, and Japanese.

Longform

Passengers that were on a morning train attacked by members of the Aum Shinrikyo group wait for medical assistance outside Kasumigaseki Station on March 20,1995.
The day a religious cult brought terror to Tokyo