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COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2014

Speech rules turn college into no-thought zone

In the U.S., vague bans on 'offensive' language and other 'politically correct' measures that most people think of when they imagine college speech codes are increasingly being joined by quarantine policies that restrict all student speech, regardless of its content.
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 16, 2014

Parisians hail beauty of Nomura's oeil de boeuf

Mansai Nomura’s recent staging of “Macbeth” at the Maison de la culture du Japon in Paris drew a varied and enthusiastic audience.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 15, 2014

Bamboo flute musician Tosha borrows from the modern to teach traditional tranquility

Music changes from generation to generation, which is as true in Japan as it is everywhere else. But how can traditional music manage to keep itself from being forgotten?
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN WEB WATCH
Jul 12, 2014

The pros and cons of kids owning smartphones

Smartphones are everywhere now, and their diffusion has spread from adults to students in high school, then junior high and now even elementary school. The trend has led to the question: When and how should kids use smartphones?
Reader Mail
Jul 12, 2014

Japan can deal with birth dearth

Every day, those who follow Japanese news are bombarded with stories of its increasingly severe demographic situation: Japanese are getting older and there are too few youth to replace retirees from the workforce. Make no mistake, the negative side of this situation that we've heard about is real. However,...
BUSINESS
Jul 11, 2014

Tax-free NISA working poorly, Sawakami says

Japan's tax-free investing program is failing to draw new stock buyers as the benefits expire too soon and young people fail to see its advantages, said the founder of the Sawakami Fund.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2014

The silver fox of dictatorship and democracy

The reality of the times was that Eduard Shevardnadze was both a democrat and a despot. His death brings closer to the end the Gorbachev generation of reform communists who presented a stark contrast to the dour Brezhnev-era hard-liners, spurring (mostly inadvertently) the collapse of the Soviet empire and the long transition to democracy.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 10, 2014

Sapphire Slows, Haioka and Albino Sound to represent Japan at Red Bull Music Academy

Sixty musicians have been chosen to take part in this year's Red Bull Music Academy, with Japanese artists taking three of the available spots.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 10, 2014

When it came to horror, ukiyo-e artists kept their wits about them

This exhibition showcases more than 250 Japanese woodblock prints of the Edo Period (1603-1868), depicting ghosts, goblins and other supernatural beings. The lurid subject matter, a graphic illustration of the shadowy spirit underworld, is as delightful as it is ghoulish.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 10, 2014

Fukushima farmer takes on Tepco over wife's suicide

The Fukushima District Court is due to rule next month on a claim that Tokyo Electric Power Co. is responsible for a woman's suicide, in a landmark case that could force the utility to publicly admit culpability for deaths related to the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Reader Mail
Jul 9, 2014

An impossible radiation level

Regarding the July 4 editorial, "Questions about nuclear safety": There was no reason to evacuate Fukushima. The evacuation was caused by overly strict laws, not by radiation. The 1,600 deaths cited in the editorial should be blamed on the overly strict laws that forced the unnecessary evacuation.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 9, 2014

Osaka Culturarium at Tempoza gets suited up for 'Gundam'

If giant robots excite you, then you will know Gundam — a name that has become synonymous with the sci-fi mecha genre.
Japan Times
SOCCER / World cup / SPORTS SCOPE
Jul 8, 2014

Time for fans, media to get real about Samurai Blue

"The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 8, 2014

National Stadium canopy has design flaw, architect says

The planned replacement for Tokyo's National Stadium — already under fire for its massive size and cost — is now facing further criticism: safety.
JAPAN
Jul 8, 2014

TV news should have English subtitles, panel says

Japanese TV broadcasters should introduce English subtitles in news programs by 2020 in light of an expected increase in the number of foreign visitors ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, according to an expert panel at the communications ministry.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jul 8, 2014

Kurds dream of independence amid Iraq chaos

A grave, freshly dug and adorned with pebbles, is the modest tribute to one more sacrifice in the long history of struggle for an independent Kurdish state.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 7, 2014

Tensions will rise in Asia until China and the U.S. talk

If a direct confrontation between China and its neighbors is to be avoided, meeting the perceived 'China threat' will demand that the region's political leaders address their disputes in more creative ways. And the U.S. and China must talk.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jul 7, 2014

Foreign women also face 'maternity harassment'

Non-Japanese women discuss their experiences of mata-hara, or 'maternity harassment' — discrimination in the workplace against women who are pregnant, on child-care leave or have returned to work after giving birth.
Japan Times
JAPAN / GENERATIONAL CHANGE
Jul 7, 2014

Future leader shows promise with African aid work, British schooling, and Japan politics in sight

When Doga Makiura arrived in Rwanda in 2012, the 18-year-old was amazed to find not the stains of the 1994 genocide, but a tidy airport, impressive high-rises and welcoming people.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 5, 2014

From the Japanese

This fourth volume of poetry from Tokyo resident Paul Rossiter conveys his 40-year relationship with Japan in collected poems both thoughtful and thought-provoking. These range from the impressions of a startled first-time tourist in 1969 through to Rossiter's visits to Ishinomaki in Tohoku in December...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jul 5, 2014

Cruz settling in with Marines

Luis Cruz wanted to go home. He wanted to see his family again, wanted to be back in a familiar environment. He wanted to get away from that lonely hotel room in Fort Myers, Florida, that was a long way from his native Navojoa, which lies on the southern tip of Sonora, a Mexican state that shares its...
Reader Mail
Jul 5, 2014

Flag the opinion of a nonresident

It's very useful to hear about perceptions of Japan from people living outside the country.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 3, 2014

While Japan presses North on abductions, South Korea victims are forgotten

Kim Young-nam was a teenager living on the coast of South Korea when he disappeared in 1978, only to turn up in North Korea. There, he met and married Megumi Yokota, a Japanese national abducted by North Korean agents on her way home from school a year earlier.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 3, 2014

Obama should expedite a nation for the Kurds

President Barack Obama could put the U.S. on the right side of history — and the right side of justice — by expediting the liberation and nationhood aspirations of Iraq's Kurds.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 2, 2014

'The Missing Picture' (Kieta E: Khmer Rouge no Shinjitsu)

Cambodian director Rithy Panh has made a career out of documenting the brutal rule of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime, which murdered something like 2 million of its own people between 1975 and 1979. With good reason: His own family was lost to the genocide.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 2, 2014

High-energy Ono conducts a rare 'Hoffmann' critique

He is known best for the rapturously hysterical "Infernal Gallop" (aka "The Can-can") from his 1858 operetta "Orpheus in the Underworld," but the German-born, naturalized-French composer Jacques Offenbach (1819-80) is credited with just one full-length, serious opera — "The Tales of Hoffmann" — which...
JAPAN
Jul 2, 2014

Tokyo launches young volunteer training program ahead of 2020 Games

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has opened applications for a new summer seminar project that will prepare a cohort of young volunteers to act as guides for the growing number of foreign travelers expected to visit the city ahead of the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics.

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