Search - question

 
 
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Aug 20, 2014

A high price to pay for a little peace of mind

Sometimes it's hard to believe the American that emerged, naked and naive, from Narita International Airport back in 2004 and the person writing this column are one and the same. Life in Japan has made me, unmade me and remade me. I've unpacked and sorted through all sorts of koto (generally, things...
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 20, 2014

Skepticism over Abe's inflation goal grows as price gauge retreats

Traders are growing more skeptical Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will achieve his 2 percent inflation target after a sales tax increase derailed growth.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 19, 2014

U.K. should stay in EU until they beg it to leave

The European Union moves under a seemingly irresistible momentum to strengthen its institutions even as it fails to integrate in ways that a well-run single-currency area needs. The best course for Britain is to continue as an EU member for the economic benefits until other members beg it to leave.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 19, 2014

As Gaza war subsides, a battle over how it is investigated begins

Even before starting work as chairman of a U.N. human rights commission investigating the Gaza war, Canadian law professor William Schabas has been vilified as an apologist for Iran who is incapable of setting aside his perceived anti-Israel bias.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 18, 2014

Building economic society driven by human values

The world is groping for a new growth structure to replace the economic society led by financial activities. A new model should be driven by the pursuit of human values.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2014

Make no mistake about Thailand's problem

The Thai military has not played the role of 'democratic defender' following its recent coup. Instead, its intervention shows its desperate move to maintain power ahead of the imminent royal succession.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ASHIDA'S WAR DIARY
Aug 17, 2014

The realist behind the idealist Constitution

A mystery surrounding late Prime Minister Hitoshi Ashida was his postwar call for Japan to re-militarize despite constitutional limits imposed by war-renouncing Article 9.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Aug 17, 2014

From 2015, you may not have to work 25 years to draw a pension

The period you have to pay into the system to be eligible to draw a pension is supposed to be cut down to 10 years in October 2015, but this is inextricably linked to a planned consumption tax hike.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 17, 2014

Cricket star Khan overplays hand in Pakistani power game

Cricket hero Imran Khan rode a wave of discontent to finally break through as a serious player in Pakistani politics in last year's election. Now he is aiming even higher, leading thousands on a march to the capital in a bid to unseat the prime minister.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 16, 2014

Home is where the hard work is

Earlier this year, house builder Asahi Kasei Homes produced a video "white paper" based on a survey of 1,371 "double-income families" with children. Seventy percent of the husbands surveyed said they had been subjected to kaji-hara, or "housework harassment," by their wives.
EDITORIALS
Aug 15, 2014

Worrying economic signs

The government must determine whether the slump in consumer spending during the April-June quarter is temporarily the result of the reaction to the three-percentage-point rise in the consumption tax, or reflects the Abe administration's policy failure.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 15, 2014

The bill for Putin's policy will be high

Virtually every retaliatory move against the West proposed by Vladimir Putin as a result of the Ukraine crisis has backfired on Russia and left it in a far weaker financial position.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ASHIDA'S WAR DIARY
Aug 14, 2014

Diary spurs rethink of prewar anti-militarist, postwar prime minister

The anti-military stance of the editor of The Japan Times got him blacklisted during the war but helped him become prime minister three years after it ended.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 14, 2014

'30 Dreams of Japanese Painters'

How much do our childhood dreams and hopes for the future change as we grow up? The Kasama Nichido Museum of Art explores this question with a display of 30 works by painters who were asked to illustrate dreams they experienced when they were young.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 14, 2014

Build strong Japan-India ties without taking aim at China

In Tokyo and New Delhi, there are people seeking to elevate Indo-Japanese relations to the status of a de facto alliance and to pursue a strategy of encircling China.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Aug 13, 2014

Past victimhood blinds Japan to present-day racial discrimination

Until Japan gets over itself and accepts that racialization processes are intrinsic to every society, it will never resolve its constant and unwarranted exceptionalism.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 13, 2014

'Sleep' dances toward another world

As a dancer, choreographer, philosopher and now professor in the Department of Scenography Design, Drama and Dance at Tama Art University in Setagaya, Tokyo, Saburo Teshigawara has been extending the range of his talents ever since he stopped studying visual arts and sculpture to begin learning ballet...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 13, 2014

SPAC's teen 'Dream' comes true

Mount Fuji towers nearby, and the hills around are covered with beautiful tea fields, while occupying a huge, 21-hectare plot of greenery dotted with theaters and rehearsal spaces is the home base of Shizuoka Performing Arts Center.
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 13, 2014

Japan's GDP set to fall sharply; stimulus expectations may surge

Japan's economy likely shrank sharply in the second quarter, which would be bad news for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's growth policies, but it could raise market expectations of further stimulus.
EDITORIALS
Aug 11, 2014

Next, conversation monitoring

The National Police Agency's white paper for 2014 stresses the need for police to consider conversation monitoring — as distinguished from 'ordinary' communications interception — as a new means of investigation.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Aug 11, 2014

Japan tallies weak yen as prices rise without export gain

It was called "endaka" — a Japanese term for currency strength that sapped the economy — and reversing it was supposed to help end deflation and stoke growth.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Aug 11, 2014

Defiant al-Maliki deploys special forces to key areas of Baghdad: police

Special forces loyal to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were deployed in strategic areas of Baghdad on Sunday night after he delivered a tough speech indicating he would not cave in to pressure to drop a bid for a third term, police sources said.
BUSINESS
Aug 11, 2014

Amazon stops some Disney movie pre-orders, WSJ reports

Pre-orders of some Disney movies have been halted by Amazon.com, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, in what appears to be another contract dispute after the online giant began a protracted spat with publisher Hachette Book Group this year.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 9, 2014

Haruki Murakami's new book peels back the layers of friendship

Haruki Murakami has made his name in the West with the translations of his tome-like novels, but it was 1987's relatively slim Norwegian Wood that made him famous in Japan. And his latest big hit here is similarly slender.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 9, 2014

Food Wars! vol. 1

"Food Wars!" tells the story of an ambitious boy named Soma whose dreams of becoming a successful chef appear to be over when his father closes down the family restaurant. His father then challenges Soma to enroll in an elite culinary school that prides itself on a brutally low graduation rate. Throw...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Aug 9, 2014

Bryerly Long: 'I'm still learning to accept the unknown'

'Sometimes people take themselves too seriously and, in reality, we invent our own characters. Who we are changes with time.'

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