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Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 28, 2012

Mashiko-based U.S. potter vows he'll not be defeated by 3/11 destruction

Harvey Young, a ceramic artist for over 40 years who has spent nearly three decades in Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture, knows a thing or two about shaping beauty out of chaos — and about the sudden misfires life can bring. Even his early love for pottery warped and melded with other interests until it...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 27, 2012

Representing Japan at Art Kyoto

In the wake of the recently held Art Fair Tokyo, Kyoto is following up with its own alternative in Art Kyoto. Organizers will, however, eschew the international art fair model seen in Tokyo and do what Kyoto does best — represent Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 27, 2012

Representing Japan at Art Kyoto

In the wake of the recently held Art Fair Tokyo, Kyoto is following up with its own alternative in Art Kyoto. Organizers will, however, eschew the international art fair model seen in Tokyo and do what Kyoto does best — represent Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 27, 2012

'Thermae Romae'

Reading manga can teach you a lot, be the subject wine ("Kami no Shizuku [Drops of God]"), gourmet food ("Oishinbo") or the arcane world of feudal-era concubines ("Sakuran"). But the Japanese bath? Isn't that a subject Japanese are immersed in almost from Day One? Why would they need to read about it...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 26, 2012

Creating true nuclear watchdog exacts toll in time, trust

The Diet looks like it's finally set to deliberate a long-stalled bill to create a new nuclear regulatory agency that will serve as a true atomic energy watchdog and, hopefully, rebuild the public trust lost by its predecessors.
EDITORIALS
Apr 26, 2012

Changing Tepco from the inside

The government on April 19 picked Mr. Kazuhiko Shimokobe, a bankruptcy lawyer with vast experience in corporate restructuring, as chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Co. He headed the decision-making body of the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund, a public entity that injects funds into Tepco to...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LIGHT GIST
Apr 24, 2012

Poetic, but maybe not justice: Japan demystified in haiku

One of my goals in writing for The Japan Times over the years has been to try to render the seemingly arcane functioning of the Japanese legal system a bit more comprehensible to non-Japanese, non-legal types. This involves a big assumption that I understand it myself, but I have at least tried to offer...
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 22, 2012

Chernobyl expert takes a look at Tohoku's trees

Somewhere between downtown Utsunomiya in Tochigi Prefecture, and the village of Ogisu an hour's drive to the northeast, Dr. Tatsuhiro Ohkubo pulls over to buy a box of sakura mochi.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 22, 2012

Matsumoto in May means 'crafts '

England gave the world the Windsor chair, but it was the city of Matsumoto in central Nagano Prefecture that reinvented it for Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 22, 2012

Espionage and mystery in modern-day China

Don't Cry Tai Lake, by Qiu Xiaolong. St. Martin's Minotaur, 2012, 272 pp., $24.99 (hardcover) An American Spy, by Olen Steinhauer. St. Martin's Minotaur, 2012, 400 pp., $25.99 (hardcover) Qiu Xiaolong's mystery novels, featuring Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Department, have largely...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 21, 2012

New Olympus picks defeat protests

Olympus Corp. won approval Friday to appoint new management, including Yasukuki Kimoto as chief executive officer and Hiroyuki Sasa as president, despite opposition from foreign shareholders.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Apr 20, 2012

Government shows awareness of something called 'child support'

New divorce notification forms finally acknowledge that some couples have kids.
JAPAN
Apr 20, 2012

Bridgestone to recall nearly 10,000 Jobno bicycles with radioactive baskets

Bridgestone Cycle Co. plans to recall 9,405 of its Jobno bicycles after radioactive materials were found in its Chinese-made stainless steel basket, the company said Thursday.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Apr 20, 2012

Stroll on the streets provides wondrous feats for passersby to behold

Even the most determined cynics aren't going to be able to avoid staring in awe at the wondrous feats that this weekend's annual Yokohama Street Performance is preparing to throw at them.
COMMENTARY
Apr 20, 2012

How Beijing demonstrates a lesson in harmony

From the outside it seems as though China's leadership is facing its biggest crisis in a generation with the country's most prominent political star, Bo Xilai, the czar of Chongqing, suddenly dismissed from all of his posts while his wife and a household assistant stand accused of the murder of British...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Apr 20, 2012

World Gardening Fair at Hotel Okura

This year, the Hotel Okura Tokyo marks its 50th anniversary, and as part of the celebrations, the hotel will host the 12th Annual World Gardening Fair from May 1-6 at the Heian Room on the first floor of its main building.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 18, 2012

The lives of boys devalued in U.S. and Afghanistan

What is a boy's life worth? The answer may depend on who is asking. It also may matter where the question is being raised.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Apr 17, 2012

Texan's magic transforms verandas

When you step out onto the veranda of Theodore Jennings' penthouse apartment in Tokyo's Shinjuku district, it almost feels like you're on vacation in some other location — be it New York or some European resort.
Reader Mail
Apr 15, 2012

The hunt for Japan's civilization

The perennial debate on the death penalty again reared its head with Cesar Chelala's excellent April 11 article. But I fear that his exhortations will once again fall on the deaf ears of those who kill in the name of the state, both in Japan and in the United States.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / WEEK 3
Apr 15, 2012

Legendary Chigusa jazz cafe reborn

A lot of people were left feeling blue after Chigusa, Japan's oldest jazz cafe, closed in 2007 when the Noge district of Yokohama where it had been serving Satchmo with its coffees since 1933 fell victim to developers.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 15, 2012

Japanese law: a solid reference book

The Compendium of Basic Laws of Japan, by Ted Toku Morita. Kojinsha, Tokyo, 2011, 287 pp. (paperback) Add another reference book to your Japanese shelf; there's a wedge of space between the kanji dictionary and your battered "Japanese for Busy People." Ted Toku Morita's translation, "The Compendium of...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Apr 15, 2012

U.S. forces keep the world in their sights

Complex issues often become much easier to understand when they are approached with the benefit of a broader perspective.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Apr 15, 2012

Wild Watch turns 30 this month

As April 2nd's 30th anniversary of my first Wild Watch column in The Japan Times neared, I was in India — teeming Delhi to be precise, with its cacophony of people, honking traffic and barking dogs, though a tailorbird would stop and call outside my window, where a palm squirrel never tired of chattering....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 14, 2012

Canadian black-belt takes pride in action not words

For Robert Hughes, the shortest answer is doing. From his early determination to procure a traditional Japanese sword to his more recent work with Japanese students in the poverty-stricken streets of the Philippines, Hughes, 54, has spent over 30 years in Japan allowing his actions to speak eloquently...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Apr 13, 2012

Museum to screen alternate version of Nazi film from Japan

With both Japanese and German directors in charge, the film "Atarashiki Tsuchi (Die Tochter des Samurai)" sparked an international sensation when it first hit theaters in 1937. Such is its historical and cultural importance that, after a 75-year hiatus, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography began...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Apr 12, 2012

Tokyo Times

When not working as a high school English teacher, photoblogger Lee Chapman walks the streets of Tokyo in search of stories and sights that tourists, and even long-term residents, seldom see. Chapman, a U.K. native, has been running the photoblog Tokyo Times for almost 10 years. While his posts do sometimes...

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