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LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 21, 2009

The key words that kept Japan abuzz in 2008

Last October, publisher Jiyu Kokuminsha released the 61st edition of its "Gendai Yogo no Kiso Chishiki (Encyclopedia of Contemporary Words)" — a massive 1,614-page tome that retails for just ¥2,980. I have a facsimile copy of the book's first edition, launched on Oct. 10, 1948. In the introduction,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2009

Tsukiji reopens tuna auctions to the public

The Tsukiji fish market, one of Tokyo's most popular tourist attractions, reopened its early morning tuna auctions to the public Monday after a monthlong ban.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 20, 2009

Breaking the silence on burakumin

For those who don't know — and you would be forgiven considering the lack of coverage the issue receives — a buraku is the term used to describe an area where some, but not all, of the residents have ancestral ties to the people placed at the bottom of feudal society in the Edo Period. These people...
EDITORIALS
Jan 19, 2009

Ruinous cash-flow wall

The large number of corporate bankruptcies in 2008 shows how badly the global downturn has slammed the Japanese economy. The government should pay special attention to the fact that many companies in the black went under due to cash-flow problems.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jan 19, 2009

Aso getting the brushoff

As the approval rate for the government of Prime Minister Taro Aso plummets, bureaucrats have begun to distance themselves from him in favor of establishing closer ties with the No. 1 opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which they apparently think has at least a fair chance of displacing Aso's ruling...
Reader Mail
Jan 18, 2009

Risky shakeup for students

Regarding the Dec. 23 article "English classes face a shakeup": I disagree that high school English classes should be taught primarily in English (from 2013). Some students who are not good at English won't understand what's going on and may misunderstand what teachers say.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jan 18, 2009

Of orphans and granddaughters

When I was 10 years old, I found a book titled "Akage no An" ("Anne with Red Hair") in a library. It was a Japanese translation of "Anne of Green Gables" written by Canadian novelist Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) in 1908.
JAPAN
Jan 17, 2009

U.S. business envoy warns against protectionism amid economic woes

Japan should steer clear of protectionism and use its extraordinary wealth to stimulate its economy and become a much larger player in the global trading system, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Friday in Tokyo.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 16, 2009

Japanese wine: unadulterated and ready to go abroad

The image most people have of Japanese wine is of the ¥500 plonk sitting next to the synthetic beer and sickly sweet chu-hi cocktails on the shelves of their local convenience store; of the cheap and decidedly dismal stuff of lost weekends and discarded personal dignity.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2009

Refugee hopefuls' ally speaks out

Tsuyoshi Amemiya, 74, a retired Aoyama Gakuin University professor, recalls the day he got a lesson on the status of refugees in Japan — and how shocked he was by his own ignorance of the issue.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 13, 2009

Bloated bureaucracy exposed

A common joke among some foreigners here is that everything makes sense once you realize Japan is a communist country. However, the role of privileged ruling Communist Party (or, if you have a literary bent, the pigs in George Orwell's socialist parable "Animal Farm") is played not by the perpetual opposition...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jan 10, 2009

The English language is going to the dogs

On Friday nights, I teach private English lessons to five people and three dogs. The dogs are good students: They are very quiet and never bark or interrupt. They always come to class well-groomed, wearing smart looking T-shirts and dresses. Absenteeism is rare, with just one absence due to a veterinary...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2009

Managing fads, frenzies and finance markets

BARCELONA — The financial crisis, credit crunch and ensuing economic downturn have severely damaged the credibility of financial markets, institutions and traders. More and more people are claiming that markets are characterized by irrationality, bubbles, fads and frenzies, and that economic actors...
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Jan 6, 2009

Countdown party India style

Almost a quarter of the Indian community in eastern Tokyo, adults and children alike, shared a lively countdown party with Japanese locals on Dec. 31.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jan 6, 2009

Academic career in Japan served as vital lesson in culture, says dean

Bruce Stronach, current dean of the Japan campus of Temple University, has a career in academia that spans two countries and over three decades. Sixteen of those years were spent with schools in Japan and have taught him much about Japanese society.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 4, 2009

A nation adrift cries out for new visions fired by anger and sorrow

Every era in the life of a country begs for creators to define it and give it momentum for its society to progress. Politicians, economists and bureaucrats seem to believe that culture rides on the wave of the economy — but the opposite is true. It is on progressive waves of culture that economic achievement...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Jan 4, 2009

You can't beat country life

I was down in Kyushu with some Japanese friends last year, just sipping a few drinks and chatting. The conversation turned to kabu and became very serious and somewhat gloomy. Quite honestly, I wasn't really following it all, but I felt I had to put in my two-pennies' worth.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 3, 2009

Leading businesswoman attempts to bridge gender gap

In 2003, when Mitsuru Claire Chino became one of The World Economic Forum "100 global leaders for tomorrow," she had to consider what impact she could make. "I wanted to help women advance in the world — especially within corporate Japan," she recalls thinking at the time. And so it was, Chino —...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2009

Is Aso only postponing the inevitable?

The political news that will have the most far-reaching repercussions into the new year is the plummeting approval rating of Prime Minister Taro Aso and his Cabinet, and his delay in dissolving the Lower House of the Diet for a general election.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 1, 2009

Finding beauty in a world of waste

"If we live in a creative universe, we are constantly pushing the chaos out of the way to protect ourselves from the nonlogical — the natural," muses Vik Muniz at an interview late last year at Tokyo Wonder Site. "Even when you think, you create waste. But everything is made in a way to conceal the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 1, 2009

Words as images

On a single white sheet, the kanji for "snow" — yuki — printed in black, is repeated exactly 1,352 times in a symmetrical grid formation. A 1970 work by Niikuni Seiichi, "flowery snow" (1970) is at once calligraphy, poem and picture. In the Chinese literati tradition — which was influential on...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 31, 2008

Blood types — do they shape a personality or mere stereotypes?

Can blood type determine character?
Japan Times
BUSINESS / TAKING A CHANCE
Dec 30, 2008

For hotelier, budget prices at resorts are an easy sell

Naoki Yamanaka, president of hotel operator Shiki Resorts Co., wants more Japanese to appreciate the seasonal changes that bless this country.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 28, 2008

The swift strokes of 'no-brush' calligraphy

KEN-ZEN-SHO: Zen Calligraphy and Painting of Yamaoka Tesshu, with a foreword by Rupert Faulkner, introductions by Sarah Moate and Alex Bennett, an essay by Terayama Tanchu and an afterword by Takemura Eiji. Bunkashi International (Kendo World Publications), 2008, 200 pp., 33 color plates, 67 b/w pictures,...

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