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COMMENTARY
Feb 27, 2009

Little reason for Indians to claim 'Slumdog'

CHENNAI, India — Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire" may have walked away with eight of the 10 Oscars it was nominated for, including those for Best Picture and Best Director, but the euphoria it has created in India is clearly misplaced.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 27, 2009

'Temp' protests warp face of egalitarian Japan Inc.

Fired engine plant worker Kouichirou Fukudome shouts slogans with dozens of protesters outside truck maker Isuzu's towering headquarters, all demanding they get their jobs back.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 27, 2009

Angela Aki turns to the keys for answers

"I search for answers a lot in life when I feel like I don't know which way to go or what's right or wrong," says singer-songwriter Angela Aki. "So I turn to the piano and search for the answers through songs, and I figured in the end that the searching process has all the answers you are truly looking...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Feb 27, 2009

True icon of indie

The Wedding Present's latest album, "El Rey," is one of the best records I've heard over the last few years and has also been widely lauded in the British music media. Criminally, it has not been picked up for distribution in Japan. But you'll be able to hear the new songs at the band's upcoming Japan...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2009

'This is England'

The gang-movie genre tends to follow a fairly predictable arc: Impressionable youth is seduced by gang life, enjoys the wild times and camaraderie that follow, then inevitably winds up disillusioned with the lifestyle. Whether it's the mods and rockers of 1960s London in "Quadrophenia," or the favela...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 26, 2009

Fall in U.S. Japanese students worrisome

In a bid to stop the dramatic decline in Japanese studying in the United States, representatives of U.S. colleges and universities met Wednesday with education minister Ryu Shionoya to demand that Japan improve efforts to promote study abroad.
Reader Mail
Feb 26, 2009

Japanese culture more influential

Regarding Anthony Olsen's letter, "An exercise in self-reflection," which appeared in the Feb. 24 Have Your Say column: Trust me, Japan IS probably the safest, or second-safest after Singapore, country in the world. I spent more then six years in Japan and just over three months in Sydney. In Japan,...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 25, 2009

Lots of blame to go around for 'losing' Turkey

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — "Who lost Turkey?" That question, often raised in the past, has been heating up in the aftermath of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's emotional outburst during the recent World Economic Forum 2009 in Davos, when he abruptly left a panel he was sharing with Israeli President Shimon...
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Feb 24, 2009

Students impart art of dumpling making

Some 120 Chinese students and Japanese rolled up their sleeves and got their hands full of flour and sesame oil as part of the fun at an educational dumpling party in celebration of the Chinese New Year.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Feb 24, 2009

What would the locals do? Readers offer their views

Following are readers' responses to Paul de Vries' Feb. 3 Zeit Gist article, "What would the locals do?":
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Feb 24, 2009

The half, bi or double debate

Following are some of the responses The Japan Times received on the issues raised in Kristy Kosaka's Jan. 27 Zeit Gist article headlined ""Half, bi or double: one family's trouble":
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 20, 2009

Worst Taste: as stupid as they wanna be

"I like bands that are energetic and stupid. And with no sense of fashion. We hate fashionable bands whose music is no good."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 2009

An exhibition's critical charge

"In Japan, the city consists of parts perfect in themselves, but lacking a sense of or connection to the whole," observes curator Shino Nomura while discussing the work of Swiss architectural firm Diener & Diener.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 20, 2009

Nemuri-an: Austere, obscure, entirely Japanese

At the recent Tokyo Taste World Gastronomy Summit, the super-chefs assembled at Tokyo International Forum paid fulsome homage to Japan and its influence on their own creative vision. Their well-honed, technologically enhanced presentations were leavened throughout with buzzwords such as dashi soup stock,...
Reader Mail
Feb 19, 2009

People who can revitalize Japan

Many foreign residents, including myself, are angered at the Japanese government's insular, isolationist worldview, most recently reflected in the Justice Ministry's decision to deport a Filipino family, the Calderons, who have lived here since the early 1990s ("Filipino parents told to leave").
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2009

Myanmar refugees to try resettling

As Japan prepares to take in Myanmarese from Thai refugee camps, it is important that the communities they resettle in fully support their integration into society, experts said at a recent Tokyo symposium held by the Foreign Ministry.
COMMENTARY
Feb 18, 2009

Face up to a common threat

Despite a spreading jihad culture, U.S. President Barack Obama has ended America's global "war on terror" as dramatically as his predecessor had initiated it. With the stroke of his pen, Obama has effectively terminated the war on terror that President George W. Bush had launched to defeat terrorists...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WEEK 3
Feb 15, 2009

Keio's man ahead of his time

Next time you come by a ¥10,000 bill, take a look at the face of Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835-1901) that appears on the front, for he was a most remarkable man.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 15, 2009

Rebuilding sacred secrets of ancient Omi Province

Tourists might be attracted by Japanese temples and their gardens, but have you ever thought what it takes to preserve their timeless beauty?
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Feb 15, 2009

Eco-sweepers get to push their dust in the ancient way

In the future, when some oddly inclined academic sits down to pen the definitive history of the broom in Japan, several key years will stand out like piles of dust littering the corridors of time. One of them could be 2009.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2009

Choked with visitors, Kyoto takes slow road toward eco-tourism

The ancient capital of Kyoto conjures up many images among international tourists, ranging from quiet rock gardens and temples to performing geisha.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 14, 2009

Hauling in the souvenir binge

An Australian friend and I recently had the opportunity to show two of our good Japanese friends around Australia. Even though my native country is the United States, just being a gaijin who can speak Japanese was good enough for my Japanese friends, a couple (both 53 years old) who had traveled to other...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 14, 2009

Painting pictures from an artistic lyrical palette

As a narrative goes, lyricist Chris Mosdell's story is anything but a straightforward one.
COMMENTARY
Feb 13, 2009

Blaming bankers' bonuses

LONDON — U.S. President Barack Obama has called for an annual salary cap of $500,000 for directors of banks receiving government funds. (It is worth noting that this sum is $100,000 more than the president's salary.)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 13, 2009

An abandoned history of Chinese influence

Edo Period (1603-1868) paintings from Osaka have been relatively neglected in comparison with paintings from Tokyo and Kyoto. A canonical list of works and a historical framework were written up in Tokyo in the 1890s in a series of influential lectures by scholar Okakura Tenshin, setting the directions...
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Feb 10, 2009

Talking around and about art

Trying to understand contemporary art is difficult in the best of times. It is sometimes abstract, obscure or just plain odd. The question of how to enjoy an exhibit is made all the harder to answer if you're in Tokyo and your artistic attachments aren't matched by your Japanese language skills. Japan...
EDITORIALS
Feb 8, 2009

NHK 24 hours worldwide

NHK last week began its new worldwide 24-hour all-English TV service. The expanded broadcasting will now extend into some 70 countries via satellite, cable and the Internet. That means more people in more places will now be seeing Japan much more of the time.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 8, 2009

World Baseball Classic's controversial 13th-inning rule problematic

The Steering Committee of World Baseball Classic, Inc., has approved a controversial rule to help break a potential tie in a long extra-inning game during next month's WBC tournament, and it does not sit well with at least one Italian fan.
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 8, 2009

Japan charts a new course on refugees

Beginning in 2010, Japan will inaugurate a three-year pilot program to accept 30 refugees a year from camps nestled along the remote border between Thailand and Burma.

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