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Reader Mail
Apr 9, 2009

Playing the fool in hard times

On April 1, I combed The Japan Times hoping to find an April Fools' Day story to match the one two years ago about "Hachiko." I think I found it in the April 2 article "Axed Brazilians, Peruvians to be paid to leave Japan."
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Apr 5, 2009

Swapping snow for a rain forest

Although there was very little snow this winter here where I live in the Nagano Prefecture hills, it was still good to have an excuse to get away from the cold, and the excuse this time was to present a prize for the writer and illustrator of a book for little children.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Apr 5, 2009

The hostess club with the mostest AV stars

The job of a typical club hostess is to jovially engage in simple chat, pour cocktails and attend to any unlit cigarettes for her male patron. Yet it will not be long before his topics of conversation drift from simple pleasantries to more intimate inquiries — an uncomfortable yet obligatory duty for...
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Apr 1, 2009

Ota regains focus to win

After earning a silver medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, foil fencer Yuki Ota said he struggled to elevate his motivation level.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2009

Water, water everywhere but . . .

ISTANBUL, CITIZEN NEWS SERVICE — Water constitutes about three-fourths of Earth's surface, but only less than 1 percent of it can be used by its inhabitants. Most of it consists of saltwater oceans (about 97 percent), and 2 percent of that is contained in glaciers. With every country seeking to satisfy...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 29, 2009

Japan shows how a good's no good unless it's a character good

"Novels you can eat" was the title of an article in the Asahi Shimbun on March 16. It drew on the initiative displayed by a confectionery-maker in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, to commemorate this year's 100th anniversary of the birth of bohemian author Osamu Dazai. That initiative involves a box of 18...
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 29, 2009

Bodies beautiful

At 2 a.m. on a spring morning in 2002, photographer Mitsuhiro Mouri received a phone call from the most famous actress in Japan.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Mar 29, 2009

Hold the SOS call on the Japanese language

Will the Japanese language die, crushed by the onslaught of English? This question has set off some heated talk in Japan recently because of a book suggesting that it may. First, a friend of mine in Tokyo, a member of a small reading club, told me about it. Then another friend wrote to say the book became...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 27, 2009

New National Theatre commences epic 'Ring' cycle

Coinciding with Tom Cruise's latest film, the New National Theatre Tokyo will next month perform the opera "Die Walkure" ("The Valkyrie"), part of "Der Ring des Niebelungen" ("The Ring of the Niebelung"), which is a cycle of four linked operas composed by 19th-century German Richard Wagner (1813-83)....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 27, 2009

As slump bites deeper, shoppers warm to no-name foreign gadgets

The recession is causing a massive consumer shift: No longer do Japan's famously finicky and brand-conscious shoppers assume imported and no-name electronics are as cheap in quality as they are in price.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / LIQUID CULTURE
Mar 27, 2009

Taste-testing a brew for the recession

There's a good reason that beer-makers use barley as a base ingredient. Fermentation only works on sugars, and grains don't contain any. But when a grain gets moist, it germinates, and its sprout contains an enzyme that converts starch into sugar. Some grains have tough husks, others sprout too meekly,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 27, 2009

Duffy savors fruits of success

"Half of my quarter of a century belongs to music, so I never belonged to anything else," says Welsh songstress Duffy. "I feel very able and ready!"
CULTURE / Music
Mar 27, 2009

Duffy savors fruits of success

"Half of my quarter of a century belongs to music, so I never belonged to anything else," says Welsh songstress Duffy. "I feel very able and ready!"
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Mar 26, 2009

Makeup artist Yukiko Takeda

Yukiko Takeda, 37, is chief makeup artist for Watosa, a skincare line created by famous beauty guru Sablo Watanabe. For the past 15 years, Yukiko has been making women look and feel so beautiful that over 80 percent of her first-time clients turn into hardcore fans who need their fix of "Yukiko magic"...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC
Mar 23, 2009

Japan ready to do whatever it takes to reach final

Japan's main objective in the 2009 World Baseball Classic is to repeat as WBC champions.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 22, 2009

Tale of a fallen woman and other intrigues

Since his literary debut in 1992, Vincent "Vinnie" Calvino, an expat Italian-Jewish attorney from New York, has been pursuing investigations on behalf of mostly foreign clients in Bangkok.
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2009

All eyes on Okubo as DPJ treads water

The political funds controversy hanging over the Democratic Party of Japan is likely to start boiling Tuesday when prosecutors decide whether to indict DPJ President Ichiro Ozawa's top secretary, Takanori Okubo, whose period of custody ends the same day.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 20, 2009

Photographer Sugimoto strikes a Stone Age deal with U2

Just two minutes into an interview with artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, it became clear why the famously discreet 61-year-old had agreed to talk about rock band U2's use of one of his photographs on the cover of their latest album, "No Line on the Horizon."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 20, 2009

Okinawan flavors of entertainment

Manabu Oshiro, the chief of the Research and Training Section of the National Theater, Okinawa since 2006, attributes the creation of kumiodori, a form of drama unique to Okinawa, to the friendly relationship that the Ryukyu Kingdom maintained with China for over 400 years spanning the 15th to the 19th...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Mar 20, 2009

Spain's star chefs to shine in Tokyo

The Ekki Bar & Grill on the seventh floor of the Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Marunouchi will host 12 stars of the modern Spanish culinary scene at "The Art of New Spanish Cuisine" fair.
BUSINESS
Mar 20, 2009

Sony-Google book deal

Sony Corp., the world's second-largest maker of consumer electronics, will allow users of its reading device to access more than half a million of Google Inc.'s online books.
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2009

Baha'i in Japan slam Iran for holding members accused of spying for Israel

KOBE — Japan's Baha'i community is calling on the government to join the growing list of countries and international organizations that have condemned Iran for its arrest of seven of its members.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Mar 18, 2009

Clarity up for reading, dieting and television

Tuned in: The small fortunes people spend on television antennas or television sets can be a waste of money if both products are not of a similar quality. Panasonic looks to solve this problem with its new compact LCD high-definition TV, the 17-inch Viera TH-L17F1. The key to this innovative set is that...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Mar 17, 2009

Found in 'Area 51,' he goes by one name

Pitching greats Daisuke Matsuzaka and Yu Darvish are leading Japan's star-studded squad as national teams battle it out in the United States in the World Baseball Classic.

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