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Reader Mail
Jan 15, 2012

Lack of motivation for studying

Shiga University President Takamitsu Sawa's Dec. 19 article, "Motivation for college study," leads me to believe that he missed the point of his own article. Japanese students, generally speaking, are not motivated to attend college abroad mainly because they are not motivated to study or encouraged...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jan 15, 2012

Nakajima, Aoki reminders that posting system is an inexact science

There were some strange goings-on in the attempts by Japanese stars Hiroyuki Nakajima and Norichika Aoki to leave their clubs and carve out careers in the major leagues via the posting system.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 8, 2012

Stop the presses and hold the front page

It was perhaps the biggest financial story of postwar Japan — or it should have been.Yamaichi Securities, one of the nation's four top brokerages, which was among the world's six largest in the 1980s, had in 1992 started to illegally bury millions of dollars in red ink off the books, setting up dummy...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 1, 2012

Japan's troubled royals put up a brave front

Bungei Shunju ("literary spring and autumn") is arguably Japan's most prestigious monthly magazine. Emblazoned in celebratory red across the cover of its New Year's edition is the rather ominous headline, "The Day the Heisei (Era) Ends."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / LIGHT GIST
Dec 27, 2011

2011: a year of disaster in quotes

This year produced more than its share of memorable quotes, many of which were inspired by the March 11 disaster and its aftermath. But figures from other fields, from sports to entertainment, also said things worth repeating. Here is a sampling, in chronological order:
Reader Mail
Dec 8, 2011

Criticism of criticism puzzling

I can't for the life of me understand why Donald Feeney — in his Dec. 1 letter, "Unbalanced article on immigrants" — believes that Hiroaki Sato (Nov. 28 article, "Learning to live with the builders of America") should feel obligated to bring up Japan in his article on American immigration policies....
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 4, 2011

Occupy Wall Street resonates within Japan

While Japan's vernacular media has regularly reported on the Occupy Wall Street movement that has swept the United States over the past several months, coverage regarding the movement and its aims has been somewhat bland.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Nov 25, 2011

Are digital newspaper subscriptions worth it?

Japanese newspapers still have cold feet when it comes to embracing their digital editions.
Reader Mail
Oct 27, 2011

The source of Israel's insecurity

A.B. Yehoshua's Oct. 25 article, "A thousand prisoners for one," fails to mention that Israel's great need for security (hence its many wars) is largely due to its conquest of Palestine, which was primarily settled by Arabs, and replacing them with Jewish immigrants who largely came from Europe. Neither...
Reader Mail
Oct 6, 2011

Conforming to a culture of denial

Almost no Japanese today would believe the incident (Shinjuku Riot of Oct. 21, 1968) mentioned at the beginning of Roger Pulvers' Oct. 2 Counterpoint article, "Japan's leaders still don't get it — but whither that 'heretical' 1960s spirit?" This is more evidence of the utopia-denial syndrome that afflicts...
COMMUNITY / LIFELINES
Oct 4, 2011

Unfair dismissal: the legal options

Reader MB was recently fired from a private language school he'd been working at for five years.
Reader Mail
Oct 2, 2011

Japanese leaders will find a way

I feel compelled to comment on two letters published Sept. 25. First, Grant Piper ("Evacuation revelations shocking") uses the Sept. 19 article "Tokyo faced evacuation scenario: Kan" to lambast Japanese leadership, arguing that "alarmist and hysterical" foreign media coverage was warranted after all...
Reader Mail
Sep 25, 2011

Monitoring of cesium in food

It's good to see The Japan Times covering the issue of radiation in food. Tomoko Otake's Sept. 20 article, "Hold the cesium: ways to reduce radiation in your diet," contained useful information, but I would take issue with one point.
Reader Mail
Sep 15, 2011

A comment on Muslims' views

Regarding the Sept. 9 JIJI article "Muslims here feel misunderstood": I would like to add that it seems to me that "feeling misunderstood" is inherent to a certain faction of Muslims all over the so called Western world. That some Muslims feel "misunderstood" increases with their percentage of the population....
Reader Mail
Sep 11, 2011

Toxic legacy on fourth generation

Regarding Roger Pulvers' Sept. 4 Counterpoint article, "As 9/11 nears, morality dictates we recall victims of America, too": While all will sympathize with the 3,000 victims of the Twin Towers, the article is correct to point out the many deaths caused by the actions of the United States. Unfortunately...
EDITORIALS
Sep 3, 2011

Net surveillance dangers

On March 11, the day when the massive earthquake and tsunami hit the Tohoku region's Pacific coastal areas, the Kan Cabinet endorsed a bill to revise the Criminal Law to smooth investigation into computer crimes.
Reader Mail
Sep 1, 2011

Pioneering efforts in Tohoku

Regarding Dreux Richard's Aug. 23 Zeit Gist article, "Peace Boat-Rolls talks lay bare ethical minefield": It is not easy to stir up controversy and cast doubts on the motives of a small group of selfless volunteers working to help Tohoku, where more than 5,000 volunteers have spent days and weeks at...
JAPAN
Aug 11, 2011

Deal on bills looks to pave Kan's way out

Prime Minister Naoto Kan's hoped-for exit by month's end got new legs Wednesday, after a Lower House committee OK'd a key bond-issuance bill for passage later in the month and Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers began laying the groundwork for a race to elect a new leader.
COMMENTARY
Jul 1, 2011

Black info and media gullibility: creation of the Tiananmen myth

The recent WikiLeaks release of cables from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing has helped finally to kill the myth of an alleged massacre in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3-4, 1989.
Reader Mail
May 26, 2011

Shifting blame to U.S. pressure

As the potentially worst nuclear accident ever continues to unfold at Fukushima, it has become quite common to read obfuscations and falsehoods from nervous and embarrassed Japanese officials. The May 19 Kyodo article from Geneva, "Japan offers WHO apology for nuclear crisis," takes the cake.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 15, 2011

Media starting to tally the economic effects of foreigner flight

News reports immediately following the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant accident of panicked foreign residents lining up for the first flight home — in many cases advised to flee by their own governments — had the initial result of helping to feed the sense of angst among Japanese that...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Apr 19, 2011

'Nuclear plants on tofu,' 'Debito's drivel': readers respond

Some readers' responses to our stories and letters on Japan's nuclear crisis and Debito Arudou's "Letting radiation leak, but never information" (April 5):
Reader Mail
Apr 7, 2011

Credit for Japan's modern success

Regarding Michael Hoffman's Timeout April 3 article, "Renewed national pride will shape Japan's future": The Japanese never lost their "Japanese spirit" after World War II. Nor did they become "Americanized" and lose their unique culture. We might have whipped them, but all America did was point Japan...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Mar 28, 2011

Weeklies getting the gavel for targeting public figures

Fear is mounting within Japanese journalism circles, especially among publishers of popular weekly magazines, that their reporting may be severely constrained by the recent tendency of courts to award large compensation claims to plaintiffs in libel suits.
Reader Mail
Mar 27, 2011

Contact information appreciated

Regarding the March 23 Kyodo article from Iwate Prefecture, "": I noticed that "A majority of foreigners left stranded in the aftermath of the disaster have been without sufficient language assistance, which is vital to gaining access to relief supplies" was tacked on at the end of the article. It seemed...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 27, 2011

Local media react to the events of March 11

For Japan's vernacular media, the March 11 disaster and its aftermath is the proverbial 800-pound gorilla that engulfed coverage of most other news. The items that follow give some idea of the scope of reporting over the past two weeks.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 1, 2011

Solving parental child abduction problem no piece of cake

The Way of Cake is mysterious and paradoxical. A master of the Way can make his neighbors feel they have filled themselves with tasty cake without ever cutting off a piece. The Way allows its disciple to step outside the boundaries of rational thought by partaking of cake while continuing to possess...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 16, 2011

The world needs more elephant mothers

MELBOURNE — Many years ago, my wife and I were driving somewhere with our three young daughters in the back, when one of them suddenly asked: "Would you rather that we were clever or that we were happy?"
Reader Mail
Jan 27, 2011

Show evidence of antithetical bias

Ramzy Baroud's Jan. 16 article, "Political biases trash lauded Ph.D. research," fails to make the point that thunders from its headline, and it fails to give any substantive support to Ph.D. candidate Deepak Tripathi — the primary subject of the piece.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?