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JAPAN
May 29, 2012

'Various reasons' halted sex slave exhibit: Nikon

Nikon Corp. canceled its planned photo exhibition of wartime sex slaves for "various reasons," the major camera maker has announced.
JAPAN
May 29, 2012

Hashimoto school grads prep for run

With the first stage of Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto's Ishin Seiji Juku school for aspiring politicians concluding Saturday, the 2,000 students who entered in March will be whittled down to between 800 and 1,000 by the end of June.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
May 29, 2012

Tokyo: What do you think of the move by two hotels at Tokyo Disney Resort to offer same-sex marriage ceremonies?

C. Sakai
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LIGHT GIST
May 29, 2012

Manjiro, patron saint of eikaiwa, watches over English teachers

It can be tough teaching English in Japan. The chain school grind of late hours, noisy kids and boring middle-aged office workers takes its toll. Uppity teachers at public schools treat ALTs with contempt and all English instructors feel the humiliation of being looked down upon by their foreigner brethren...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
May 28, 2012

Unmachinable, unreformable, but necessary

One recent topic for The Wall Street Journal's front-page space set aside for stories other than the daily shenanigans of business, politics and wars was the community in Florida created for retired letter carriers. ("In Florida, These Retirees Deliver a First-Class Protest," March 27.)
Japan Times
LIFE
May 27, 2012

A lifelong dream comes true on Everest

I always keep a journal when I travel, but something's different about the one open in front of me now — the notebook in which I was writing just a few weeks ago. My normally smooth script has deteriorated into a scrawl, the black biro scoring angrily into the cream-colored pages.
EDITORIALS
May 25, 2012

Christening of Tokyo Skytree

Tokyo Skytree, the world's tallest broadcast tower, opened to visitors Tuesday, and Tokyo Skytree Town, which includes the tower, is now in full swing. The opening of the tower is a bright spot for Japan, still reeling from the effects of the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent Fukushima nuclear...
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2012

Beijing's North Korea policy only emboldens Pyongyang

Discussions in Beijing about North Korea are always frustrating. It's not so much due to the sharp divergence in U.S. and Chinese thinking about how to deal with Pyongyang; the two sides differ on many issues. No, the real problem, from our perspective, is the illogic of the Chinese position. Indeed,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
May 24, 2012

This Japanese Life

Scholars of Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher best known for his controversial statement "God is dead," have for years talked about a gaping hole in his works: Where are Nietzsche's writings about teaching English to Japanese high schoolers? What has he got to say about the paranoia of being...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 23, 2012

New JICA chief wants aid profile lift

If Japan wants to maintain its international influence, it should increase, not pare, official development assistance because South Korea, China and other countries are boosting economic aid to key developing states, the new Japan International Cooperation Agency chief says.
EDITORIALS
May 23, 2012

Mr. Okada's questionable efforts

A discussion group to push for administrative reform was set up under Deputy Prime Minister Katsuya Okada, whose jurisdiction includes administrative reform along with policies to cope with the nation's low birthrate, promotion of equal social participation by men and women and creation of "new public...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
May 22, 2012

Yokohama: What's the most annoying thing Japanese people say to you on a regular basis?

Japan Times
JAPAN / 40 YEARS AFTER REVERSION
May 19, 2012

Okinawans push to preserve unique language

Last in a series Byron Fija, 42, has an identity crisis.
JAPAN / 40 YEARS AFTER REVERSION
May 18, 2012

Jurisdiction over remote Senkakus comes with hot-button dangers

Fourth in a series In January, Hitoshi Nakama, a member of the municipal assembly of Ishigaki, Okinawa, and three others landed on Uotsuri Island, one of the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
EDITORIALS
May 18, 2012

Helping people help NPOs

Nonprofit organizations play important roles in such areas as education, social welfare, public health and medical services and environmental protection in communities; after the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami, they have also been active in disaster relief efforts.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 17, 2012

"Architect Togo Murano and The City of Amagasaki"

These days, Togo Murano (1891-1984) may not be a household name, however for architecture fans, he is renowned for his modernist designs of several prestigious buildings, including the Memorial Cathedral for World Peace in Hiroshima.
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
May 15, 2012

Supreme Court knocks down discipline of mentally ill employee

Can a company discipline an employee for taking absence without leave if that worker could be suffering from mental illness? Just a few weeks ago, on April 27, the Supreme Court ruled against Hewlett-Packard Japan Ltd. in a case that posed precisely this question. The verdict illustrates the courts'...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
May 15, 2012

Fujisawa: How has the Fukushima nuclear disaster changed your life?

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 13, 2012

Born of disaster, modern architecture is itself now an ongoing disaster

In the French writer-director Jacques Tati's superb 1967 film "Play Time," people are like prisoners condemned to roam about in and amid the glass cages of high-rise office blocks. They are lost, both to the world and themselves. In the world of Tati, who died in 1982 aged 75, all cities look alike;...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 12, 2012

Filmmaker savors being in situation where threat of the unknown looms

A surfboard mounted against a sea of sludge, whimsically defiant to the ruinous tide of debris. It's the kind of quirky beauty you might expect from Michael Arias, an American filmmaker based in Tokyo. Arias' creative work, in film through to his recent photographs of Tohoku, all paint with the same...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 12, 2012

Can Japan's countryside be saved from the edge of extinction?

Once upon a time in Okayama, Japan, lived an old man and an old woman who had no children of their own. One day, the old man went into the forest to cut down bamboo while the old woman went to the river to wash clothes. While at the river, she noticed a giant peach bobbing up and down in the water. She...
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
May 11, 2012

Global photo organization to open Tokyo chapter with 3/11 event

Originally started in San Francisco in 2008, the photography event organization Open Show has spread to Cairo, Paris and more than 30 other cities around the world. On May 15 it will hold its first event in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 11, 2012

Filmmaker says don't worry, be happy

"Wow, the weather turned bad quickly, huh?"

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