Search - culture

 
 
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 29, 2007

Defect-finding autoworker blows whistle on new 'Toyota way'

The California autoworker who is suing Toyota and others in a whistle-blower lawsuit said Tuesday she was merely carrying out the quality-conscious "Toyota way" in spotting defects when managers cracked down on her efforts and demoted her.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 28, 2007

Globalization blurs North-South divide

NEW YORK — The notion of a divide between the rich north and the poor and developing south has long been a central concept among economists and policymakers. From 1950 to 1980, the north accounted for almost 80 percent of global GDP but only 22 percent of its population, and the south accounted for...
COMMENTARY
Nov 28, 2007

Hello to the euro, goodbye to the dollar

LONDON — It's just straws in the wind so far. India's Ministry of Culture announces that foreign tourists can no longer pay in dollars when visiting the Taj Mahal and other heritage sites; they have to pay in good, hard rupees. Iran and Venezuela call for a joint OPEC statement on the weak dollar,...
COMMENTARY
Nov 28, 2007

Labor wins by a Rudd-slide

WATERLOO, Ontario — Poor John Howard. Reckless on climate change, clueless in Iraq, fickle on civil liberties, mean to migrants and minorities, ruthless toward the workers — and now jobless. He also was set to lose the Parliament seat he has represented since 1974, the first sitting prime minister...
Reader Mail
Nov 27, 2007

Don't stop with pro-whale protests

I share everyone's sadness over the needless killing of whales but feel that, for many, the concern is rather selective. I wonder how many of the people complaining are meat-eaters. The production of beef is one of the most devastating activities for the Earth's environment -- far more so than the culling...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Nov 27, 2007

Feeling designs

'Design is not just about making something, it is about designing the feelings of the person who uses it," says Tokujin Yoshioka, sitting in his Daikanyama studio among magazine-laden shelves and prototypes in various stages of development.
LIFE / Language
Nov 27, 2007

New translation vividly depicts postwar Tokyo

Shishi Bunroku (the pen name of Iwata Toyoo) is a writer who deserves to be better known. His novel "Jiyu Gakko (School of Freedom)" was a best seller when it first appeared in 1951, and gives as vivid a picture as we're likely to get today of what daily life was like in postwar Tokyo.
COMMENTARY
Nov 26, 2007

Upbeat band of moderates keep the faith

BALI, Indonesia — A bad idea can sometimes illuminate the darkest landscape of truth with brilliant flair in a way that mere fact cannot. Consider, for example, the idea that Islam is incompatible with democracy. It's a really bad idea, but it can serve a very good purpose.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 25, 2007

Tales of Meiji love, lust and drinking tea

Mistress Oriku: Stories from a Tokyo Teahouse by Matsutaro Kawaguchi. Tuttle Publishing, 280 pp., 2007, ¥1,785 (paper) During the middle to late years of the Meiji Era, factories, cement works and commercial shipyards began to spring up like noxious mushrooms along the embankments of Tokyo's Sumida...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Nov 25, 2007

An insider detects desperation

Tokyo Motor Show is one of the world's most important biennial automotive exhibitions, and I get to see them all. It attracts everyone who's anyone in the motoring industry, drawing phenomenal crowds — 1,4525,800 people over 17 days from Oct. 26 to Nov. 11. And more than any other car show in the world,...
JAPAN
Nov 25, 2007

Taiwan's Ma winning converts in Nagata-cho

front-runner and "multiple Japanese government officials" Thursday. The meeting ranks as a first, a source in Ma's entourage said. That Tokyo would risk a row with China by allowing Cabinet officials to meet a Taiwanese presidential candidate speaks volumes about Japan's attitude toward Ma.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Nov 23, 2007

Kyoto vegetables at Grand Prince; Niki Club opens new guest house

Kyoto's rich vegetable cuisine "Kyo-yasai Meister" Yoshimasa Takagaki will come to Tokyo on Dec. 3 and 4 to introduce the charm of Kyo-yasai, literally "Kyoto vegetables," at the French de Kyo-yasai fair in the Blue Gardenia restaurant on the 40th floor of the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka.
LIFE / Digital
Nov 21, 2007

iPod DJs gear up and face off at music event in Tokyo

Everyone knows the iconic image of the DJ — the permanently worn headphones, satchel full of vinyl, twin Technics 1200 turntables — but that could all be about to change with iPod Battle Tokyo: The Clash this Friday, where nine DJ teams will fight it out using nothing but a pair of slimline, portable...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 20, 2007

World's suicide capital — tough image to shake

Japan has attained a reputation as the suicide capital of the world. A 2007 international comparison of suicide rates (per 100,000 people) by the World Health Organization ranked Japan sixth for females, at 12.8, behind Sri Lanka, South Korea and Lithuania, and 11th for males, at 35.6, well below Lithuania,...
COMMENTARY
Nov 18, 2007

Stoking democracy in a Muslim giant

BALI, Indonesia — Do you like big-time success stories? There may be a quiet one in the making here that almost no one knows about, aside from the neighbors. And it's an important story at this early stage, even if the political tale's ending cannot honestly be forecast.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 16, 2007

Aussies eye painless change

SYDNEY — A conservative coalition that has governed Australia for over a decade under Prime Minister John Howard faces a severe test ahead of next week's national election.
COMMENTARY
Nov 15, 2007

The fusillade against China

In some ways China is not my favorite country. I once went to some trouble to learn its language. I have often had to court rightwing hostility for trying to explain its foreign policies in less than demonic terms. Back in 1971 I even organized, single-handedly and over Canberra's opposition, an Australian...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 15, 2007

Restoring the innocence of childhood

With just a few days before International Children's Day (Nov. 20), it is high time to ponder the issues in the leadup to the event. This day is marked to commemorate globally the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was signed by the United Nations on Nov. 20, 1989, and celebrated as Children's...
Reader Mail
Nov 11, 2007

Appalling conditions at zoo

We live in Canada and vacation in Japan often -- my wife is Japanese. I am greatly impressed by Japan -- the culture, the people, the technology and the high standard of living. But as with any other country, not everything is perfect.
EDITORIALS
Nov 10, 2007

Hooked on hired help

Blackwater USA, a private security company, is undergoing unprecedented scrutiny following the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis earlier this year. The investigation has revealed that this was only the most recent in a string of incidents that demonstrates horrific indifference to the violence perpetrated...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 9, 2007

East Timor need not follow Myanmar

MANILA — East Timor, now known as Timor-Leste, is the world's newest democracy. It may have a population of less than 1 million, but it has a proud, heroic history and a rich culture built up over centuries of diverse ethnic and colonial influences.
Reader Mail
Nov 8, 2007

Tired old cultural conflict

Regarding the Nov. 2 Associated Press article "American sues Dentsu USA over brothel outing": This "American" gentleman has bigger issues within himself. I have seen this attitude before -- the "shock" that Anglos show when their Japanese counterparts take them out at night, whether it be to a brothel,...
COMMENTARY
Nov 7, 2007

Time for Musharraf to go

Waterloo, ONTARIO — For outsiders as for Pakistanis, the choice is between worse and worst: a militantly Islamic, 160 million strong, nuclear-armed failed state at the strategic crossroads of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. Pakistan's fate has rested historically on the three A's: Allah,...
COMMENTARY
Nov 7, 2007

Three relationships the U.S. must tend to

LOS ANGELES — Three of the largest pieces in the sprawling jigsaw puzzle known as Asia are, of course, China, India and Japan. The first is the most populous country on Earth, the second is the most populous democracy and the third is the world's second-biggest economy — and (theoretically) chief...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Nov 7, 2007

Pride towers amid ongoing woes

In 1669, the Ainu leader Shakushain, who rose up and united the Ainu in rebellion against Japanese invaders, was called on to observe a truce, and invited to a banquet in his honor. The Matsumae clan, who had established a foothold on the island then called Ezo, now Hokkaido, by building a castle in...

Longform

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