Search - culture

 
 
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 12, 2007

Enabling a war-ravaged state to recover

NEW YORK — War-ravaged countries confront a double challenge: to create dynamic economies and to promote, at the same time, economic and social inclusion. Without both of these elements, national reconciliation will likely prove impossible.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 12, 2007

Speaking up for the 'divine' but undiscussed

Summer is the time of year when the Japanese remember the dead, most notably during the Bon festival, and the end of World War II, though the collective memory of the latter fades with each passing year. The Japanese are probably better at forgetting than other people in the world (indeed, the culture...
Reader Mail
Jul 11, 2007

No sweat in being averse to hugs

Regarding Mark Schreiber's July 1 translation ("Will 'free hugs' take hold in Japan?") of a Weekly Playboy article: I accept that the Japanese are not likely to hug each other in public, but neither is it common practice in Australia. The concept of "personal space" is very prevalent, and one does...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 10, 2007

Pro-Taiwan, not anti-China

TAIPEI — In 2003, while still serving as U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia, I was asked by Taiwanese reporters what the U.S. view would be on the proposal for Taiwan to hold a national referendum with the 2004 election. My convoluted answer could have been summarized more concisely...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 10, 2007

Chongryun never gets out from under a cloud

Chongryun has recently come under the spotlight in connection with an aborted sale of its Tokyo headquarters — North Korea's de facto embassy in Japan — to an investment advisory firm led by former Public Security and Intelligence Agency chief Shigetake Ogata.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jul 10, 2007

Nobuo Hara

Nobuo Hara, 80, is the leader of Nobuo Hara and His Sharps and Flats, a 17-member big band formed in 1951 that helped to make jazz popular in Japan after World War II. Their sweet rhythms, which took the country by storm, have not lost any of their swing, and even today they keep audiences mesmerized...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2007

How the West lost its nerve with Russia

MOSCOW — Nation-states are built on ethnic and territorial unity, and their histories and political development are grounded in a sense of collective identity. Empires emerge when a national group considers its existence inside its territorial borders either risky or ineffective, and embarks on a forced...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 8, 2007

Japan, just a puppet of America?

Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, by Gavan McCormack. New York: Verso Press, 2007, 246 pp., $29.95 (paper) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi are usually portrayed as assertive nationalists, but come off here as dutiful and submissive gophers carrying out the...
Japan Times
LIFE / REFUGEES AND JAPAN
Jul 8, 2007

Sit-ins win new home, in Canada!

All Kurdish asylum-seeker Erdal Dogan wanted was a peaceful home for himself and his family.
Japan Times
LIFE / REFUGEES AND JAPAN
Jul 8, 2007

Screenings on behalf of 33 million

From July 18-26, the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) will sponsor the 2nd International Refugee Film Festival in Japan. The program of 30 movies over nine days at four theaters includes feature and documentary films that focus on the lives, trials and triumphs of people forced to leave their...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 8, 2007

A question of dignity or cause for embarrassment

THE DIGNITY OF THE NATION by Masahiko Fujiwara, translated by Giles Murray. IBC Publishing 2007, 278 pp., 1,400 yen (paper) The title of this little book deliberately echoes that of a notorious pamphlet issued by the Japanese government in 1937, at the peak of nationalist hysteria, in an attempt to...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 7, 2007

Kyoko Mimura

"Recognizing some kind of beauty goes beyond all borders," Kyoko Mimura said.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 6, 2007

Six things you must do this summer

Summer heat getting you down? Don't sweat it. Whether the weather is friend or foe, there are plenty of ways to add some variety to the coming months.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 5, 2007

Angelina Jolie true to her 'heart'

The Japan Times gets close and personal with Hollywood's hottie-cum-humanitarian on making films with a message, being hounded by the media — and life with Brad Pitt.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 1, 2007

Immigrant workers in Japan caught in a real racket

The debate over whether Japan should allow foreign workers in to make up for current and future labor shortages is dominated by the so-called foreign trainee program, which is overseen by the Japan International Training Cooperation Organization (JITCO). The program is itself the subject of a debate,...
JAPAN
Jun 30, 2007

H.K. man wins first 'Manga Nobel' for cartoonists abroad

A Hong Kong artist has won Japan's first "Nobel Prize of Manga" for artists working in the comic book genre abroad, the Foreign Ministry said Friday.
EDITORIALS
Jun 30, 2007

A new era for Britain

In physical terms, Mr. Gordon Brown has not gone far this week: He moved his office one door down, from No. 11 to No. 10 on Downing Street in London. He did not even have to move his family, which already lives at the private quarters at No. 10. But the change in jobs from chancellor of the Exchequer...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 29, 2007

Office weighs less in the work-life balance

After his son was born last April, Hyogo Prefecture civil servant Akira Hirabayashi decided to cut back on overtime at work. He yearned for more time with little Susumu and also wanted to give his wife, Chie, a chance to return to her teaching job at an elementary school.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 28, 2007

China, Russia in the new world disorder

WARSAW — Can Kosovo achieve independence from Serbia without the tacit consent of Russia, and can there be a humanitarian and political solution to the tragedy in Darfur without the active good will of China? The two crises have nothing in common, but their resolution will depend in large part on whether...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 28, 2007

Russia as it wanted to be

Sir Winston Churchill, one of history's most quotable characters, once described Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." The Anglo-Polish novelist Joseph Conrad summed it up as "an Asiatic monster with a European veneer," while the English writer Rudyard Kipling had a slightly more...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jun 26, 2007

Minoru Inaba

Minoru Inaba, 63, is the director of the Meijijingu Shiseikan Dojo, a martial arts facility located in Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. He is a master of budo, an ancient Japanese fighting style that taught samurai to be versatile and supposedly invincible. Learning budo requires training in a myriad of martial...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jun 25, 2007

Haiku appreciation at the United Nations

NEW YORK — This month I was judge of the Japanese division of the haiku contest sponsored by the United Nations International School (UNIS). John Stevenson, editor of Frogpond, the magazine of the Haiku Society of America, judged the haiku written in English.
JAPAN
Jun 25, 2007

Bull-Dog bites back at advance by U.S. fund

Bull-Dog Sauce Co. shareholders on Sunday approved the company's proposal to launch defensive measures to fend off an unsolicited takeover bid by New York-based hedge fund Steel Partners.

Longform

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