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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Sep 22, 2012

Filipino filmmaker-writer captures the stories of Asians on the fringe

Rey Ventura's prose startles with the subtle force of cinematic images: From the "rustling leaves" that signal the return of the rebel forces to the Aeta hill tribes in the Philippines to the "standing men" or day laborers populating the alleyways of the Kotobukicho district of Yokohama. As both filmmaker...
OLYMPICS
Sep 21, 2012

Taiwanese IOC member assures Tokyo over vote

Relations between Japan, China and Taiwan have spiraled out of control over the past week, but a longtime Taiwanese International Olympic Committee member is not using that as a pretext for his vote for the 2020 Summer Olympics.
COMMENTARY
Sep 20, 2012

Territorial row is a ticking time bomb for Asia

As the struggle to control disputed islands and valuable offshore resources has intensified in the East and South China Seas over the past few years, the United States has said repeatedly that it does not take sides in the disagreements among Asian countries over who has ownership rights.
EDITORIALS
Sep 20, 2012

Cooler heads needed over islet row

In this 40th anniversary year of diplomatic normalization between Japan and China, the bilateral relationship has plummeted as demonstrations rage in many Chinese cities against the Japanese government's purchase of three of the five islets comprising the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 20, 2012

Carmakers brace for bashing in China

Two years ago, Sherry Wang bought a Toyota Camry because it offered a comfortable way to commute to her job as a researcher in the Chinese city of Xian. Lately, she's been taking the bus.
BUSINESS
Sep 19, 2012

Relisting just starting point for rejuvenated JAL

Japan Airlines Co. will return to the Tokyo Stock Exchange's first section Wednesday, two years and eight months after filing for bankruptcy in one of the country's biggest corporate failures.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 19, 2012

Japanese companies become protest targets in China

As anti-Japan protests in China rage with no end in sight, Japanese businesses there are seeing their operations disrupted, while government officials seek to limit the damage to economic ties.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Sep 18, 2012

Unlike giving blood, becoming an organ donor easy

Bob is wondering if the blood donation rules, which we covered in "Less-than-fluent foreigners may have trouble giving blood" (April 3), also apply to organ donors.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 18, 2012

It's past midnight but child-abduction treaty promise is not yet a pumpkin

Despite much promise and a flurry of activity, it didn't happen: Japan failed to ratify the Hague Convention on international child abduction and pass the extensive piece of accompanying domestic legislation the government felt was necessary in order for it to do so. Both items on the Diet agenda were...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Sep 16, 2012

Living the botanical high life

Japan, though it has a very different image, is on the same latitude as southern Europe and North Africa, while my nearest city, Sapporo, is oddly enough on the same east-west parallel as France's boisterously cosmopolitan second city of Marseille on the Mediterranean.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 13, 2012

Home is always where the heart is

Contemporary artists are a product of a globally minded world. While artists of past ages have had clear goals of making it in London, Paris or New York, artists of the 21st century seek stimulation from any number of locations across the planet. All they need is a passport, a place to stay, and ideally...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Sep 11, 2012

Darvish, others have decisions to make ahead of next WBC

The big news last week was that the Japanese Professional Baseball Players Association decided to compete in next year's World Baseball Classic.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 11, 2012

18 months on, 'stayjin' in Tokyo, Iwaki tell a tale of two cities

While the media both in Japan and overseas reported on a perceived exodus of foreigners in the immediate aftermath of the March 11, 2011, disasters in Tohoku, the reality is that very few actually left for good.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Sep 11, 2012

Hotelier sees disaster bring out best in Japanese

As a veteran of the tourism and hotel industries in Japan for more than two decades, Tony Virili says he will "never forget" what took place at one of his firm's franchise hotels in Sendai on March 11, 2011.
EDITORIALS
Sep 9, 2012

Senkakus call for self-restraint

The Japanese government has reached an agreement to purchase three islets of the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea from the landowner for some ¥2.05 billion. The agreement has drawn a fierce reaction from China, which also claims the islands. It called the purchase "illegal and invalid."
Reader Mail
Sep 9, 2012

Stop panicking over birthrates

Regarding the Sept. 4 front-page article "Population of Tokyo to drop to half by 2100": So much fuss has been made in the news media about the declining birthrate that it would be easy to mistake it for an impending disaster.
COMMENTARY
Sep 8, 2012

Tokyo-Seoul: enough is enough!

Enough is enough! Obviously, the political leadership in Tokyo and Seoul never learned about the First Rule of Holes: When you find yourself in one, stop digging. Each side seems to be going out of its way to make a bad situation worse, even while providing private assurances that it won't let the situation...
Japan Times
SOCCER / World cup
Sep 5, 2012

Young Nadeshiko stumbles in U-20 Women's World Cup semifinals

Two-time champion Germany ended Japan's bid to reach the Under-20 Women's World Cup final for the first time with a 3-0 win in Tuesday's semifinal.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Sep 4, 2012

For nikkei, It doesn't have to be a bug's life: readers bite back

Readers' responses to Debito Arudou's last Just Be Cause column, "For nikkei immigrants in Japan, it doesn't have to be a bug's life" (Aug. 7):
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 2, 2012

Will the Takeshima dispute break the Korean wave?

"There's something sad, when a political problem goes so far as to spill over to the entertainment industry," rues journalist Kaoru Kikuchi in Sunday Mainichi (Sep. 9).
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 2, 2012

Man on a mountain

In the very center of Hokkaido lies a landscape so far removed from the urban sprawl of much of lowland Japan that you might be forgiven for asking: "Is this really Japan?" Far more reminiscent of the higher latitudes of Kamchatka and Chukotka (northeastern Russia) or of northern central Alaska (United...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Sep 2, 2012

Film star Satoshi Tsumabuki moves up to a new stage

Wearing a headband and tracksuit, Satoshi Tsumabuki — the 31-year-old darling of the Japanese entertainment world — was easy to spot among a crowd of actors in a rehearsal studio in downtown Tokyo recently. He was there preparing for "Egg," Hideki Noda's new play, which opens Wednesday at the Tokyo...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Sep 1, 2012

Welcome to ramen land

Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Sep 1, 2012

Patrick W. Galbraith: Willing prisoner of Akihabara

For better or for worse, some of contemporary Japan's most recognizable cultural products come from the ever-ebullient world of pop culture. If this country's heroes in the 1950s and '60s were such intellectuals as film director Akira Kurosawa and author Yukio Mishima, today Japan's calling cards —...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 31, 2012

JAL perks lose allure in budget onslaught

The rise of budget carriers is undermining a perk for retail investors in Japan Airlines Co.'s ¥663 billion initial public offering — cheap tickets.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Aug 28, 2012

Revival eludes nation's birthrate

It sounds like a broken record: Japan is beset by a low birthrate and an aging society.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LIGHT GIST
Aug 28, 2012

How did we end up here, in 'Hashimotopia,' 2022?

Walking home the other night, I glanced furtively over my shoulder and clocked the notorious tattoo-enforcement police heading in my direction. I ducked into a nearby konbini and cursed that bad decision inked onto my forearm in the 1990s.

Longform

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