Search - japan

 
 
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Oct 18, 2009

Power for all the people

The all-electric home craze sweeping Japan with its typhoon of talking bathtubs, full-service toilets and flameless kitchens may finally have met its match.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 17, 2009

Artist of the cross-cultural landscape

The ocean symbolizes both a microcosm of living things and the metaphoric dream of unlimited possibilities. Gazing toward the horizon, Holly Thompson, writer and teacher, seems to find these truths reflected in that hazy line.
BUSINESS
Oct 15, 2009

Tepco looks to get more out of reactors

Tokyo Electric Power Co., Asia's biggest nuclear operator, may raise capacity at existing reactors to meet emissions-reduction targets set by the new government.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Oct 14, 2009

Electric vehicles, touted as next big thing, still in their infancy

Competition has been heating up in the domestic market for electric vehicles and many automakers have been prioritizing the technology since Mitsubishi Motors Corp. launched an egg-shaped electric minivehicle in July.
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 11, 2009

The long road to identity

A striking fact regarding modern Japanese surnames is their sheer number. There's no precise count, but the consensus is that there are more than 100,000.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Q&A
Oct 10, 2009

Custody laws force parents to extremes

The high-profile case of Christopher Savoie, a Tennessee man who was arrested in Fukuoka Prefecture for snatching his two children from his Japanese former wife and now faces kidnapping charges, illustrates the extremes a partner in a broken international marriage will resort to for child custody.
JAPAN
Oct 8, 2009

DPJ musn't lose reform momentum: Okada

Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada cast a positive light Thursday on the pace of reform in the Democratic Party of Japan's first three weeks in power and said he expected the party to continue implementing change right up to the next general election.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Oct 6, 2009

Rice — a staple of unstable future, funds?

Rice is an indispensable staple in Japan, but the people who grow it have an average age of 60 and their offspring increasingly are looking to other, more lucrative fields.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Oct 6, 2009

Re: Mr. James, gaijin clown

Following are a selection of readers' responses to last month's Just Be Cause column by Debito Arudou, headlined "Meet Mr. James, gaijin clown":
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Oct 3, 2009

Ain't no mountain in the Andes high enough

Hirohito Ota, 39, a freelance writer, is an adventurer by nature.
COMMENTARY
Oct 3, 2009

Hopes and tasks for the DPJ

In a Yomiuri Shimbun opinion survey conducted just after the election, 72 percent of those polled had an optimistic view of the Democratic Party of Japan, reflecting a favorable popular response to the outcome of the Aug. 30 general election.
EDITORIALS
Oct 1, 2009

Postal services in all regions

The Hatoyama administration has made it clear that it will revamp the Japan Post group companies' privatization process, which started Oct. 1, 2007. Privatization was aimed at making postal services efficient and letting the money held by the postal bank and insurance services flow into financial markets,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 29, 2009

Brace for a possible spring shock

When spring approaches next year, many foreigners in Japan could be in for a rude awakening: From April 1, all those who apply to extend their visa in Japan will be asked to show proof of enrollment in one or other of Japan's main national health systems, the shakai hoken (social health insurance and...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 29, 2009

Gaijin health coverage: an appeal for choice

Unless you've just made it to this corner of the world in the last couple of weeks, you're probably well aware of the new visa guideline that's scheduled to go into effect in April 2010. Because of this guideline, foreigners who wish to renew their visa and who are required to be enrolled in social health...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Sep 27, 2009

Hatoyama just calling it as it is

NEW YORK — I was startled to receive a letter from a friend in Tokyo earlier this month accompanied by a Sankei Shimbun article by Yukio Okamoto sharply upbraiding Yukio Hatoyama.
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 27, 2009

Let's Bike!

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama could have made a stronger impact at the United Nations Summit on Climate Change in New York last week had he trumpeted another environmentally laudable proposal in addition to his declared goal of Japan cutting its greenhouse-gas emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Sep 27, 2009

Source says JBL teams in trouble, league not viable in long term

Japanese basketball is suffering from an identity crisis. Besides Yuta Tabuse, the average citizen cannot name a handful of other top-level Japanese players. Indeed, this is problem No. 1.
COMMUNITY
Sep 26, 2009

Look for the 'mounted knights' at undo-kai

It could be any weekend in September or October, in any town across Japan. Excitement hitches onto every breeze as teams face off against each other, brightly colored headbands proclaiming allegiance.
EDITORIALS
Sep 26, 2009

Dancing around delicate issues

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama met with U.S. President Barack Obama Wednesday for the first time amid concerns that the new Japanes government's policy could harm the two nations' long-standing alliance centered on the bilateral security treaty. Mr. Hatoyama apparently avoided friction by skirting touchy...
JAPAN
Sep 26, 2009

Probe launched into four secret pacts with U.S.

Under direct orders from the new administration, Foreign Ministry officials launched a comprehensive investigation Friday into secret pacts with the United States, including an accord to allow entry of U.S. ships and aircraft carrying nuclear arms into Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 26, 2009

Reaching young people with music

When someone asks his age, Michael Di Stasio sometimes responds that it is the same as the late king of pop, Michael Jackson: "May he rest in peace."
EDITORIALS
Sep 25, 2009

Mr. Hatoyama's world debut

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama made a strong diplomatic debut on the international stage Tuesday, pledging that Japan will reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels. The pledge was made in a speech delivered in English at the United Nations Summit on Climate Change, held...

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