Search - lifestyle

 
 
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 30, 2008

Do bacteria make the man (or woman or child)?

What happens when Japanese people start eating a Western diet? Could it mean that their famed long life span starts to decline?
Japan Times
BUSINESS / TAKING A CHANCE
Apr 29, 2008

Seller of educational toys finds a niche

With relatively few parks to run around in, many children spend long hours either at cram schools or playing their hand-held game consoles.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Apr 23, 2008

Is growth driving us to oblivion?

Last month, when I wrote a column headlined "Apocalypse when? Can three experts all be wrong on looming disaster?," I expected that readers would harangue me for taking up ranks with the pessimists. After all, for every doomster, there seems to be a Pangloss reassuring us that all will be well.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 22, 2008

Volunteer DIY group puts a touch of earth into prefabs

On a rainy day in late March, a group of people were making material to apply to the walls of a two-story concrete house going up in the city of Musashino in Tokyo.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 20, 2008

The challenges of an aging society

POPULATION DECLINE AND AGEING IN JAPAN: THE SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES by Florian Coulmas. Routledge: London, 2007, 167 pp., $150 (cloth) Florian Coulmas, a longtime contributor to the Japan Times and director of the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo, packs a lot of information and insights into...
EDITORIALS
Apr 15, 2008

No need for nationwide fitness test

The education ministry has decided to carry out a nationwide test of physical strength covering all fifth graders and middle school second-year students from this month to late July. The test will cover about 2.4 million children at both public and private schools, and cost ¥335 million. The ministry...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Apr 12, 2008

Playin' the look-alike game

It's a game my wife plays whenever she's bored.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 26, 2008

Access to water is a right, not a privilege

BANGKOK — How will Japan and other countries in the world achieve the millennium development goal (MDG) target to reduce by half the proportion of 2.6 billion people who have no access to basic sanitation by 2015?
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Mar 17, 2008

Ozawa's troops are restless

Political insiders have begun suspecting that Ichiro Ozawa may be losing his grip on the Democratic Party of Japan after a head-on collision between the DPJ and the governing coalition was averted during 11th-hour mediation by the Lower House speaker and the Upper House president.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 12, 2008

Ministry preaches food self-sufficiency

The recent scare over pesticide-tainted "gyoza" dumplings made in China and the rapid price surges of flour and other food products across the world have aroused serious anxiety among millions of Japanese consumers over imported everyday foods.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / STYLEWISE,ON: FASHION
Mar 11, 2008

Stella McCartney, Anna Antoniades and more

Anna Antoniades in Nakameguro
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 9, 2008

Opposite poles of protest 40 years ago

WARSAW — In Paris, West Berlin, London and Rome, the spring of 1968 was marked by student protests against the Vietnam War.
LIFE / COSPLAY CULTURE
Mar 9, 2008

All aboard for 'world of manga'

With everyone pulling roller suitcases, it seemed appropriate that we were heading for the Harumi Passenger Terminal built on land reclaimed from Tokyo Bay in the city's central Chuo Ward.
JAPAN
Feb 29, 2008

Smoking ban elusive despite WHO warning

The World Health Organization issued a report in February on the global tobacco epidemic, urging countries to enforce effective smoking bans in public places.
Japan Times
LIFE / THE SKY'S THE LIMIT
Feb 24, 2008

Polar pioneer sets her sights high

For her doctoral thesis, Kazuyo Sakanoi studied the mechanisms of flickering auroras — those luminous phenomena in the atmosphere that appear like curtains of light.
Japan Times
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Feb 23, 2008

Japan swimmers at home in Flagstaff

On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, far from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo's hyper daily pace, Japanese swimmers enjoy a haven of privacy and a world-class training center as they prepare for the imposing challenge of competing for Olympic medals.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 15, 2008

The teetotaler who conquered clubland

After winning arguably the biggest prize in dance music, any club DJ might be forgiven for going on the sort of Dionysian rampage that would leave Keith Richards begging for mercy. Not High Contrast.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 8, 2008

Do your Valentine's duty

Let's cut right to the chase. This country has no shortage of love, as the multitudes of Valentine's Day daters next week will attest. What it needs are marriages — marriages and children! — and then maybe the trickling total fertility rate (1.32 in 2006) will edge back up to the threshold at which...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 1, 2008

Arcade Fire: 'a goofy bunch of people'

They're a funny bunch, Arcade Fire. Last year saw the Montreal-based band graduate from indie darlings to arena stars touring North America and sharing a stage with Bruce Springsteen and U2. Their second album, "Neon Bible," entered the Billboard chart at No. 2 last March and has since sold upward of...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 27, 2008

Modern Japanese women: dealing with sex, lies and the dried-flower syndrome

GOODBYE MADAME BUTTERFLY: Sex, Marriage and the Modern Japanese Woman, by Sumie Kawakami. Chin Music Press, 2007, 219 pp., $20 (cloth) Who wants to be a woman in Japan? Misery can't get much worse than the sexless relationships, dreary marriages, loneliness, patriarchal blues and stressed out women portrayed...
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Jan 26, 2008

Pair mutually strive to broaden their horizon, perspective

Alexander Bright and Akiko Yamada first met at Cambridge University in 1999, when Bright was a graduate student majoring in materials science and Yamada, then a high school teacher, was taking a year off to study education in England.
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Jan 22, 2008

Making day care fit real needs

Second of two parts
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 16, 2008

Snow season's not what it was . . .

"Winter either bites with its teeth or lashes with its tail." (Traditional proverb)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 11, 2008

Vega steals into the spotlight

A city of extremes, New York represents different things to different people. For singer- songwriter Suzanne Vega, its infinite variety is a constant source of inspiration.
Reader Mail
Jan 6, 2008

Sexual division of labor

In the Jan. 1 Zeit Gist article, "Seeking life in balance," writer Michael Hassett says some insightful things about policymakers' responses to the birthrate decline. But he misses one important factor -- the "rational decision-making" of women concerning their fertility. In cultures throughout the world,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 1, 2008

Seeking a life in balance

A task force set out earlier this year to bring more balance to the the grueling lifestyles that have become engrained in Japanese society over the past century. In November, a set of employment guidelines were formally adopted by the government.
Reader Mail
Dec 27, 2007

Whom would Jesus have bombed?

Whom would Jesus have bombed?1111111111

Longform

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