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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 18, 2007

The myopic state we're in

We all notice it eventually: how nice individual Japanese people are, yet how cold — even discriminatory — officialdom is toward non-Japanese (NJ). This dichotomy is often passed off as something "cultural" (a category people tend to assign anything they can't understand), but recent events have...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Dec 11, 2007

Enlightened kimono and haute couture gone pop

Enlightened traditions The changing face of Roppongi — from sleaze capital to cultural center — continues with the opening of Shikunshi, a brand new gallery and contemporary kimono shop.
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 9, 2007

Eating away at a lifestyle

Tuna has been much in the news in 2007. The year began with Japan's quota for Atlantic or northern bluefin tuna being reduced by 23 percent from the 2006 level for the next four years and the nation's Pacific or southern bluefin tuna quota slashed by 50 percent for the next five years by the tuna conservation...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 7, 2007

Japan climate effort needs rethink: experts

One of Japan's goals at the Bali conference on climate change is getting legally binding emission controls placed on developing countries, but many experts doubt the nation's ability to get its own house in order first.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 7, 2007

Blood diamonds maintain their cover

MADRAS — Living in India, I grew up with diamonds. The most precious of stones are still an integral part of the Indian lifestyle. They are used every day, including for ceremonial purposes.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Dec 4, 2007

Skin-deep success

It started with an e-mail from my editor: "Get yr (sic) camera ready. Online Dating Minus Ugly People is coming to Japan. Thinking Lifestyle page trend piece. Ready for the money shot?"
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Dec 2, 2007

Dalai Lama: Ocean of wit and wisdoms

Lhamo Thondup was born on July 6, 1935 in Taktster, a small village in the Amdo region of northeast Tibet. But neither his parents — farmers who grew barley, buckwheat and potatoes — nor his three elder brothers and one elder sister (a younger sister and brother came later) were to discover his true...
COMMENTARY
Nov 30, 2007

Culture as a common asset

Politics (political phenomena) has become disconnected from culture (cultural phenomena) in East Asia.
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.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Nov 25, 2007

'Best Hit' awards; Kyosen Ohashi tour of Japan; affordable rural real estate

The fifth annual "Best Hit Kayosai (Best Hit Pop Song Festival)" will be broadcast live Monday night at 9 p.m. on the Yomiuri Television network (Nihon TV in Tokyo) from the Osaka Festival Hall.
JAPAN
Nov 20, 2007

Dalai Lama hits East's consumer craze

The Dalai Lama indicated Monday in an interview that he had set a budding democratic process in motion in Tibet that was effectively doomed by China's invasion in the early 1950s.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Nov 20, 2007

A support service for sufferers

Phones ring off the hook in the office of VOL-NEXT, a Tokyo-based company that offers various goods and services for women battling breast cancer. Chiharu Soga, the demure 42-year-old who runs the three-year-old company, has just fielded a phone call made in desperation by the sister of a recently diagnosed...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Nov 18, 2007

Changing lives with castoffs

Michiyo Yoshida is a prime example of that green mantra, "Think globally, act locally." But the nonprofit organization she cofounded to send used wheelchairs to developing countries has also enabled members to "think globally and act globally."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 15, 2007

Out of exile, into a Tokyo art space

For artist Morio Matsui, life has almost turned full circle. After four decades in "exile" in France, this currently Corsica-based Japanese artist's ties with his homeland have strengthened with the opening earlier this year of an art space, Espace Morio Matsui, in Shimo-Meguro, Tokyo.
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...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 15, 2007

Toto ads take aim at America's great unwashed

In the summer, sanitary ware manufacturer Toto Ltd., best known for its Washlet bidet toilets, launched an aggressive advertising blitz in the United States to woo Americans who have long shied away from such a product as strange, unnecessary — and a little bit embarrassing.
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Nov 7, 2007

Nintendo lets you touch that dial

Tuning in: Nintendo's DS hand-held games console will get a 1SEG TV tuner as an accessory from Nov. 20 (although you can order it from Nov. 8). DS Terebi will allow you to watch digital TV almost anywhere in Japan on the upper screen of your DS, with the console's touch-screen doing duty as the television...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 6, 2007

Nova fall just simple math: it bled red

A 330-sq.-meter office with a double bed, sauna and tea room was where Nozomu Sahashi, ousted president of Nova Corp., worked as the language school chain steadily teetered near bankruptcy over the past few years.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Nov 6, 2007

Design turns over a greener leaf

With climate change a tangible reality, environmental issues are climbing to the top of everyone's agenda. Design is no exception. After a decade-long party accompanying their rising popular profile and commercial success, designers have begun to sober up.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 20, 2007

Off and running in Australia

SYDNEY — They're off and racing. No sooner has Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced an election date than he is promising a $34 billion tax cut, the biggest in the nation's history.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 18, 2007

Feeling low exacts an extremely high cost

PRAGUE — Depression is, according to a World Health Organization study, the world's fourth worst health problem, measured by how many years of good health it causes to be lost. By 2020, it is likely to rank second, behind heart disease. Yet, not nearly enough is being done to treat or prevent it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 11, 2007

Zen direct to you

Perhaps the most celebrated of the late-Edo Period Zen artist-priests, Sengai Gibon (1750-1837) left a large number of ink paintings on Zen-related subjects, of which by far the largest collection is in the Idemitsu Museum opposite the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY
Oct 9, 2007

The vanity in 'green' virtues

LONDON — When it comes to energy efficiency and a greener future, Japan has got itself very well-organized these days — some would even say over-organized.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Oct 9, 2007

Actress Devon Aoki in Tokyo with Levi's, Toga in the parking lot and more

Denim diva
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Oct 9, 2007

Keiko Sumi

JUDIT KAWAGUCHI Keiko Sumi, 57, is the 10th-generation owner of Komaruya, a Kyoto-based company that produces traditional and modern handheld fans. Komaruya's fans were selected by Dentsu, Japan's largest advertising company, to represent the best in Japanese craftsmanship at the 2005 Aichi World Expo....
COMMENTARY
Oct 5, 2007

Myanmar's crimes against public health

NEW YORK — During four decades of rule, the Myanmar military has neglected people's health needs to such an extent that it amounts to an attack against the people, whose health status remains one of the most precarious in the region. This is more proof that the military leadership has been more interested...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Oct 5, 2007

All at sea in Shinagawa

In Edo Period Shinagawa, popular footwear included geta (traditional wooden sandals) perched on meter-high, box-frame stilts weighted down with large stones. A fashionista freakout? Not exactly. Turns out these uberplatforms, a pair of which are on display at the Shinagawa Historical Museum, were designed...

Longform

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