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Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s private disco featured not only aspiring showgirls performing striptease acts as sexy nuns and nurses, but one woman dressed up as President Barack Obama and a prominent Milan prosecutor whom the billionaire media mogul has accused of persecuting him, ...
Tonkatsu is comfort food, gourmand grub — not a gourmet delicacy. So what are those hearty, unpretentious deep-fried breaded pork cutlets doing in an elegant little bar-style restaurant above one of Ginza’s temples to high-end consumption? Katsuzen has come a long way from its ...
Life in Japan just seems tailor-made for certain foreign residents, who slip into the fabric of this society as smoothly as a hand slides into a glove. American Curtis Patterson, a professional koto player and music teacher, is a case in point. Not only ...
It is a tricky deal being an authorized biographer. Charles Moore’s big advantage over those who have previously tackled Margaret Thatcher is that he has been provided with material denied to them. Of the arrangement that he was offered by his subject, he writes: ...
Unbelievable energy. Splendid self confidence. Never-wavering faith in his abilities or his teammates. Those are ingredients to success for Draelon Burns, the Yokohama B-Corsairs’ super substitute. Burns buried a remarkable three buzzer-beating shots to close out the three final quarters, and his team needed ...
Tattoo culture in Japan, especially among Japan’s gangster element, has a rich history. While some young Japanese are breaking the traditional taboo and obtaining discreet tattoos, they almost never opt to have Chinese characters etched permanently on their bodies. Kanji tattoos are a Western ...
Vacation is over and kanji learners at schools around the planet are once again cracking the books. Increasingly, they and their teachers — as well as self-directed English-speaking kanji learners of all ages — are supplementing paper-based publications with online learning resources. Today, Kanji ...
During times of friendly relations with Western nations, the Japanese have laid out a linguistic welcome mat to foreign vocabulary items, particularly English. They generally import a word and then pummel it into a shape that fits Japanese pronunciation patterns. (English also takes this ...
Surely many of you, including overseas readers of The Japan Times online, live within 100 km of a Japanese-language bookstore or a university with a collection of Japanese books. Japanese literature is available, but confronting the sheer volume of offerings can be overwhelming. For ...
Last fall, I reported the results of my search for kanji-learning gold in cyberspace. Today, in this second report, I am happy to inform you that the panning has never been better. My bookshelf sags from the weight of kanji dictionaries and textbooks, and ...
At the start of each new school year, I would confidently advise my university students: “Becoming a fluent reader in English is like learning to play the piano — it requires constant practice. “Memorizing lists of vocabulary items and translating passages word for word ...
Dear Dario Simunovic, Arigato for your e-mail from Antunovac, Croatia. Your high level of English ability at age 14 demonstrates a knack for languages, and you are also tackling Spanish. Congratulations! You have learned hiragana and katakana on your own and are now interested ...