Economy
Fed to start tapering bond purchases this year: Bernanke
The Federal Reserve maintains its $85 billion-a-month asset purchase program, but says it could begin scaling back later this year.
People | WORDS TO LIVE BY Aug 28, 2012
Hunter Shoji Kuramochi
by Judit Kawaguchi
Shoji Kuramochi, 73, is one of Japan’s few surviving hunters, and he may be the only one with 100 trained hunting dogs. Besides being a hunter of wild boars and deer, he’s also an expert at the traditional Japanese art forms of bonsai cultivation ...
People | CLOSE-UP Aug 5, 2012
David Atkinson: Ancient Japan captures money man's interest
by Tomoko Otake
David Atkinson was still in his 20s when he rose to fame as a Japan-based banking analyst with the U.S. investment bank Salomon Brothers, prior to him moving to Goldman Sachs. Having graduated from Oxford University with an M.A. in Japanese studies in 1987, ...
People | WORDS TO LIVE BY Jul 24, 2012
Noriko Hama, Japanese economist and Dean of Doshisha Business School
by Judit Kawaguchi
Noriko Hama, is a Japanese economist, the Dean of Doshisha Business School in Kyoto and a contributor to The Japan Times. Well known for her candid television commentaries, popular columns, she is completely absorbed in the world of economics, and utterly unfazed by its ...
People | CLOSE-UP Jul 1, 2012
Author Lesley Downer's romance with Japan is no fleeting affair
by Victoria James
British writer, historian and journalist Lesley Downer has been visiting Japan and writing about it for nearly 35 years — beginning in 1978, when she was part of the first-ever intake of the English Teaching Recruitment Program, which evolved into the famous JET (Japan ...
People Jul 1, 2012
Lesley Downer: Love, war and geisha
by Victoria James
Lesley Downer’s seven books range widely in genre and subject. Here she reflects on their inspiration and her experiences writing them. “On the Narrow Road to the Deep North: Journey into a Lost Japan” (1989): Downer’s first book, a travelogue, recounts a journey she ...
People | WORDS TO LIVE BY Jun 26, 2012
Social-media manager Lin Qing Xiang
by Judit Kawaguchi
Lin Qing Xiang, 33, is the social-media manager of the “The Ruby Alan Show” (also known as “The RA Show”), a video blog that explores both Singaporean and Japanese culture. Lin creates travelogues of his journeys around Japan and also films Japanese-culture events in ...
People | CLOSE-UP Jun 3, 2012
Koki Mitani: Japan's Mr. Comedy
by Nobuko Tanaka
Koki Mitani is far and away the nation’s best-known dramatist. Although theater is quite a niche medium here, most people in Japan — whether male or female, young or not so young, Japanese or not — recognize his face, even if they couldn’t name ...
People May 27, 2012
Junko Tabei : The first woman atop the world
by Tomoko Otake
Almost exactly 37 years ago, on the morning of May 16, 1975, then 35-year-old Junko Tabei and her Sherpa guide Ang Tshering reached the 8,763-meter South Summit of Mount Everest — their final halt before pushing on to the 8,848-meter peak itself. They made ...
People | WORDS TO LIVE BY May 22, 2012
Minae Inahara, part-time lecturer at Rikkyo University
by Judit Kawaguchi
Minae Inahara, 39, is a part-time lecturer at Rikkyo University in Tokyo. With a PhD in philosophy from the University of Hull in the United Kingdom, she has been researching disability on three continents: Australia, Asia and Europe. She is an expert in the ...
People | CLOSE-UP May 6, 2012
Richard Collasse: Sold on brand Japan
by Eriko Arita
In Tokyo’s high-end Ginza district, the Chanel Building stands out among the luxury fashion boutiques and global brands’ emporiums thanks to its shining black-glass exterior. To go inside Chanel’s flagship shop in Japan is, for the normal hom sap, however, to be overwhelmed by ...
People | WORDS TO LIVE BY Apr 24, 2012
Polish journalist-designer-photographers Pawel Musialowski and Malgorzata Gajderowicz
by Judit Kawaguchi
Pawel “Mr. Jedi” Musialowski, 39, and Malgorzata Gajderowicz, 29, are a Polish journalist-designer-photographer, husband-and-wife team who video-blog exclusively about their favorite place on earth: Japan. Pawel created Kawaii, Poland’s first magazine dedicated to Japanese manga and anime in 1997, and his website kawaii-mrjedi.blogspot.jp (written ...
People | CLOSE-UP Apr 1, 2012
Naohiko Jinno: Master of public finance brings life to numbers
by Tomoko Otake
Born the grandson of a once-prosperous textile manufacturer in Urawa, Saitama Prefecture, Naohiko Jinno says that when he was growing up he was told by his mother, over and over again, that money was not important. Now aged 66, and a professor emeritus of ...