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June 08, 2025
 

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Reader Mail
Nov 27, 2013
Cut emissions with conservation
Regarding the Nov. 19 editorial "Cut emissions without nuclear power": Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's decision to renege on Japan's commitments to reduce greenhouse gases is a major mistake in terms of protecting the environment and in terms of creating a favorable international attitude toward Japan. ...
Reader Mail
Nov 27, 2013
A tale of two untimely deaths
William Andrews' Nov. 19 article "Wife fights decades-long battle to free activist leader," underscores the typical treatment of a death, or a human life, because a riot police member trumps a citizen. On the one hand a poor policeman, dispatched to Shibuya from Niigata was fatally set afire by demonstrators...
Reader Mail
Nov 23, 2013
A profoundly tense, sad time for Americans
Because I've been getting The Japan Times since they added it to the New York Times International edition, I was able to read Mark Schreiber's Nov. 17 piece, "The day JFK died." It was a great summary, extremely nostalgic, if that is a good word (painful is closer). I was 12 (in 6th grade) when that...
Reader Mail
Nov 23, 2013
Memory of JFK's death still painful
Regarding Mark Schreiber's Nov. 17 article: I was 18, two years older than Schreiber, when I heard the news. The memory is painful beyond all politics. This is one of Schreiber's best articles — and the competition is stiff.
Reader Mail
Nov 23, 2013
What would the United States do?
Regarding the Nov. 17 article "Nationalism, Tibetans and Uighurs in Today's China": I wonder how the United States would look upon the American Indians if they tried to gain independence from the U.S. by reclaiming lands that were stolen by them.
Reader Mail
Nov 23, 2013
Do China's needs justify its actions?
We all know Tibetans are not Chinese. They have their own written script, language and culture. What we all have to ask ourselves is: Does China's want for land and resources warrant its land grab of Tibet enough to destroy a people and their language?
Reader Mail
Nov 23, 2013
Japan's emissions policy is no joke
Regarding the Nov. 17 article "New emissions goal derided as 'bad joke' at U.N. climate summit": One could also look at the "world reaction" as disingenuous. The glass is half full, not half empty, compared to the efforts of certain other OECD countries.
Reader Mail
Nov 23, 2013
Tepco's actions are not honorable
The fact that the totally immoral, corrupt, monstrosity called Tepco is not recompensing the people of Fukushima does not surprise me. In a time when the samurai culture was still strong in Japan, the leaders of Tepco would have been pushed to commit hara kiri. In those former, glorious days, people...
Reader Mail
Nov 23, 2013
Nuclear evacuees deserve better
Regarding the Nov. 17 article "Fukushima evacuees' housing units crumbling": It is not acceptable that these people should be in shabby temporary housing so long after the start of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Reader Mail
Nov 20, 2013
Boycott food cheats
To my knowledge there has been a dearth of condemnations from your readers on the scandal of the mislabeling of food (why?) but I was heartened to read your Nov. 15 editorial "Yet another shameful food scandal."
Reader Mail
Nov 20, 2013
Scrooge would be proud
Regarding the Nov. 19 editorial "Stop squeezing the poor": Will Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso take time out from his frequent dining excursions at some of the most expensive restaurants in Tokyo to pressure the Lower House to revise the Livelihood Protection Law and get more of...
Reader Mail
Nov 20, 2013
Blame bullying, not parents
Regarding the Nov. 18 article, "Identity issues can complicate a child's path to becoming bilingual": The problem is not Leo's parents failure to affirm his Japanese identity; the problem is a school environment that bullies children for their difference, making them ashamed of their diversity. Blaming...
Reader Mail
Nov 20, 2013
The nuclear establishment's spin
Regarding the Nov. 18 article, "Cracks in Tepco's 3/11 Narrative": Jake Adelstein broke the story with David McNeill in their July 2, 2011, Atlantic Wire story "Meltdown: What Really Happened at Fukushima?" Other scientists confirmed it as well.
Reader Mail
Nov 16, 2013
It's no country for doing battle with windmills
Regarding the Nov. 10 editorial, "Winds of energy independence": Wind power is expensive and will take decades longer to pay off than new Shinkansen rail lines. Energy independence? More like debt dependence. Japan has long passed the 200-percent-debt-to- GDP point. How much more can the state spend...
Reader Mail
Nov 16, 2013
Energy estimates that defy belief
Great editorial (Nov. 10). Unfortunately the following paragraph is less than clear — although highly ironic!:
Reader Mail
Nov 16, 2013
Can't bank on dams in a quake
Regarding the Nov. 10 editorial, "Winds of energy independence": In fact there was a failure of a dam on March 11, 2011. The Fujinuma Dam in Sukagawa City, Fukushima Prefecture, collapsed in the quake, leading to flooding and eight deaths.
Reader Mail
Nov 16, 2013
Anime lacking U.S. adult appeal
Regarding Roland Kelts' Nov. 12 feature, "Has anime lost its cachet in America?": The main problems with anime in the United States are that Japan's way of handling anime licenses prevents a lot of mainstream exposure, bad stereotypes from the early '00s are still in the minds of people, and there isn't...
Reader Mail
Nov 16, 2013
Who worked the Burma-Thai rails?
In Roger Pulvers' Nov. 10 article, "Prisoners of fate forget and forgive" [a book review of Richard Flanagan's "The Narrow Road to the Deep North"], Pulvers claims that the Asians who labored on the Burma-Thailand railway were "prisoners of war." This characterization is plain wrong.
Reader Mail
Nov 13, 2013
Sri Lanka's political leadership
I wish to state that much of the information in The Observer article published in The Japan Times on Oct. 27, titled "Rajapaksa: Sri Lanka's affable authoritarian?," is based on hearsay and unfounded information. It is baseless propaganda provided by supporters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam...
Reader Mail
Nov 13, 2013
India aims for a moon lander
Regarding the Nov. 11 AFP article "Indian rockets aim for space market": India is planning to test a crew module on the GSLV Mark III, which will take off in April.
Foreign tourists with unpaid medical bills in Japan to be denied entry
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during ministerial meeting meeting on foreign residents in Japan on Friday at the Prime Minister's Office.
Japan eyes tougher rules for foreign residents and tax hike for tourists
A tax-free shop in Kyoto in April 2024. Last week, members of a Liberal Democratic Party study group drafted a proposal seeking to scrap the country's tax-free shopping system altogether.
Accidents raise concern over how Japan vets foreign drivers
Keita Ueno (right), the owner of Kiki Driving School and an instructor who supports both foreign nationals and Japanese citizens returning from abroad in getting their foreign driver’s licenses converted, is worried about the current lax system for the process.
Japan won’t wait for G7 summit for possible U.S. trade deal
Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's top negotiator in tariff talks with the U.S. speaks to reporters at the Japanese Embassy in Washington on Friday.
From ridicule to redemption: Rice crisis returns Koizumi to the spotlight
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks to the media as he inspects a warehouse storing stockpiled rice in Kanagawa Prefecture on May 30.
What can Kenji Yanobe’s cosmic cats teach us about humanity?
Kenji Yanobe’s spacesuited cats are the main characters of “Ship’s Cat Island,” the inaugural exhibition at Hyper Museum Hanno in Saitama Prefecture.
From ridicule to redemption: Rice crisis returns Koizumi to the spotlight
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks to the media as he inspects a warehouse storing stockpiled rice in Kanagawa Prefecture on May 30.
New Naoshima museum bets on Asia, not the West
Detail of Takashi Murakami, “Rakuchu-Rakugai-zu Byobu: Iwasa Matabei RIP” (2023-25)
Japan’s prison reform focuses on rehabilitation
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Friday. Suzuki said preparations for the changes that will focus more on rehabilitation are being actively made at each correctional facility.
Accidents raise concern over how Japan vets foreign drivers
Keita Ueno (right), the owner of Kiki Driving School and an instructor who supports both foreign nationals and Japanese citizens returning from abroad in getting their foreign driver’s licenses converted, is worried about the current lax system for the process.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic
By Alex K.T. Martin

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