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Reader Mail

Aug 21, 2013

Legacy of Christian humanism

It is difficult to know what precisely Jim Makin is getting at in his Aug. 15 letter, "Common Western fetishism."

COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO

Aug 19, 2013

Abe and his ministers give anti-foreigner rallies tacit green light

To the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe:

Reader Mail

Aug 17, 2013

Bigger picture of the Japanese

The Aug. 13 Community page article, "Ainu fight for return of plundered ancestral remains," interested me very much. When Japan basked in the world's attention because of its strong economic growth, it would often be described as a "homogenous" society, a result of the Japanese being composed of a single...

Reader Mail

Aug 17, 2013

A distraction from a tragedy

In his Aug. 11 Big In Japan column, "'Haiku killings' recall infamous horror story," Mark Schreiber does a great job of summarizing the recent beating and arson deaths in the mountain hamlet of Mitake, Yamaguchi Prefecture. Given my plodding translation skills, it certainly would have taken me a long...

Reader Mail

Aug 17, 2013

Clean up Fukushima or else

Two months since The Japan Times' June 11 editorial "Cease promoting nuclear power," things seem to have gotten alarmingly worse. The Japanese and the world community should come to terms with the hard reality that this island nation is the only one in human history to have suffered three nuclear disasters....

Reader Mail

Aug 14, 2013

Snowden affair challenges Putin

Regarding the Aug. 6 article by Lilia Shevtsova from Moscow titled "Putin may be the only winner in Snowden affair": I don't think so. Although the article describes the problem of balancing security and liberty, I find the affair to be the result of low-level trickery by Russian President Vladimir Putin....

Reader Mail

Aug 14, 2013

Common Western fetishism

Regarding the Aug. 2 article "Myanmar monasteries offer boot camp to calm spirits of frazzled souls": What we seem to be getting here is a case of the grass-is-greener fetishism all too common with Westerners who advocate Buddhism and other Asian religions.

Reader Mail

Aug 14, 2013

Hindrance to economic growth

Robert Eldridge's letter, "Real contribution of U.S. bases," poses the question of how Okinawa could ever break away from the lackadaisical economy based on the U.S. military presence.

Reader Mail

Aug 14, 2013

One master as bad as another

In the Aug. 5 Hotline to Nagatacho article, "For the sake of Japan's future, stop glorifying past crimes at Yasukuni," J.F. Van Wagtendonk applauds the yearly remembrance ceremony of the Dutch while condemning visitations by Japanese politicians to Yasukuni Shrine, which, he reminds us, houses the spirits...

Reader Mail

Aug 14, 2013

Japan's assertiveness welcomed

Regarding Paul Gaysford's Aug. 8 letter, "Time for collective self-defense": China's aggressive posture is a cause of fear among a number of countries in Asia, and it is the reason that Japan wants to change Article 9 of its U.S.-imposed Constitution so that a collective defense of Asia can be established....

Reader Mail

Aug 14, 2013

Cultural autonomy for Okinawa

In his Aug. 10/11 letter, "Real contribution of U.S. bases," Robert Eldridge claims that the U.S. military's presence is much larger than the "official" 4 to 5 percent of Okinawan gross domestic income. He does not provide any statistics or basis for that assertion, but claims that his estimates show...

Reader Mail

Aug 14, 2013

Remembering the end of the war

We hear today that the majority of Japan's population doesn't know about the Pacific War firsthand. I belong to the minority that does know, as I heard the end of the war announced on the radio on Aug. 15 (1945) when I was a first grader in a small village of Nagano Prefecture. We had been evacuated...

Reader Mail

Aug 14, 2013

Can't wait for lab-grown meat

Taste-testers in London recently sampled the world's first laboratory-grown hamburger and proclaimed it a virtual success. The Dutch scientist who created the burger predicts that in vitro meat could be commercially available in as little as 10 years. Although I don't eat meat — and I don't miss it...

Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO

Aug 12, 2013

Radiation fears forced me to postpone Japan visit by U.S. students

Dear Minister of Education Hakubun Shimomura,

Reader Mail

Aug 10, 2013

Real contribution of U.S. bases

There are many problems with Yoshio Shimoji's Aug. 1 letter, "Don't cry for Okinawa's economy." Suffice it to say that the figures that Shimoji cites from "an Okinawa Prefectural Government document" grossly underestimate the economic contribution of the U.S. military bases. Indeed, based on my preliminary...

Reader Mail

Aug 10, 2013

A suspicious display of beauty

The photo accompanying the Aug. 6 article by The Washington Post, titled "Opening of Iwaki beaches offer semblance of normalcy," belies any notion of a typical summer day at Nakoso Beach. The two lovely young ladies look as though they're having a lovely afternoon, but in the background the beach looks...

Reader Mail

Aug 10, 2013

Policy at odds with its purpose

Chris Clancy's Aug. 1 letter, "Language policy hurts children," makes for an interesting debate as a followup to the July 14 editorial "More people studying Japanese." I can understand that children must be the ones who are affected the most.

Reader Mail

Aug 10, 2013

No official religion in Thailand

I wish to set the record straight on some inaccuracies in Pavin Chachavalpongpun's July 24/25 article, "Southern Thai separatists touch trust milestone." The writer cites the supposed rise of Buddhist chauvism as one of the reasons for the rekindled conflict in the Southern Border Provinces (SBPs) of...

Reader Mail

Aug 10, 2013

Avoiding the 'solitary death'

Reading Amy Chavez's Aug. 3 article, "The yellow flag outside the door — life or death" was instructive and impressive. In bigger cities of Japan, what they call "solitary death" has become a serious social problem because of the graying of society, the trend toward the nuclear family and people's...

Reader Mail

Aug 10, 2013

Women leaders in the church

Regarding Peter McDonough's Aug. 4/5 article, "The real mission for Pope Francis": While McDonough seems to want a politically correct Catholic Church, I prefer a church that is doctrinally, morally and Biblically correct. Reforms are fine provided that they never breach that wall.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

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