Search - information

 
 
EDITORIALS
Feb 22, 2009

The freedom of Mr. Khan

On its face, the decision to release Mr. Abdul Qadeer Khan from house arrest in Pakistan is a slap in the face of international opinion and a blow to efforts to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons. According to Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, the work of the world's greatest proliferator "is a closed...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Feb 22, 2009

Cruising the Sumida for sights

However hidden behind built-up banks it may be, the Sumida River is not exactly a "back street." But as it's said that one of the best places from which to view cherry blossoms in Tokyo is from a water bus plying the river, I resolved on a reconnaissance better referred to as a "back stream" story.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 20, 2009

'Halfway'

"Halfway" ("Harufuwei") has one of those katakana titles that is supposed to sound vaguely exotic and mysterious to its intended audience — Japanese of about the same age as its teenage protagonists — but may strike native speakers as prosaic, even boring.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 2009

Snow yaks and yetis — an ice man cometh

Fans of Pop Surrealism were no doubt tickled pink to hear of their messiah, painter Mark Ryden, making an appearance in Tokyo for the opening of "The Snow Yak Show" at the Tomio Koyama Gallery. The solo exhibition features eight new works from the masterful painter, each exquisitely detailed in his characteristic...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 20, 2009

Dolls to be displayed for the health of girls

Events leading up to the March 3 Hina Matsuri (Japanese doll festival) are in full swing. In the centuries-old tradition, people decorate their homes with ornamental dolls and peach blossoms — and celebrate with sake and chirashi-zushi (sushi rice topped with egg and seafood) — to wish for young...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 2009

New art council jumps right into the action

Two years: That's how long it took Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara to set up a new "arts council," extract from it a range of new policy ideas and get his staff to start putting them into action. It's not rocket-paced, but in a country famous for the slowness of its bureaucracy, it passes for commendable....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 2009

An exhibition's critical charge

"In Japan, the city consists of parts perfect in themselves, but lacking a sense of or connection to the whole," observes curator Shino Nomura while discussing the work of Swiss architectural firm Diener & Diener.
Reader Mail
Feb 19, 2009

Kyoto got what it asked for

Regarding the Jan. 13 article "Respect 'maiko' privacy, don't act like paparazzi, Kyoto tells tourists": All of Kyoto has aggressively promoted tourism to the international community. The city.kyoto.jp Web site provides a pamphlet that dedicates two pages to the maiko (apprentice geisha), the same amount...
Reader Mail
Feb 19, 2009

Harvard has yet to sell itself

Regarding the Feb. 5 article "Why can't Japanese kids get into Harvard?": The answer is that they are not interested. Harvard is difficult, expensive and far from Japan. Although there are many promising Japanese candidates for Harvard, they usually go to medical schools or to Tokyo University. Therefore,...
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Feb 19, 2009

Tome ishi

Dear Alice, Recently I toured a beautiful traditional garden in Kyoto with a Japanese friend. At a fork in the path, I was about to turn to the right when my friend stopped me and said we were not supposed to go that way. I did as she said, but couldn't understand how she knew. She'd never been there...
BUSINESS
Feb 17, 2009

GDP plunge worst in 35 years

The economy plummeted at an annualized pace of 12.7 percent in the three months through December, the worst fall in the past 35 years. Gross domestic product for 2008 shrank 0.7 percent in real terms, compared with 2.4 percent growth in 2007.
BUSINESS
Feb 17, 2009

Creating demand at home must be main goal

To achieve a long-term solution to the economic crisis, the government must offset the sharp decline in foreign demand by strengthening industries that can generate demand at home, according to economist Nobuo Ikeda, a professor at Jobu University in Gunma Prefecture.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 17, 2009

Berlitz launches legal blitz against striking instructors

It has been 14 months since members of the Berlitz General Union Tokyo (Begunto) first downed chalk and launched rotating strikes against the language school Berlitz Japan.
EDITORIALS
Feb 16, 2009

Waiting for the right pension

The existence of some 50 million hard-to-identify pension-premium payment records surfaced in 2007. Then, in 2008, the tampering of records related to Kosei Nenkin (pension system mainly for company employees) surfaced. Progress in rectifying the situation is slow.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WEEK 3
Feb 15, 2009

Keio's man ahead of his time

Next time you come by a ¥10,000 bill, take a look at the face of Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835-1901) that appears on the front, for he was a most remarkable man.
EDITORIALS
Feb 14, 2009

Cutting Kampo losses

Internal affairs and communications minister Kunio Hatoyama is holding back Japan Post Holding Co.'s plan to sell 70 Kampo no Yado inns and nine housing facilities to a subsidiary of leasing company Orix Corp. He thinks the facilities' sale price of ¥10.9 billion — about one-twentieth the cost of...
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 13, 2009

Jazz collective thrills, unites Asian nations

Unit Asia, a multicultural jazz outfit known for its high-energy performances and versatile musical sensibilities, is about to delight music lovers in Japan.
EDITORIALS
Feb 13, 2009

Beware pledges of sweet returns

The police have arrested the chairman of L&G K.K., a Tokyo-based bedding supplier, and 21 other people on suspicion of defrauding investors through a sham investment scheme. The specific charge that led to the arrests alleges that the suspects collected about ¥118 million from six people between July...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 13, 2009

An abandoned history of Chinese influence

Edo Period (1603-1868) paintings from Osaka have been relatively neglected in comparison with paintings from Tokyo and Kyoto. A canonical list of works and a historical framework were written up in Tokyo in the 1890s in a series of influential lectures by scholar Okakura Tenshin, setting the directions...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 13, 2009

Light moments in a drab metropolis

Tokyo can be a drag. At least if you are a photographer trying to tackle what can appear on the surface as one of the most unphotogenic cities in the world. A scarcity of obviously iconic buildings, combined with cramped, crowded and twisted spaces — usually crisscrossed with unsightly wires and hemmed...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Feb 12, 2009

State minister Seiko Noda

Seiko Noda, 48, is Japan's state minister in charge of science and technology policy, food safety, consumer affairs and space policy. As a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and of Prime Minister Taro Aso's Cabinet, she is entrusted with running 21 different departments. Not one to crack under...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Feb 11, 2009

Clearing up digital photography

Look sharp: In digital photography, cameras that are small and easy to use tend not to take good pictures in low light and to have a crimped dynamic range. A camera's dynamic range defines how much detail it can capture in shadowy areas of the picture and brightly lit parts at the same time. The better...
Reader Mail
Feb 8, 2009

Bridging the English learning gap

What's most problematic about Gregory Clark's Feb. 5 article, "What's wrong with the way English is taught in Japan?," is that we've heard it all before: overcrowded classrooms, high school teachers with poor English ability, and the relentless comparisons of Japanese people's English ability with that...
JAPAN / Society
Feb 8, 2009

Burmese junta fuels influx

In 2008 there was a sharp spike in the number of people seeking asylum in Japan, and although only 6 percent of those processed were recognized by the government as refugees, they totalled 57 compared with 41 the year before.
LIFE / Travel / FREEWHEELIN' ACROSS JAPAN
Feb 8, 2009

Storming the keep of Himeji Castle

"What are your three favorite things about Himeji Castle," I ask my guide, Ayumi Miyazaki, an elegant middle-aged lady, as we slurp down tempura soba in the dungeons of Himeji Station in Hyogo Prefecture, prior to walking the 15 minutes up the main drag to the town's famous fortress.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / FREEWHEELIN' ACROSS JAPAN
Feb 8, 2009

Storming the keep of Himeji Castle

"What are your three favorite things about Himeji Castle," I ask my guide, Ayumi Miyazaki, an elegant middle-aged lady, as we slurp down tempura soba in the dungeons of Himeji Station in Hyogo Prefecture, prior to walking the 15 minutes up the main drag to the town's famous fortress.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.