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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 15, 2009

A new spirit for tea traditions

In the rarefied world of Japanese tea ceremony, innovations have often been greeted coolly. When the Japanese-American abstract sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904-88) gave a tea kettle of his own making to the landscape designer and tea connoisseur Mirei Shigemori (1896-75), the recipient was baffled.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 15, 2009

Gauguin: 'I shall never do anything better'

Was he just a "Sunday painter" who abandoned his wife and five children for a bohemian life in a distant island paradise — where he died of syphilis and poverty in the arms of a teenage mistress?
JAPAN / CITIZEN JUSTICE
May 14, 2009

Determining sentences seen as lay judges' hardest task

Third in a series
JAPAN
May 14, 2009

Nuclear energy deal not welcomed by all

OSAKA — The nuclear energy cooperation agreement signed Tuesday by Japan and Russia is expected to be a great boon to firms like Toshiba that are seeking new international markets for their atomic power technology, as well as ensuring Japan a steady supply of enriched uranium for its own electricity...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 13, 2009

Being Nihontsū: Japanophiles in our own country

"Wakonyōsai (和魂洋才, the soul of a Japanese and the talents of a Westerner)" was a phrase once used to describe the ideal of the modern, enlightened Japanese. This perfect person supposedly combined the knowledge, logic and open-mindedness of the West with the principled restraint, sense of honor...
JAPAN
May 13, 2009

Saturday poll set to choose new DPJ boss

A day after embattled Democratic Party of Japan President Ichiro Ozawa abruptly announced he plans to resign, the top opposition party scrambled to set the stage for electing its next leader.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
May 13, 2009

Extra power for your netbook

More for your book: Japanese gadget innovator Century is offering a device for putting more muscle into netbooks in the form of its Netbook Stand, the CNBS-WT/ODD. While fundamentally a netbook cooler, the Century gadget also packs in a DVD burner. A fan is built into the left side and swivels up into...
JAPAN / Q&A
May 12, 2009

Historic change puts justice in public hands

With the "saibanin" lay judge system set to take effect May 21, Japan is gearing up for an important transition in its judicial system, in which citizens begin serving as de facto jurors in district court trials involving serious crimes.
JAPAN
May 12, 2009

School's in for Osaka students quarantined with flu at Narita

OSAKA — The Osaka prefectural board of education said Monday it will open an office to deal with the study needs of high school students from Neyagawa, Osaka Prefecture, being quarantined at Narita airport because they have swine flu.
EDITORIALS
May 11, 2009

Basic plan on space

In May 2008, the Diet enacted a basic law on space without rousing sufficient public debate. Representing a drastic departure from Japan's traditional "peaceful purposes only" space policy, the law paves the way for extensive use of space for security purposes, especially missile defense.
Reader Mail
May 10, 2009

Media wield too much influence

Since graduating from college, I have worked at a travel company that specializes in handling trips to Korea. Sometimes I can't help feeling that we are too sensitive to the news from the media such as television.
COMMENTARY / World
May 10, 2009

Petty torture rules played on sense of duty

PARIS — The top-secret memorandums released by the Obama administration concerning torture practices in CIA prisons shed new light on a fundamental question: How is it that people acting in the name of the United States government could so easily accept the idea of torturing detainees in their charge?...
JAPAN
May 9, 2009

Lawmakers urged to act now to revise organ transplant law

People in need of organ transplants and their supporters urged lawmakers Friday to revise the transplant law during the current Diet session, despite the World Health Organization's decision to delay until next year enacting a resolution to restrict overseas travel for transplants.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 8, 2009

The Bawdies

More than 25 years ago, ZZ Top sang, "They come running just as fast as they can, because every girl's crazy about a sharp-dressed man." Looking quite dapper in matching suits and ties, The Bawdies will see if this still holds true as the Tokyo outfit attempts to pack clubs with hordes of screaming ladies...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 8, 2009

Government day care falling short

The line of children waiting to get into government-subsidized day care is swelling for the first time in five years, a sign of these recessionary times, some observers say. But for others it is merely the latest blow in a long-term problem, especially for working mothers unable to leave their toddlers...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 8, 2009

Cubism remixed at a European crossroads

Cubism, as it emerged from the experiments of the painters Pablo Picasso and George Braque, was for some a necessary but limited artistic investigation in the 20th century. For others, though, it offered a blueprint for a new language, as in that part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that became Czechoslovakia,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 8, 2009

Well-armed to protect Buddha

Like a visitor from some remote part of the universe, the deity Ashura of Kofukuji Temple in Nara appears with six spindly arms frozen in motion and three faces on a single head that is crowned with a perfectly groomed hairdo. The body is slender and graceful and little imagination is needed to see the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 8, 2009

Pop impresario turns Arab dance belly up

There surely aren't too many people out there who can talk about hanging out with The Sex Pistols in one breath and taking calls from then-United States Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the next. Miles Copeland, however, is one such person.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 8, 2009

Issey Miyake's "U-Tsu-Wa" filled with character and inspiration

In Japanese, the word utsuwa literally means "vessel" or "container," but it can also be used to describe a person's character. Someone said to have a "large utsuwa" ("utsuwa ga ookii") is a person of high caliber or someone with tremendous capacity or generosity. When celebrated Japanese fashion designer...
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
May 7, 2009

Natsu beckons as Hakuho and Asashoryu prepare to go head-to-head

In the fortnight ahead of the annual Natsu Summer Basho, there is always something of a lull in the sumo world.
JAPAN
May 6, 2009

Calls to revise organ law grow as lawmakers debate various plans

When Yasuto Katagiri asked New York's Columbia University in February to perform a heart transplant on Hoku, his 2-year-old son suffering from a rare form of heart disease called restrictive cardiomyopathy, the university had to turn him down because its 5 percent limit for accepting foreign transplant...
COMMENTARY
May 6, 2009

China and Taiwan try a practical approach

LOS ANGELES — On the surface of things, it might not seem like such a big deal. Taiwan is to get recognition as an observer at an important world health meeting in Geneva to be held later this month. But in the context of Asian diplomatic history, it is a big deal.
JAPAN
May 6, 2009

Sake maker to use imported rice for ethanol

Oenon Holdings Inc., a maker of sake and liquor, will start ethanol production this year at the nation's largest biofuel plant using rice imported by the government.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 5, 2009

Google crosses line with controversial old Tokyo maps

When Google Earth added historical maps of Japan to its online collection last year, the search giant didn't expect a backlash. The finely detailed woodblock prints have been around for centuries, they were already posted on another Web site, and a historical map of Tokyo put up in 2006 hadn't caused...

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’