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Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 25, 2005

Stage plays restore your faith in comedy

"Comedy is an escape, not from the truth but from despair; a narrow escape into faith," wrote the English playwright Christopher Fry in Time magazine in 1950. These days the moment you switch on television in Japan, you are likely to be assailed by gales of laughter as young comedians talk frantically,...
COMMUNITY / COUNTERPOINT
May 22, 2005

Last laugh to the lizards, and fair play for frogs an' all

Long ago in a land skirted by two oceans, there lived a people who worshipped lizards.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 21, 2005

Horton hears a Who in 'Dare-mura'

I am going to share something with you today that you must keep an absolute secret. You must not tell anyone what I am about to tell you, especially not the police.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 15, 2005

When law and justice won't mix

JAPAN'S COLONIZATION OF KOREA: Discourse and Power, by Alexis Dudden. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005, 215 pp. $45 (cloth). Lawful and just are two separate things that may be irreconcilable. A good example that offers plenty of material to fathom this out was the annexation of Korea by Japan....
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
May 15, 2005

No laughing matter

O n the stage, Charlie Chaplin was known as the tramp who made millions laugh without saying a word. But in his heart of hearts, it seems the great comic wanted to be a statesman whose words could change history.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 13, 2005

Tsutsumi used culture to amass, retain iron grip on power

"If you want Sundays off, don't be a manager in my company."
COMMENTARY / World
May 11, 2005

Japan's new foreign policy

LONDON -- As Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has traveled about and made his speeches in recent months, it is possible to trace his perception of a new foreign policy for Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 11, 2005

Dolls' surreal influence

Kachina dolls, embodying the beliefs, social structure and moral values of the Native American Hopi have fascinated and inspired artists for a century.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 10, 2005

Japan's gender debate

Grave risks Thank you very much for your article "Turning back clock on gender equality."
COMMENTARY
May 9, 2005

Relax, war unlikely in Asia through 2008

LOS ANGELES -- We here in the West -- despite our ritualistic (and sometimes loud-mouthed) advocacy of democracy -- do appreciate the decision of the people in charge in Beijing to clamp down on those anti-Japanese protests, clear out the streets, order people to get out of those incendiary anti-Tokyo...
COMMUNITY
May 8, 2005

Serial stereotyping only serves others' brazen hubris

Ever since the reopening of Japan to the outside world in the mid-19th century, people from the West have categorized Japanese life in terms of one or another social model. Whatever the category chosen, though, the inference has always been that Japan is "different." How else would you account for something...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 8, 2005

Window dressing the great divide

THE SARI SHOP, by Rupa Bajwa, W.W. Norton Company, 2005, 224 pp., $13.95 (paper). Indian-ness has ceased to be the flavor of the season, or at least that's what they've been saying in Indian publishing circles. One only wishes this were true. The "Indian experience" is the proverbial dead horse, flogged...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 8, 2005

TV show scrapes bottom of barrel in bringing Asia to Japan

One of the hoariest cliches of international politics is the idea that governments only have beefs with other governments, not with their citizens. The tragic irony is that the citizens suffer anyway. Maybe the majority of Iraqi people didn't like their tyrant, but one has to wonder how much they accept...
COMMENTARY
May 8, 2005

A 'Eurasian Union' on deck

LONDON -- Where does Europe end and Asia begin? The question is of more than academic interest because the answer will determine what sort of entity the European Union is to be. There are those who talk about "the final completion" of the EU as though a line can be carefully drawn between the states...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Apr 29, 2005

Chelsea deserves credit for achievement, but may not get it

LONDON -- When Arsenal won the Premiership title last year even supporters of Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United, the Gunners' two biggest rivals, had to acknowledge -- albeit through gritted teeth -- that it had been a fabulous achievement.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 28, 2005

Has China learned a lesson?

It is naturally welcome that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan and President Hu Jintao of China reaffirmed in Jakarta that friendly Japan-China relations are desirable not only for the two countries but also for Asia at large. It is beyond doubt that good Japan-China relations promote peace and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 27, 2005

Russian diva's voice to die for

"Russians always need a little shit in our lives. If everything is good and we seem completely happy, then we become suspicious of that." This is Russian opera star Anna Netrebko's philosophy -- slightly incongruous for one who, at a glance, seems to have it all and to be enjoying every bit of it.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Apr 25, 2005

Knight still mounted on a tethered horse

NEW YORK -- In 1958 there was a political upheaval in Iraq, which, as far as that country at that particular juncture in history was concerned, was the final rejection of Western rule. But Japan's reaction was shifty and muddled. Or so writer Yukio Mishima (1925-70) thought.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2005

Purge U.N. panel of the freedom-haters

STOCKHOLM -- For Sweden, my homeland, the United Nations is a sacred cow. But today, many Swedes, like others around the world, are having second thoughts. Three events incited these doubts. The first was the slaughter in Rwanda a decade ago of more than 800,000 people within 100 days -- probably the...
EDITORIALS
Apr 23, 2005

The G7 does it again

The topics of discussion at last weekend's meeting of finance heads from the Group of Seven were obvious: danger from rising oil prices, global imbalances and developing nations' debt. Yet the ministers failed to make headway on these issues. The global economy needs more than well-heeled cheerleaders....
EDITORIALS
Apr 22, 2005

Reform remains pope's top priority

In one of the swiftest conclusions to a conclave in a century, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a German theologian, has been elected pope to succeed the late John Paul II, who pursued pacifism, human rights protection and inter-religious dialogue. The hope for Pope Benedict XVI -- the name is said to suggest...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 22, 2005

CCP smacks of hypocrisy

LONDON -- At the end of his visit to India last week, China's Premier Wen Jiabao made a strong political attack on Japan. With respect to Japan's bid for a seat on an expanded U.N. Security Council (UNSC) Wen opined that "Only a country that respects history, takes responsibility for history and wins...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 20, 2005

Put a lid on rising Sino-Japanese tensions

WASHINGTON -- Relations between Japan and China, the two great powers of Northeast Asia, have in recent months sunk to their worst levels at least since Tiananmen Square in 1989. This past weekend's anti-Japanese riots in China were unprecedented in the modern era, but they were only the latest in a...
EDITORIALS
Apr 16, 2005

Mr. Wen courts India

Ties between China and India continue to strengthen. While some worry about a "new axis" between Beijing and Delhi, it is only natural that two of the world's largest countries -- neighbors, no less -- have strong and cooperative relations. Asia needs them to have a positive, forward-looking partnership....

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past