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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 22, 2008

Rwandan troupe investigates societies' failures

I n 1994, Hutu militias began the systematic genocide of the Tutsi people of Rwanda. In just 100 days, an estimated 1 million people had been butchered and whole families, villages and towns destroyed. Once Tutsi rebels regrouped and took control of the unstable country, many of the Hutus responsible...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 22, 2008

A life on the streets

'I'm not always a stray dog. Sometimes I'm a cat," says Daido Moriyama. "Or an insect."
JAPAN
May 22, 2008

Tokyo Station face-lift adds old, new looks

JR Tokyo Station is in the midst of its first major reconstruction work since the end of the war as part of efforts to revitalize the heart of the capital.
JAPAN
May 22, 2008

Health costs of aged at a premium

Mitsue Nozaki has enjoyed a comfortable life as a senior living on a pension for the 15 years since she retired from a major company, where she had worked for about 40 years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 22, 2008

A screen as canvas

In 1965, pioneering video artist Nam June Paik made the bold statement that "just as the collage technic has replaced oil paint, the cathode ray tube will replace the canvas." Like any provocation, it has not aged well as the passage of time has whittled away at its importance.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
May 21, 2008

Twitter launch in Japanese a boon for microblogging

Twitter is the Web site and service on a lot of lips in the technology world right now. It is a service that serves one very simple function by letting its users answer a simple question, "What are you doing now?" Users then subscribe to these answers by "following" the accounts of other users. The result...
EDITORIALS
May 20, 2008

Trust in malpractice probes

The health ministry has revised its proposal concerning a plan to establish, in 2010, a third-party Medical Accidents Investigation Commission aimed at preventing the recurrence of such accidents. The revised proposal takes into account the fear that doctors and other medical professionals have of police...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 20, 2008

Lifelines to the past

We have been receiving inquiries asking for help in finding old contacts, friends and family. Since we are unaware of any organization that specifically handles this kind of request, the best we can do is to print them here. Just send your name and as many details as you can dredge up from the past,...
CULTURE / Books
May 18, 2008

Manhunt for a Chinese woman

THE FINDER by Colin Harrison. New York: Sarah Chrichton Books, 2008, 325 pp., $25 (cloth) In this tightly woven page-turner by Colin Harrison, Jin Li, a young Chinese woman with an advanced university degree, engages in industrial espionage, setting off a series of violent events.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 18, 2008

African Festa opens eyes in Yokohama

YOKOHAMA — With the Tokyo International Conference on African Development to be held in Yokohama later this month, a two-day cultural event kicked off Saturday to bring a taste of Africa to Japan's famous harbor city.
BASKETBALL
May 17, 2008

Lakestars hire assistant GM

The Shiga Lakestars named Motofumi Iguchi their assistant general manager, the club announced Friday.
EDITORIALS
May 17, 2008

Mr. Siniora gambles and loses

It is increasingly clear that the administration of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is the government of Lebanon in name only. In deciding to confront Hezbollah last week, Mr. Siniora badly miscalculated, and was forced to make a humiliating retreat. Now, the country teeters on the precipice of a civil...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 17, 2008

Marriage sprang from struggle to master Japanese

May Uehara, who came to Japan from Hong Kong in 1986, speaks Japanese with such perfect intonation that people may at first mistake her for a native.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
May 16, 2008

Long-running 'Muscle Musical' embarks on enigmatic voyage

Japan's top athletes and a renowned American director have teamed up to renew the nation's most energetic theater show.
BUSINESS
May 15, 2008

Internet businesses try luck in overseas markets

While Japanese products from cars to TVs are known throughout the world, the country's Internet services have so far been conspicuously absent abroad.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 15, 2008

Julie madly, deeply

It's always interesting to meet someone you've seen on the screen so many times. You always wonder: Are they like their movie image? I know, I know — actors are just playing a role, that's not really them up on the screen.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 15, 2008

Butoh — Omnivorous and best not defined

In a small studio in Kichijoji, a director is telling three dancers that their heads are potatoes rolling around on a plate. And their three bald pates, poking up through a single piece of cardboard that holds them together, certainly have the appearance of earthy spuds, wobbling uncertainly across the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
May 14, 2008

Chubby checker: the machine that measures your fat

Assessing the battle: Is the humble bathroom scale destined, like the manual typewriter, for the halls of obsolescence? Amid the fret over metabolic syndrome and other health issues, just measuring your weight, even down to the gram, doesn't get the job done anymore.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 13, 2008

Landlords, support, auto advice

Reader BJ is having trouble communicating with his landlord.
COMMENTARY
May 12, 2008

Row that demonized China

So now we know, officially, that the U.S. military contemplated a nuclear attack on China during the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis. But what few realize is how this then led to a violent slanging match between Beijing and Moscow, which in turn was to lead to the Vietnam and other Indochina wars, which in...
EDITORIALS
May 12, 2008

Legal services for everyone

On April 1, 2006, Nihon Shiho Shien Senta (Japan Legal Support Center) or Ho Terasu (Law Terrace) was established to offer people easy access to legal services. It began operation on Oct. 2 that year. Although two years have passed, only 22 percent of those recently polled know of Ho Terrace. More publicity...
Reader Mail
May 11, 2008

The Japanese view of ending life

Regarding David Quintero's May 4 letter, "High Japanese suicide rate mystifies," and the question he poses (Why do so many Japanese people kill themselves?): I don't have a definitive answer, but I have come up with a few theories:

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’