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Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 9, 2013

Taro Aso may, for once, have a point

Ever since the Liberal Democratic Party regained power last year, standard-bearer Shinzo Abe has been conspicuously cautious with his public pronouncements, cooling it on the nationalist rhetoric and keeping the bravado to a minimum. Deprived of excitement, the media was delighted by Vice Prime Minister...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 8, 2013

The movie exposing the lies at the heart of U.S. capitalism

In one sense, "Inequality for All" is absolutely the film of the moment. We are living through tumultuous times. The economy has tanked. Austerity has cut a swath through our lives.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Feb 1, 2013

Your body — not just a temple, but a laboratory too

1. Appendix to life The appendix gets a bad press. It is usually treated as a body part that lost its function millions of years ago. All it seems to do is occasionally get infected and cause appendicitis. Yet recently it has been discovered that the appendix is very useful to the bacteria that help...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 17, 2013

Patti Smith hopes 2013 is about rebuilding

By the time you read this, Patti Smith will have been in Japan for nearly a week. The iconic poet, author, painter and "Godmother of Punk" hasn't yet played a gig with her band; that will come later. First, Smith is reconnecting with a country with which her affinity runs deep.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / BEST OF 2012
Dec 28, 2012

In the name of sincerity and love, this list is for you

I've been thinking about you. About what you want from life, from relationships, from the movies. This list isn't about me, it's about you. Your needs, your dreams, all that jazz. This may seem like a hodgepodge selection of titles with no connecting thread, but believe me, these films reflect the way...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Dec 15, 2012

World's health taking on an American look

The health of most of the planet's population is rapidly coming to resemble that of the United States, where death in childhood is rare, too much food is a bigger problem than too little, and life is long and often darkened by disability.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 14, 2012

Women in their 40s have it better than men

It was a shock and a disappointment to learn, courtesy of a survey released in August by the Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, that men in their 40s are the unhappiest people in Japan. Who are the happiest? This is even more surprising: men in their 80s. That gives younger men something to look forward...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 16, 2012

Beacons of hope and inspiration light even the darkest pits of despond

The renowned Polish-born film and television director and screenwriter Agnieszka Holland has created a stunning work about life and death in the Lviv ghetto during the closing months of World War II.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Sep 14, 2012

Recipes and more from the farmer's kitchen

EDITORIALS
Aug 26, 2012

The 'unhappy' men of Japan

Men in their 40s are the most unhappy group in Japan, according to a new survey by the Dai-ichi Life Research Institute. The survey investigated the level of happiness among various groups in Japan.
EDITORIALS
Aug 20, 2012

No longer the oldest women

A recent survey of life expectancy around the world found that Japanese women no longer have the longest life span. That honor has been taken over by Hong Kong, where women live on average 86.7 years, according to 2011 data from Japan's health and welfare ministry.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Aug 18, 2012

Innovative organic farming achieves sustainability in rural Hokkaido

How to endure? It's an elemental question perfectly matched to the endless, ripening fields of the organic farm Land Mann in the town of Biei, Hokkaido.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 12, 2012

Excuse this proud new father — it's time to indulge in some baby talk

I'll preface this column by admitting that it is fairly common, among journalists on the science and health beats, that after they personally reproduce they experience a burning desire to write about the science of childbirth. Seasoned editors know to expect that postnatal reporters will start pitching...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 30, 2012

British artist/chef finds happiness by keeping all of his options open

Cooking can be art and art nourishes, but what really connects the two for chef and artist Johnny Miller is the act of creation itself: "It's the physicality of it — both are directly related to your body and how your body moves. In cooking, you've got to touch things, touch hot and cold things. You've...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 12, 2012

'Flyjin' feel vindicated, worry for those left in Japan

Although more than a year has passed since the magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami struck Tohoku on March 11, 2011, Ivan Stout's memory of the moment when the Shinmarunouchi building in Tokyo's Chou Ward began to tremble is as vivid as ever.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 3, 2012

Koki Mitani: Japan's Mr. Comedy

Koki Mitani is far and away the nation's best-known dramatist. Although theater is quite a niche medium here, most people in Japan — whether male or female, young or not so young, Japanese or not — recognize his face, even if they couldn't name many of his works. Recently, indeed, I was amazed when...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
May 29, 2012

Your haiku: the good, the bad and the ugly of Japan

The following are the winners of the haiku competition launched to mark the Community section's 10th anniversary. The five recipients of the top prize, a copy of Debito Arudou and Akira Higuchi's "Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants and Immigrants," are marked by an asterisk. Other winners will receive...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
May 22, 2012

Minae Inahara, part-time lecturer at Rikkyo University

Minae Inahara, 39, is a part-time lecturer at Rikkyo University in Tokyo. With a PhD in philosophy from the University of Hull in the United Kingdom, she has been researching disability on three continents: Australia, Asia and Europe. She is an expert in the exploration of the phenomenology of disability....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
May 15, 2012

Readers vent over 'Bread and becquerels'

Some readers' responses to the April 17 Zeit Gist column by Gianni Simone, "Bread and becquerels: a year of living dangerously":
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
May 6, 2012

Richard Collasse: Sold on brand Japan

In Tokyo's high-end Ginza district, the Chanel Building stands out among the luxury fashion boutiques and global brands' emporiums thanks to its shining black-glass exterior.
COMMENTARY
Apr 24, 2012

'Cruel and unusual' punishment of teenagers

In the summer of 1787, just 94 years after the Salem witch trials, as paragons of the Enlightenment such as James Madison, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin deliberated in the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, a mob pelted and otherwise tormented to death a woman accused of being a witch....
COMMENTARY
Apr 13, 2012

Russia's 'shadow market'

We should keep in mind that Russia is a country that has spent 70 years in an inhuman experiment aimed at arranging all sides of socioeconomic life within a giant centrally planned system. Even if this time is over, many features of today's life go on reminding us of this heavy and in many ways onerous...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 27, 2012

False eyelashes, an authentic Eid, but we're not in Karachi anymore

As soon as I told any of my friends in Pakistan I was going to study for a semester in Tokyo, it was as if my facial features suddenly started turning Japanese.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 2, 2012

After 3/11, short-film director has one message: Don't forget

Isamu Hirabayashi is an incredibly versatile man. The 39-year-old Shizuoka native's day job is to direct TV commercials, and he normally works on five or six projects at the same time. Since 2002, he has also been active as a filmmaker, with his short films being shown at numerous festivals overseas,...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 25, 2012

Austerity — we've embraced it in the countryside

Austerity. It's a word steeped in meaning. No one is more aware of a stagnant economy than the Japanese people, who are spending less and learning to relish cheap, imported goods.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2012

Myth of the U.S. president as master of events

Americans are presidency-addicted. We can't get enough information about our commanders in chief, yet there is a woeful misunderstanding of the office.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 6, 2012

'Spamalot' cast hopes 2012 is Year of the Python

"This is Spam," says Eric Idle to a room full of Japanese journalists, holding up a can of the precooked meat product that he and his fellow Monty Python cast members mocked to lasting effect in 1970 in their iconic BBC TV series.
EDITORIALS
Dec 11, 2011

Is a girl or boyfriend worth it?

This year's Christmas date night might have plenty of vacant slots if a recent survey on Japanese relationships is correct. Fewer young people than ever before say they have a girlfriend or boyfriend.
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 11, 2011

The Scot who shaped Japan

This coming Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, marks the centenary of the death in his opulent home in the Shiba Park area of Tokyo's central Azabu district of the Scottish-born trader Thomas Blake Glover, who became the first foreigner ever decorated by the Japanese government when he was awarded the Order of the...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Nov 20, 2011

Paradoxes pervade gender issues' public face in Japan

Transgender people are popping up everywhere in the current Japanese media landscape. Whether it's appearing on variety shows or hawking soft drinks or makeup in TV ads, the current crop of "new-half" celebrities have established themselves in the mainstream in a way that has surprised many onlookers....

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan