Search - text

 
 
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 3, 2009

The first Western diplomat in Japan

Pop quiz: The first Western diplomat to set foot in Japan came from what country? Portugal? Holland? England? Actually, the correct answer is Mexico.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Sep 30, 2009

Perks enhance Sony headphones; Epson pushes postcards

Sound investment: Sony may have long ago surrendered the portable music-player war to Apple, but it still wins in the battle over headphones.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Sep 27, 2009

Captains of industry must stop playing the blame game — now

While visiting India earlier this month I had a revelation.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Sep 25, 2009

Bandai and KitKat let patrons get personal

Bandai and KitKat let their patrons get personal with bendy dolls and custom chocolate boxes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 25, 2009

Making sure nothing is lost in translation

"The Coast of Utopia" a 10-hour-long trilogy of plays — comprising "Voyage," "Shipwreck" and "Salvage" — was originally written in 2002 by Tom Stoppard for the National Theatre in London. An award-winning English playwright, Stoppard first shot to fame with "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead"...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 13, 2009

Road map for increasingly accessible world of Japanese cinema

JAPANESE CINEMA, by Stuart Galbraith IV. Taschen, 2009, 192 pp., 354 photographs, $29.99 (hardcover) This is a large (23.1 cm by 28.9 cm), fully illustrated account of Japanese film from its beginnings. There have now been a number of such histories, each perforce written from different perspectives...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 11, 2009

Breaking fairy-tale conventions of beauty

Against the tradition of bijinga (beautiful women pictures) that runs through Japanese art, there is an antithetical stream that draws attention to a grotesque and timeworn femininity. In noh plays, the celebrated early 9th-century beauty of the Heian Era, Ono no Komachi, is sometimes portrayed after...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 11, 2009

'Soldier's Tale' to hit Japan

Tokyo audiences have an opportunity this weekend to see a stage gem performed only 12 times before — and always in its birthplace of the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden, home of the fabled Royal Ballet.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 9, 2009

In Hatoyama's 'fraternity,' people the end, not means

An opinion piece by Democratic Party of Japan President Yukio Hatoyama that was originally published in the September edition of the Japanese monthly journal Voice has triggered controversy in the United States for appearing to have an antiglobalization bent.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Sep 6, 2009

Donald Keene: A life lived true to the words

Donald Keene is one of the greatest scholars of Japanese literature and has been highly influential in the establishment of Japanese studies in the West.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Sep 6, 2009

My key connection

It was 1954 and the summer holidays were over. The family had moved a few miles south from Tewkesbury to Cheltenham in the beautiful county of Gloucestershire in the west of England, and I had been transferred from the one town's boys grammar school to the other's.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Sep 5, 2009

How to become a gaijin that can say no

I wish I could say, "No." I wish I knew how.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 4, 2009

'Killer Virgin Road'

Are most single women obsessed with marriage despite their protests to the contrary? Disappointed in love, do they fall to insecure pieces, taking solace in late-night cartons of ice cream?
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 16, 2009

The pure horror of Hiroshima

In 1946, just after the first anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima, "The New Yorker" magazine's Aug. 31 issue published the complete text of John Hersey's portrait of the atom bomb and its effects on the Japanese city.
Reader Mail
Aug 16, 2009

Good education feeds dreams

Regarding Michael Hoffman's Aug. 5 article, "Heisei kids: a generation that struggles to dream": I am 31 and have thought about this subject for a long time. Why are so many kids today, who have access to so many fancy gadgets, have so few or such hazy dreams? What inspires one to dream?
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 9, 2009

A-bombings 'were war crimes'

Guilty.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 26, 2009

Pope's dream of heaven on Earth

HONG KONG — Of all the criticisms and critiques of the state of the world since the financial crisis that triggered global recession, the most devastating and yet the most profound and constructive came this month from such an unusual and unlikely source that many media ignored them. Yet the comments...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 25, 2009

Obama jeopardizing nuclear deal with India

LONDON — Even as all eyes were focused on the issues of global economic revival, world trade and climate change, the Group of Eight sprung a major surprise on India during its summit at L'Aquila. The G8 statement on nonproliferation committed the advanced industrial world to implement on a national...
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 24, 2009

Performing opera can easily be child's play

Kids Opera does not have to be a contradiction in terms, as the New National Theatre has proved since 2004. Artistic Director Thomas Novohradsky (2003-2007) first suggested the idea, and now Kids Opera is a regular summer feature. The NNTT takes the original music and text from a classic, reworking the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jul 14, 2009

Wit, humor help longtime columnist come to grips with life in Japan

Freelance journalist and longtime Japan resident Thomas Dillon was at first shy of being on the receiving end of questions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 10, 2009

Artist Yoko Ono is honored

On June 6, the Venice Biennale presented artist Yoko Ono with one of its most prestigious honors, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Ono was nominated for the distinction along with American John Baldessari by the director of this year's biennale, Daniel Birnbaum.
COMMENTARY
Jul 9, 2009

Spread of democracy stalls

Has the global spread of democracy run out of steam? For long, but especially since the end of the Cold War, democracy and free markets were touted as the twin answers to most ills. But while free-market tenets have come under strain in the present international financial crisis, with the very countries...

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