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COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 16, 2013

Indonesia 15 years after the New Order

In May 1998 President Suharto resigned, ending three decades in power in Indonesia and what was known as the New Order. As an army general, he had intervened against a coup attempt in 1965 that ended with the sidelining of President Sukarno and months of massacres all over the archipelago as Suharto...
Reader Mail
Jun 16, 2013

'Mysogynists' hijacking Japan

Regarding the June 8 Kyodo article "Forcibly recruited Korean sex slaves a myth: lawmaker": Swarms of Japanese misogynistic morons seem to inhabit the Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party). Is there something in the water?
Reader Mail
Jun 16, 2013

It's elementary: Build confidence

Regarding Philip Brasor's May 5 Media Mix article, "Media weighs in on LDP's English education plan": I think creating more opportunities for young students to come in contact with native English-language speakers is the most effective way to help students use English.
Reader Mail
Jun 16, 2013

Improving English education

Regarding recent articles and letters relating to English education in Japan: Having taught English in high schools and universities here for the past 13 years, it's encouraging to see the education ministry taking a few modest steps toward improving English-language education such as by starting lessons...
Reader Mail
Jun 16, 2013

Just a friendly survey of the gods

Regarding Amy Chavez's June 1 column, "Everyone's own path to enlightenment": I am always fascinated by Chavez's essays and look forward to the next one each Saturday. In the June 1 column, by my interpretation, she wants to express her opinion that Buddhism is easy to access and very generous to its...
Reader Mail
Jun 16, 2013

Stop crying wolf about China

Regarding Michael Richardson's June 6 article, "China's troubling core interests": Richardson is again beating the "China threat" drum as if repeating this theme over and over will somehow convince others of its verity.
Reader Mail
Jun 16, 2013

The culture of sexual predation

Paul Gaysford, in his June 6 letter, "Sense of brotherhood toward all" (a response to my May 30 letter, "Myth of the willing prostitute"), avoids the issue at hand.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 15, 2013

Time for a fresh look at the life and art of L.S. Lowry

In a somewhat stark meeting room at Tate Britain, the curators of its forthcoming L.S. Lowry show, T.J. Clark and Anne M. Wagner, are attempting, at my request, to extol the artist's virtues to me. It's a complicated business. For one thing, I have the impression that they regard enthusiasm as infra...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 15, 2013

Is U.S. still the land of the free?

It is not the United Stasi of America. Nevertheless, one still ought to ask how far one can trust the security and law-enforcement complexes to police themselves.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Jun 15, 2013

Actor Ethan Hawke: still playing all the angles

Ethan Hawke is out and about in New York, the city he's lived in for 30 years, a place where famous faces slide past every day. He's wearing a baseball cap, a hoodie and a pair of cords. It's an outfit you might think he chose especially to look nondescript, but in reality it's because he likes corduroy...
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Jun 14, 2013

Proof of 'Abenomics' pudding is in execution

The third pillar of 'Abenomics' approved by the Cabinet may have lacked the impact of its two predecessors, but everything will hinge on the steady execution of all three.
JAPAN
Jun 14, 2013

Okinawa pitches Futenma 'dispersal'

Okinawa contacted the office of the U.S. secretary of defense earlier this week with proposals to relocate the contingent at U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to other parts of Japan outside the prefecture, saying there are 35 commercial airports and military facilities, from Kyushu to Hokkaido,...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 14, 2013

Wales touts Hitachi reactors

The two or three nuclear reactors scheduled to be built in northern Wales will bring significant economic benefits rather than fears about nuclear disasters, visiting Welsh economy minister Edwina Hart said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 14, 2013

Unflinching survival epic recounts tsunami horror

Director Juan Antonio Bayona came out of nowhere — well, Barcelona and the world of music videos, actually — to drop "The Orphanage" on an unsuspecting world in 2007. This chilling and intelligent reinvention of the haunted-house genre went on to become No. 1 at the Spanish box office and also did...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 14, 2013

'Kiseki no Ringo (Miracle Apples)'

Raised on a small farm in Southern Ohio, my grandfather hunted and grew much of the food we ate at the enormous Sunday dinners my grandmother prepared, from tasty quail and rabbit to fresh sweet corn and tomatoes. The piece de resistance was often apple pie, made from fruit harvested from backyard trees....
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 14, 2013

It takes a global village to ensure fair, safe trade

It takes a global village to ensure health, safety and fair wages for the factory workers who make the goods in most demand by the developed world.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 14, 2013

Mishima plays get the puppet treatment

The "Five Modern Noh Plays" by Yukio Mishima (1925-70) has already been the subject of many adaptations, but the latest is by marionette theater company Youkiza. Not only is the original set of yūgen (a mysterious, profound universe) retained, but so is the modern approach typical of novelist Mishima's...
JAPAN
Jun 13, 2013

Rescued castaways go home to Kiribati

Two Kiribati natives who were rescued by a Japanese trawler in mid-May after spending some three months adrift go home after recovering from their ordeal.
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Jun 13, 2013

Tweet Beat: #deresama13, #akb総選挙, #日本代表, #ほこたて

Battle of the bands, battle of the idols and a bad television battle, plus a World Cup soccer battle.
JAPAN
Jun 13, 2013

Sazae-san statues face the tax man

A merchant group in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward may have to pay some ¥9.8 million in taxes over the next 45 years for bronze statues of characters from the beloved comic strip "Sazae-san" that they installed to promote their district.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 13, 2013

News Corp. publishing arm breakup plan wins approval

After years of being criticized by investors for his love of newspapers, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch is now a step closer to cleaving off his declining publishing business.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 13, 2013

'Playback Artist Talks'

Since 2005, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, has provided artists with a platform to discuss their works housed at the museum. The event, called Artist Talk, has been held 30 times since its inception, each time giving an artist the opportunity to explain his or her aesthetics and career to...
Reader Mail
Jun 13, 2013

Principled bargaining over islets

As someone who has been a guest in Japan for a relatively short time, I find some of the culture unfamiliar, as doubtless many a Japanese citizen would find it so in my country — especially the likely method of handling the dispute over the Senkaku Islands.
Reader Mail
Jun 13, 2013

Medieval standard of decorum

In the June 4 article, "Rights groups tell Japan to fully tape interrogations of criminal suspects," reporter Tomohiro Osaki notes that "the U.N. Committee against Torture issued a statement pointing out that Japan's criminal justice system should do away with its traditionally strong reliance on confessions...
Reader Mail
Jun 13, 2013

Some dare call it 'economics'

When reading the paper or listening to the news in English, some of us may be inclined to think that "Abenomics" has something to do with economics or even sound economics. But when you listen to members of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party talk about it in Japanese, they call it "Abe no mikkusu," de-stressing...
Reader Mail
Jun 13, 2013

Resourceful ways to kill time

Regarding the June 11 article "Wait a sec: Smartphones helping more in Japan deal with irritatingly long waits, survey says": This survey is weird and interesting. I am amazed at the startling ingenuity of the surveyors concerning the subject matter.

Longform

A mushroom cloud from the atomic bombing on Hiroshima taken from a U.S. military aircraft on Aug. 6, 1945. Copying the photo without permission is prohibited.
80 years on, a Japanese American hibakusha recalls the day the bomb dropped