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Reader Mail
May 2, 2013

Abe afflicted by tunnel vision

Japan's Shinzo Abe, unlike his American counterpart, is enslaving himself to a revisionist course in Japan, defying all rhyme and reason. Believing that rewriting the past can make it go away could again split Asia in two — Japan and the rest.
Reader Mail
May 2, 2013

Powers of the Italian president

The April 25 editorial, "Italy turns to Mr. Napolitano again," bears a couple of technical mistakes and misses two major points.
Reader Mail
May 2, 2013

Signs of 'Christian' influence

In his April 25 letter, "Christian witness to abolitionism," Thomas Clark advises another letter-writer to consider, "Why is the area of the world respecting human rights correlated so closely with the historic orbit of Judeo-Christianity?"
Reader Mail
May 2, 2013

Australia's declining smoking rate

Joseph Jaworski, in his April 21 letter, "Consequences of health planning," claims that the Australian public health campaign to reduce smoking and drinking has "resulted in an Australian public that is perhaps less heathy (or at least, no healthier) than it was before the campaign." He links the increased...
Reader Mail
May 2, 2013

The image of ourselves in Japan

Paul Gaysford's reflection on his life in Japan ("The joy of not being accepted," April 18 letter) felt familiar because its tone is congruent with similar ideas expressed repeatedly since Lafcadio Hearn.
Reader Mail
May 2, 2013

Modicum of remorse isn't there

The recent visits of Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and other Cabinet ministers to Yasukuni Shrine defy common sense. At least one of the ministers said he was making the visit in both a private and public capacity, a blatant contradiction. It is hard to know why these visits are made when the government...
Reader Mail
May 2, 2013

To avoid Yasukuni is to be sorry

I read Robert Yamamoto's April 25 letter, "Yasukuni serves useful purpose," with great interest. Japanese people — especially Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his Cabinet ministers and politicians in the Diet — should remember that Japan sent troops to the northeastern part of China early in the 1930s,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 1, 2013

Fake school uniforms let some turn back the clock

A 17-year-old high school boy in Tokyo likes to hang out with his friends on weekends sporting a blazer and white shirt, the typical uniform of high school boys — not his casual clothes or his school-designated "gakuran" high-collar jacket.
LIFE / Digital
May 1, 2013

Fragile systems make twits of us all

On Tuesday, April 23, a tweet from Associated Press (AP) revealed startling news. There had been explosions in the White House and Obama had been injured. The tweet was a hoax — the AP Twitter account had been hacked via a clever phishing exploit — but it briefly caused havoc. The Dow Jones Industrial...
COMMENTARY / World
May 1, 2013

The paradox of the Boston bombing

Essentially the Boston bombers' stories are not so different from those of America's home-grown 'lone wolves' — typically white and equally disenchanted.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
May 1, 2013

Woodson beating odds with Knicks

Mike Woodson likes to tell the story of how he first got into NBA coaching, which was something of a symbol for his basketball life.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / TRAVEL INSIDER
May 1, 2013

KLM's Miffy campaign; Cathay's eCoupon offer; Singapore to add Japan flights

KLM's Miffy campaign
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Apr 30, 2013

Samurai moms and the art of brood maintenance: a mother from the West's lessons from the East

May in Japan is the perfect month for mothers. Wreathed in the fertile blooms of spring, bolstered by days of absolute perfection, May is also a month of muddy contradiction.
BASKETBALL
Apr 29, 2013

Albirex capture Eastern Conference title

The Niigata Albirex torched the Sendai 89ers in Sunday's season finale and collected their first-ever Eastern Conference regular-season title.
BUSINESS
Apr 29, 2013

GOP shifts budget focus from cuts to tax reform

With another fight over the national debt brewing this summer, congressional Republicans are de-emphasizing their demand for politically painful cuts to retirement programs and focusing on a more popular prize: a thorough rewrite of the U.S. tax code.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 29, 2013

Bilingual beauty, straight and permed

Beauty must be a bilingual thing. At least that's the impression one gets from looking at signs outside hairdressers, beauty parlors and similar types of businesses in Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 29, 2013

China's stealth wars of acquisition

China is waging stealth wars — without firing a shot — to change the status quo of the South and East China seas, its border with India, and international rivers.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 29, 2013

Third option for global disaster and recession

Unfortunately a there is third option regarding the world's fate. It piggybacks civilizational collapse because of global warming with the Mother of Recessions.
BASKETBALL
Apr 28, 2013

Conference crown still up for grabs in East

The Niigata Albirex BB moved closer to a possible Eastern Conference regular-season title by beating the visiting Sendai 89ers 98-79 on Saturday night.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 28, 2013

A Pacific idyll where some go to escape, others to connect

A woman from western Japan, who calls herself "Amy," couldn't find paradise in Thailand, Cuba, Brazil or French Polynesia, so with the last of her $300 savings she bought a one-way ticket from Tahiti to Rarotonga. Then, claiming to be penniless, she walked from the airport to the police station and...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 28, 2013

Pressure grows for the nation's housewives

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's April 19 National Press Club speech about boosting women's participation in the workforce has been covered extensively in the domestic and foreign media since it signals a sea change in the Liberal Democratic Party's view of women's role in society. He said the government...
Reader Mail
Apr 28, 2013

If they like it, they will learn

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced that the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) would be adopted in Japanese education. Considering Japan's focus on international personnel development, TOEFL could be one of the scales to assess whether Japanese people are competent enough with English...
Reader Mail
Apr 28, 2013

Funny piece about 'bosozoku'

The April 18 article "Documentary chronicles disappearing world of 'bosozoku (biker gangs)" was funny! Kazuhiro Hazuki, a former gang leader, is quoted as saying he couldn't stomach the violence of being a yakuza loan shark, so he became a kick boxer.
Reader Mail
Apr 28, 2013

Try adding specialist teachers

The April 23 article "LDP looks to double JET Program's ranks in three years" leaves this reader feeling it's time to reassess English education in Japan. Increasing the number of Japan Exchange and Teaching participants twofold is not the answer.
Reader Mail
Apr 28, 2013

Save us from business strategies

Regarding the April 21 letter "A situation similar to Britain's": It's true that Japanese people like "reform." Since the end of the Cold War, many political leaders have tried to reform society. But it seems they've had no remarkable success so far.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Apr 27, 2013

Should healthy people pay less for health insurance?

Should healthy people pay less for national health insurance than unhealthy people?

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic