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Reader Mail
Mar 8, 2009

Student individuality gone to seed

The Feb. 5 opinion-page article "Why can't Japanese kids get into Harvard?" explains why it is more difficult for Japanese people to get accepted at Harvard University than for Korean people. The article says it is partially because of culture and partially because of education.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 7, 2009

Steeped in tradition, Moleskine notebooks make mark in Japan

Moleskine notebooks, which trace their roots to the paper pads artists and writers turned to for decades, saw their sales in Japan in 2008 hit ¥500 million, or 10 times what they took in when Tokyo-based Qahwa Ltd. began distributing the brand here in 2005.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Mar 7, 2009

Couple's married life off to auspicious start

When Joyce Lam took Koji Kobayashi to meet her parents in Hong Kong in January 2008, they reminded her that, as the Year of the Golden Pig, 2007 was the most auspicious year to tie the knot in 60 years.
JAPAN
Mar 7, 2009

Aso's kanji conundrums spur self-reflection, textbook sales

Reading Japanese isn't easy — even for Japanese.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 6, 2009

Afghanistan's drama set for stage

A high-ranking Afghan diplomat and a British dramatist are meeting a lot these days to discuss their common agenda: staging a play about violence-racked Afghanistan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 6, 2009

Juliette Binoche takes to the stage — this time to dance

The Oscars are still in the air, and not just in Hollywood, as Tokyo is set to host Juliette Binoche — winner of Best Supporting Actress in 1996 for her role in "The English Patient" — in a weeklong run of "in-i," a dance work she created and is performing with Akram Khan, one of England's hottest...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 6, 2009

Dancing to the rhythm of destruction

Listening to echoes of the dead through sound art and experimental dance, the audience at a poignant artistic event on March 10 will experience for themselves something of the infamous Tokyo Fire Bombing of World War II when — at 00:08 on March 10, 1945 — the first waves of U.S. bombers began dumping...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Mar 5, 2009

Well-edited shopping for discerning travelers

While Japan might not have invented the idea of the "select shop," it has certainly refined the idea to an art form. The original models for Japanese shops such as Ships and Beams, which opened in the 1970s, were Barneys in the United States and Brown's in the U.K. — outlets that offered a special...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL: KEYES' POINT
Mar 4, 2009

Mothers-in-law: Our place or an ubasuteyama?

Wonderful, wonderful! Outside, the world as we know it is on the brink of collapse, but here in my study it is snug and warm; my books surround me, the coffee is hot and fresh . . .
JAPAN
Mar 3, 2009

Aso decides he will take cash handout

After several months of equivocating, Prime Minister Taro Aso finally came out and declared Monday evening he will accept his portion of the controversial ¥2 trillion cash handout, contradicting his previous position that he wouldn't take the cash.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Mar 1, 2009

What 'prohibition' has wrought

NEW YORK — When I read the news that the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy "blasted the U.S.-led drug war as a failure that is pushing Latin American societies to the breaking point" (Wall Street Journal, Feb. 12), I thought: Someone is finally talking sense. I have long regarded the...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Mar 1, 2009

Our woodland trust just keeps on growing

Last month, thanks to a very generous donation, we were able to add another whopping 119,088 sq. meters to our Afan Woodland Trust down the road from my home in the Nagano Prefecture hills outside Kurohime. This brings our total to 296,070 sq. meters — about twice the area we had when we set up the...
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Feb 28, 2009

Antlers begin quest to defend J. League title

Kashima Antlers manager Oswaldo Oliveira is hoping his team can lay down a marker for the rest of the J. League season in Saturday's curtain-raising Fuji Xerox Super Cup clash against Gamba Osaka.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 27, 2009

An insider's view, open to the masses

The performing-arts world in Tokyo seems to flourish in spring, with numerous (and similarly named) events taking place within the city. The Tokyo arts crowd is spoiled for choice with the Theater/Festival (formerly The Tokyo International Arts Festival), The Tokyo Performing Arts Festival and Tokyo...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Feb 24, 2009

Kinjo reaps benefits of workouts

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with players in the bj-league — Japan's first professional basketball circuit — which began its fourth season in October. Shigeyuki Kinjo of the Ryukyu Golden Kings is the subject of this week's profile.
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Feb 24, 2009

Students impart art of dumpling making

Some 120 Chinese students and Japanese rolled up their sleeves and got their hands full of flour and sesame oil as part of the fun at an educational dumpling party in celebration of the Chinese New Year.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 23, 2009

Tiger's return may not be enough to cure golf

Welcome back, Tiger Woods. It's been way too long. Just eight months have passed since that Monday on the edge of the Pacific Ocean when neither Rocco Mediate nor a bum leg could deny you another U.S. Open trophy. Across the country on that magical day, productivity in offices dropped as workers tuned...
Reader Mail
Feb 22, 2009

Innovation with what's available

Regarding the Feb. 18 editorial "Surprisingly sharp decline": I agree that innovation is the key to fighting the recession, and I would like to cite two examples. First, do the Japanese people realize that, despite this recession, companies that have done well are none other than the mobile service providers...
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 22, 2009

Refuge . . . of a sort

The main character of the one-act play that follows is loosely based on the few known facts concerning a Russian nobleman-refugee named Semyon Nikolaevitch Smirnitsky. Born in St. Petersburg in 1879, Smirnitsky fled the Russian Revolution in 1919 and spent the rest of his life in Japan, mostly in Otaru,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Feb 22, 2009

Cruising the Sumida for sights

However hidden behind built-up banks it may be, the Sumida River is not exactly a "back street." But as it's said that one of the best places from which to view cherry blossoms in Tokyo is from a water bus plying the river, I resolved on a reconnaissance better referred to as a "back stream" story.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 2009

New art council jumps right into the action

Two years: That's how long it took Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara to set up a new "arts council," extract from it a range of new policy ideas and get his staff to start putting them into action. It's not rocket-paced, but in a country famous for the slowness of its bureaucracy, it passes for commendable....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 20, 2009

Worst Taste: as stupid as they wanna be

"I like bands that are energetic and stupid. And with no sense of fashion. We hate fashionable bands whose music is no good."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 20, 2009

Bent Hamer nails another odd story

N orwegian filmmaker Bent Hamer is a generous man. At the end of our interview, while waiting for the next journalist to arrive, Hamer began putting together media kits that were piled up on a desk to be sorted out by the staff of his film's promotion company. Told not to bother, he kept at it with a...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 18, 2009

Are we ready for a new form of capitalism?

MELBOURNE — Is the global financial crisis an opportunity to forge a new form of capitalism based on sound values?
BUSINESS / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Feb 16, 2009

Germans, Japanese have good reasons for shunning equities

S tock markets around the world are really beginning to feel the effects of the financial crisis of 2008, with some industry watchers estimating that as much as $30 trillion of total market capitalization has been lost worldwide since 2007. This is hurting investors everywhere, big and small.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 15, 2009

Rebuilding sacred secrets of ancient Omi Province

Tourists might be attracted by Japanese temples and their gardens, but have you ever thought what it takes to preserve their timeless beauty?
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 14, 2009

Hauling in the souvenir binge

An Australian friend and I recently had the opportunity to show two of our good Japanese friends around Australia. Even though my native country is the United States, just being a gaijin who can speak Japanese was good enough for my Japanese friends, a couple (both 53 years old) who had traveled to other...

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight