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Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 10, 2013

Two wide-ranging, informed compilations scrutinize the March 11 disasters

NATURAL DISASTER AND NUCLEAR CRISIS IN JAPAN, edited by Jeff Kingston. Routledge, 2012, 304 pp., £28.99 (paperback)
EDITORIALS
Mar 10, 2013

Resuscitating Japan's fishing culture

The efforts by young fishermen engaged on fish culturing on the Uwa Sea, west of Ehime Prefecture, may offer an example of a new direction that Japan's fishing industry should take in making itself vibrant. In 2009, the Ehime Prefectural Government started a system of certifying fishermen younger than...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 10, 2013

If you do like to be beside the seaside, try Kamogawa

Chiba is a large prefecture, something you notice while traveling from Tokyo to the southern seaside resort of Kamogawa. The journey takes a good two hours — and this by express train.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 9, 2013

Thom Yorke: 'If I can't enjoy this now, when do I start?'

You don't necessarily associate Thom Yorke with fun. Radiohead's frontman and principal songwriter has tended to have different kinds of adjectives attached to him in his two decades in the music pages: 'intense,' 'tortured' and 'angst-ridden,' or 'impassioned,' 'essential' and 'important.'
Japan Times
JAPAN / TOHOKU TRAPPED IN TIME
Mar 9, 2013

Nuclear safety body touts voluntary measures

Utilities were unwilling to voluntarily improve safety at their nuclear plants before the Fukushima crisis erupted, but the chairman of the Japan Nuclear Safety Institute, an entity aimed at monitoring efforts by power firms to improve atomic safety, is determined to change that mindset.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Mar 9, 2013

Sleeping on the train — a rite of passage into Japanese society

When I first came to Japan, I wondered how people could sleep on the train, a public and completely inappropriate place where you can be assured everyone will be watching you. But then I learned that sleeping on the train is involuntary — and should be classified as a sleeping disorder.
JAPAN / TOHOKU TRAPPED IN TIME
Mar 8, 2013

A quick blow, then lingering death for devastated towns

One of the defining images from the Great East Japan Earthquake is of a tsunami-hit tourist bus stranded on the roof of the two-story community center in the Pacific coastal district of Ogatsu, Miyagi Prefecture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 8, 2013

'Savages'

Oliver Stone's first hit as a director was "Salvador," way back in 1986, which looked at a small Latin American nation's descent into political murder, funded mostly by its larger neighbor to the north. Now, with "Savages," he seems to have come full circle, as Latin America's plague of disappearances...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 8, 2013

Sleep deprivation has genetic consequences

Hey, you, yawning at 2 in the afternoon. Your genes feel it, too.
Events / Events In Tokyo
Mar 8, 2013

Inspirational walk across Japan

'Negative: Nothing" a documentary film on the odyssey of a Swiss man who walked the length of Japan, will again be screened in Tokyo this month.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 8, 2013

Aspiring thespians get help in realizing dreams

If you had a son or daughter who announced they wanted to be a stage actor, whatever would you say to them?
EDITORIALS
Mar 8, 2013

Pressing tasks for China's new leaders

Xi Jinping will be elected president of China and Li Keqiang will be named premier during the National People's Congress session that has kicked off.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 8, 2013

Bite into the journals of a Japanese burger critic

Many Japanese foodies are enamored with the hamburger, in much the same way that their American counterparts are often besotted with ramen. The number of hamburger shops in Tokyo has exploded in the last decade, but there are also signs that the fascination runs deeper: There are books, magazines and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 7, 2013

Edward Steichen's great American Dream

“I don't think that many people in Japan know who Edward Steichen is,” says curator Miki Tsukada in a surprisingly honest comment about visitors to the Setagaya Art Museum's current exhibition.
Reader Mail
Mar 7, 2013

International outlook lacking

Fisheries minister Yoshimasa Hayashi's is quoted as saying in the Feb. 28 AFP article "Japan will never stop whaling: fisheries chief" that he doesn't "think there will be any kind of an end for whaling by Japan." This shows, at the very least, a poor sense of responsibility and a very narrow point of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 7, 2013

"Ancient Glass: Feast of Color"

In ancient times, when precious stones such as lapis lazuli and carnelian were admired and desired, craftsmen found ways to imitate such beauty by experimenting with decorative glassware techniques.
Reader Mail
Mar 7, 2013

Not so fast to speaking digitally

In his March 3 article, Roger Pulvers implies that translation and interpreting are one and the same, that everyone has a computer and/or smartphone at hand, that they can access these speedily, and that translation/interpreting tools are, or soon will be, so good that we won't have to struggle to speak/write/read...
Reader Mail
Mar 7, 2013

Public buses serve the elderly

I agree with John Campbell's remarks in his March 3 letter, "Japan doing well by its elderly." The system in Japan is good for the elderly. Ideally there is room for improvement, but how many "perfect" countries do we have in this world after all?
Reader Mail
Mar 7, 2013

Evolution of the Latin language

I have great respect for Roger Pulvers' insightful articles including his Counterpoint March 3 titled "The days may be numbered for English as a universal second language." But I would like to point out one linguistic inaccuracy.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 6, 2013

Somali not pirate, just needed help: lawyers

A Somali man accused of attempting to hijack a Bahamian-registered oil tanker off Oman in March 2011 — the final of the four men brought to Japan to be tried under the 2009 antipiracy law — pleaded not guilty Tuesday before the Tokyo District Court.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / CHILD'S PLAY
Mar 6, 2013

Babies at the cinema need not be a recipe for disaster

Kiko Blossom is sitting in a red velvet cinema seat next to a handsome young man. A box of popcorn lies between them and their eyes widen in anticipation as the opening credits of the latest James Bond movie begin to roll.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 6, 2013

The Vatican needs a mystic to be the next pope

There's no need to rehash the recent disastrous track record of the all-male Roman Catholic hierarchy. The sordid abuse of children by priests, the sinister coverups, the callous treatment of nuns, the deaf ear turned toward Catholics who happen to be gay or divorced — it's all on the front page. The...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 6, 2013

Power is increasingly fleeting

In 2009, during his first address before a joint session of Congress, U.S. President Barack Obama championed a budget that would serve as a blueprint for the country's future through ambitious investments in energy, health care and education. "This is America," the new president proclaimed. "We don't...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Mar 6, 2013

Awakening the desire for a home with personality

Bored with run-of-the-mill suburban Japanese apartments? Perhaps putting the grand piano in the center of the living room would improve the situation.

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