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Reader Mail
Mar 24, 2013

It takes more than an English test

The March 19 article, "Higher English test hurdle awaits ministry applicants from fiscal '15," has caused me some anxiety about the attitude of some Japanese toward English.
Reader Mail
Mar 24, 2013

Facade of national independence

In the March 20 article, "Abe firm on Futenma but vows respite," we read that the Abe administration is planning to commemorate April 28, the day in 1952 when Japan's sovereignty was restored under the San Francisco Peace Treaty.
Reader Mail
Mar 24, 2013

Nuclear retreat signals decline

In his March 12 Community page article, "Do dire predictions for Japan factor in a rush for the exits?," Colin P.A. Jones makes a tragic error, an error repeated all too often in the media by those critical of both nuclear power and Japan's general direction. He sees the government's response to the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 24, 2013

Zen master indulges Japanese sword myth

'The one who kills is empty, his sword is empty, and the one who is attacked is empty, too. Thus the one who attacks is not a person. And the sword that strikes is not a sword. For the one who is attacked, it is just like cleaving in a lightning flash the breeze blowing in the spring sky.'
Reader Mail
Mar 24, 2013

The blame for maritime disputes

Regarding Michael Richardson's March 14 article, "China using Senkakus to test Japan, U.S.": According to Richardson, China is using the sovereignty dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands to test Japan and the United States.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 24, 2013

Alterations of idealized beauty in China, Japan

THE SEARCH FOR THE BEAUTIFUL WOMAN: A Cultural History of Japanese and Chinese Beauty, by Cho Kyo (Zhang Jing), translated by Kyoko Selden. Rowman & Littlefield, 2012, 287 pp., $49.95 (hardcover)
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 24, 2013

Abashiri astounds with its ice and convict connections

In April 1890, the Japanese government shipped more than 1,200 political prisoners from all over the country, including samurai insurgents from the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion against the government of Emperor Meiji. Nine years before, more than 250 years of rule by the Tokugawa shoguns had finally ended....
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 24, 2013

World faces rhino horn dilemma

Wildlife parts are valuable. A general rule of thumb is that the bigger the beast, the bigger the price. You don't get much bigger than a white rhino (3,000 kg). It is the largest grazing (i.e., purely grass-eating) animal that has ever lived. Its horn is worth, gram for gram, more than gold.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 24, 2013

Gruesome death stalks the front lines of conservation

It is one of the most poignant photos I've taken during this CITES. We are in Khao Yai (literally, "Big Mountain"), Thailand's first and grandest national park. Peaks and plunges. Huge trees. Waterfalls. And there are elephants and even a few tigers out there. Also rangers and poachers and a largely...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 24, 2013

In a nation shaken to its core, Japan's leaders offer more of the same

Roger Pulvers leaves Counterpoint at the end of this month after writing the column weekly since April 3, 2005. In his last three Counterpoints he has set out to consider in turn Japan in the past, present and future. This is his penultimate contribution.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Mar 24, 2013

Being a zombie is a no-brainer for this Japanese actress

Unlike many of her prim-and-proper friends at Shirayuri College — a Catholic school in Kanda, Tokyo — 20-year-old Akane Kanbayashi doesn't recoil at the sight of splattered blood and dismembered human bodies.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 24, 2013

Abortion controlled by the state

TV personalities, or tarento in the vernacular parlance, wage a never-ending battle against encroaching irrelevance. They impose on our consciousness, and one of the easiest ways to do that without offering a compelling skills set is to exploit personal circumstances that are none of our business. Last...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 24, 2013

Mandatory retirement takes a leap forward

The angels that guard you / When you drive / Usually retire / At sixty-five
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 23, 2013

As rival theories tumble, mystery of Stonehenge keeps scientists guessing

It already attracts more than a million visitors a year. Yet these numbers could be dwarfed once Stonehenge, one of the world's greatest prehistoric monuments, completes its radical facelift.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 23, 2013

Are Russian assassins on the streets of Britain?

Shortly after 5:15 p.m. on Nov. 10, a jogger turned into Granville Road in Weybridge, southern England, running along the hedge-lined street of one of Britain's wealthiest enclaves. Then, 50 meters from his home, he staggered into the road and died.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Mar 23, 2013

Bizarre ideology of fringe Republican convention

Gene Wisdom, a 55-year-old conservative from Nashville, Tennessee, was no fan of Barack Obama. Clutching a book called "The Communist," he was waiting eagerly to meet the book's author, Paul Kengor, so that he could sign it. The book, which detailed the life of black American journalist and labor activist...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 23, 2013

Asia and a post-U.S. Mideast

Dependence on imported oil motivated the U.S. military presence in the Mideast after 1945. With energy self-sufficiency in sight, will the U.S. pull back
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 22, 2013

Trial translation faults irk lay judges

The conviction in Tokyo of a U.S. minor for the slaying of an Irish woman once again highlights Japan's lack of a national accreditation system for court interpreters, after the lay judges complained about misinterpretations.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 22, 2013

Rise of Jesuit to papacy surprises cerebral order's membership

Pope Francis belongs to the Jesuits, a religious order whose members take an unusual — and at the moment seemingly ironic — vow: not to strive for a higher office.
EDITORIALS
Mar 22, 2013

Big repercussions from Cyprus

Compared with the Greek, Irish, Italian and Spanish crises, the financial problems of tiny Cyprus should have been a quick fix for European leaders.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC
Mar 21, 2013

Dominicans overcome by emotion after WBC victory

Fernando Rodney bounded around on a hastily assembled stage with a fresh World Baseball Classic winner's medal and a plantain that was more than a few days past its expiration date both dangling around his neck.
Reader Mail
Mar 21, 2013

Qualifying Japan's 'flexibility'

I have always had a great respect for Gregory Clark, based on his excellent articles, which always strike at the heart of any matter he discusses even if I do not always agree with his opinions.
Reader Mail
Mar 21, 2013

Reminded of an Indian physicist

Regarding the March 15 AP article titled "CERN scientists confident they have finally found elusive Higgs boson": It is interesting to note that, much like the Western media, the Japanese media never mention — not even in passing — Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, after whom bosons were fondly...
Reader Mail
Mar 21, 2013

Cruelty ingrained throughout

In her March 17 letter, "Odd condemnation of religion," Jennifer Kim unfairly accuses Robert McKinney of expressing "anti-religious rage" in his March 14 letter ("Giving compassion a chance").
Reader Mail
Mar 21, 2013

Honorable human destination

Robert McKinney is an intelligent man. If he wasn't, then he would not be able to write as well as he does, and he does write well. But Jennifer Kim writes well also, and her March 17 response to his March 14 letter is a spot-on critique.
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2013

LDP breaks out election mascots

Illustrated characters resembling Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Secretary General Shigeru Ishiba have recently been selected to promote the resurgent LDP and its conservative causes with a requisite dash of cute.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’