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CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 9, 2007

Finding the self and losing others

Losing Keiby Suzanne Kamata. Wellfleet, Mass.: Leapfrog Press, 2007, 196 pp., $14.95 (¥1,554) Like France, after World War II Japan has hosted a varied group of expatriate writers. Though no Hemingways or Gertrude Steins have yet emerged, expectation remains.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 2, 2007

Forever passing on ancient secrets of strategy

The Art of War: Sun Zi's Military Methods, foreword by Arthur Waldron. New York: Columbia University Press, 208 pp., with frontispiece, 2007, $19.95 (cloth) Here is a new translation of the sixth-century-B.C. Chinese military manual that has been long seen as the definitive work on strategies and tactics....
COMMENTARY
Nov 26, 2007

U.K. liberties versus security

LONDON — The director general of the British Security Services (MI5) has been telling the world that there are at least 2,000 people inside Britain who are involved in terrorism-related activities, and there may be many more. Or to put it crudely, there are at least 2,000 individuals bent on killing...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 4, 2007

Rural living of an old man who does as he pleases

Late Poems Of Lu You, The Old Man Who Does As He Pleases: New Translations by Burton Watson. Burlington, Ontario: Ahadada Books, 2007, 74 pp., $12, ¥2,000 (paper) Lu You (Yu) (1125-1210), often referred to by his literary name of Lu Fangweng ("The Old Man Who Does as He Pleases"), is one of China's...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Oct 31, 2007

Loopy Lisa offers a surreal take on cybersex

The Internet is a wonderful thing. By firing up your computer and jacking it into a wall socket, you have instant access to millions of pages of information. You can learn about any subject under the sun, share your knowledge with others, market your business, buy almost any product imaginable, keep...
BUSINESS
Oct 25, 2007

Japanese businesses setting up virtual shop in Second Life

For a year, blue-chip corporations in the West have been setting up shop on Second Life, the online, 3-D alternate reality that is redefining Internet communication.
JAPAN
Oct 23, 2007

Bilateral history text project tries to heal old scars

Can history textbooks jointly written by countries with pasts full of conflict serve as catalysts for reconciliation?
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 14, 2007

Nagai Kafu's geisha: expurgated, revised, then finally fully exposed

Rivalry: A Geisha's Tale, translated by Stephen Snyder. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007, 166 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Komayo, widowed young, resumes her life as a geisha, taking up with a former patron who wants to redeem her. She, however, falls in love with a young actor specializing in female...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Oct 14, 2007

Illustrating Japan's top cover star

For more than 30 years, Masamichi Oikawa has drawn the cover art for Pia magazine, reports staff writer Edan Corkill
COMMENTARY
Oct 13, 2007

Democracies' double standard

NEW DELHI — The repression let loose by Burma's (Myanmar) military junta has fittingly drawn international outrage. But the indignation and new wave of U.S.-led sanctions also obscure an inconvenient truth: Promotion of freedom has become a diplomatic instrument to target not China — the world's...
Reader Mail
Oct 11, 2007

Romaji could ease the problem

I was amused and pleased by Shinichi Terada's Oct. 2 article, "Kanji, kana trip search engines." I called attention to similar problems in my 1987 book "The Fifth Generation Fallacy" (Oxford University Press) and more recently in "Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning" (University...
Reader Mail
Oct 7, 2007

Ammunition against Japan

Regarding the Sept. 30 article "110,000 protest history text revision order": It surprises me that in a democratic country like Japan a single ministry (education) is able to affect internal and international politics so negatively. Okinawans are not the only ones who have criticized past and present...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Oct 2, 2007

Kanji, kana trip search engines

Like the rest of the world, people in Japan rely on search engines every day to tap the ocean of information that is the World Wide Web.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 1, 2007

Holding hands within the limits of decency

MADRAS, India — The perception of sex and morality is once again creating problems in India.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 30, 2007

The Murakami addiction

Murakami Haruki: The Simulacrum in Contemporary Japanese Culture, by Michael R. Seats, 2006, 384 pp., $70 (cloth) Haruki Murakami's novels have much in common with potato chips. Both are often addictive and both are often ultimately unsatisfying. Yet one can't help but buy another bag of chips at the...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 30, 2007

Sophistication from improvisation

Kitano Takeshi. London: British Film Institute, 2007, 272 pp., with photos. £16.99 (paper) This is a brilliant book on a mercurial subject. Takeshi Kitano is an actor and film director, ubiquitous on television as well, who has become a media event. His persona has splintered and he stands Janus-faced...
JAPAN
Sep 28, 2007

Web site documents wartime sex slaves

have lived for more than half a century after the war, suffering practically as much as they did during the several years they spent in military comfort stations," it says. The museum also preserves the testimony of several former comfort women.
LIFE / Language
Sep 23, 2007

Back-to-front books open new chapter on globalizing Japanese

As Japan struggles with the mushrooming of English loanwords in its midst, there are signs that the Japanese language might be exploring another new relationship with English — by absorbing the English alphabet and even some grammar directly.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Sep 23, 2007

Cellphone bards hit bestseller lists

Like many other young Japanese, Rin, 21, punches her mobile phone keys very quickly. Holding her phone with two hands, and moving her thumbs deftly and smoothly, she quickly generates sentences on the small screen.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Sep 22, 2007

Battle with Abramovich one of the few Mourinho lost

LONDON — Jose Mourinho left Chelsea by mutual consent.
LIFE / Language
Sep 18, 2007

Lang-8 puts networking onto a linguistic level

W ith the current enthusiasm for online networking sites reaching a fever pitch with people flocking to MySpace and, recently, Facebook by the millions — not to mention mixi, which has 8 million users in Japan — it was only a matter of time before there would emerge a Web site devoted to foreign...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 14, 2007

Got the Biwa blues

This is the second part of a two-part story on a trip to Lake Biwa and its environs in Shiga Prefecture.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 9, 2007

Taking a good look at Tokyo's eclectic fashion

The Tokyo Look Book: Stylish To Spectacular, Goth To Gyaru, Sidewalk To Catwalk by Philomena Keet, photographs by Yuri Manabe. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2007, 224 pp., profusely illustrated, ¥3,000 (paper). It was the philosopher George Santayana who penned these wise words: "Fashion is something...
JAPAN
Sep 8, 2007

Japan should speed up nuclear ties with India: think tank

Japan should explore the possibility of expediting cooperation with India on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, despite their different approaches to achieving the abolishment of atomic weapons, a Tokyo-based think tank proposed Friday.

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building