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LIFE / Food & Drink
Dec 31, 2010

The simple but profound flavors of Buddhist temple cooking

Hidden away in the quiet backstreets of Azabu-Juban, Itosho is a self-effacing little restaurant that has been serving shojin ryori (Buddhist temple cuisine) for 40 years, remaining — until recently at any rate — one of the city's better kept secrets.
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 31, 2010

A great year for theater innovation

Japan's drama scene has seen some change in 2010. It was as if the theater crowd grew tired of waiting for the country's ailing economy and faltering politics to offer them anything new to work with and decided to go and find their own inspiration.
CULTURE / Music
Dec 31, 2010

Best Japanese/overseas albums of 2010: Tokyo Indie

The Brixton Academy — "Vivid"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 31, 2010

2010 top movies: best moments in a mixed 12 months for Japanese cinema

This was the best of years and the worst of years for Japanese films. On one hand, dire TV-network-produced blockbusters continued to fill multiplexes. On the other, makers of indie films, both big names and small, struggled for funding and distribution, as the mini-theater (art-house) sector continued...
Reader Mail
Dec 30, 2010

Conceptions of rape, sexism differ

In his Dec. 26 letter, "Statistically Japan does value life," Greg Hutchinson makes the mistake of comparing statistics from the United States and Japan as though their history, culture and tendency toward liberalism were irrelevant. After nearly 20 years here, I have come to believe that problems in...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2010

Piyasvasti battles Thai Airways' beasts

COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2010

Endgames in Iraq and Afghanistan

NEW YORK — For nearly a decade, American foreign policy has been dominated by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As 2011 begins, with 50,000 U.S. soldiers still in Iraq and another 100,000 in Afghanistan, it may not look like that era is coming to an end. But it is.
EDITORIALS
Dec 29, 2010

Japan's 'hot' year

The kanji "sho" for "hot" has been chosen by the Japanese people as best representing 2010 in a poll organized by the Kyoto-based Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation. No doubt the memory of last summer's record-breaking heat is still fresh in people's minds, but ironically the summer also brought...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Dec 29, 2010

Time for Jordan to man up on Bobcats' plight

NEW YORK — A failure to approach, much less reach expectations, however impractical they may be, is bound to get authority figures fired sooner than later, which is precisely why Larry Brown again is on relocation and Kurt Rambis has a job for life.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 29, 2010

Ex-bureaucrats bent on reform

A few years before the end of the Edo Period in 1865, prominent samurai Sakamoto Ryoma founded a private navy and the Kameyama Shachu trading company in Nagasaki and led the movement to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate.
MULTIMEDIA
Dec 29, 2010

Optimism up as production posts first rise in half a year

Industrial production increased for the first time in six months in November, signaling that the export-led recovery will regain traction.
LIFE / Digital
Dec 29, 2010

Living in Japan: There's an app for that

As 2010 draws to a close, smartphone use in Japan has risen to an all-time high, accounting for around 50 percent of all handset sales here. Yet it shames this columnist to admit that I'm still rockin' an old Windows 6.1 phone — insofar as a Windows 6.1 phone can be rocked at all — because as someone...
COMMENTARY
Dec 27, 2010

What is Beijing willing to do to secure oil and gas supplies?

SINGAPORE — China's dependence on increasing amounts of oil imported from potentially unstable areas of the Middle East and Africa through vulnerable shipping channels has become an uncomfortable fact of life for the government in Beijing.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 26, 2010

Shikoku shrines: journey through a lost world

Itsue Takamure, born in 1894, grew up to become a remarkable woman: a pioneering feminist scholar — one whose work remains controversial — and an anarchist, though her progressive thinking did not prevent her from collaborating with Japan's militarist government during World War II.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Dec 26, 2010

The king of impersonation; year-end roundup special; CM of the week: Softbank

The holiday season is upon us, and among the extended quiz specials and talk marathons there are monomane (impersonation) contests on every station. The king of impersonators is Croquette, whose repertoire of famous singers and actors numbers about 300.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 26, 2010

Mastering the enemy's tongue

Creating a language-learning program may not sound like the kind of material to set the readers' pulse racing, but author Roger Dingman has a unique and compelling story to tell.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 25, 2010

The perfect gift for the Traditional Book Snob

Merry Christmas! I hope Santa brought you an e-book reader. If he didn't, turn him in to the police. Because Santa doesn't know what's good for you. Let me explain.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 25, 2010

Happily lost in the 'empire of signs'

Signs and symbols play an ever-growing role in our increasingly complex society. In this respect, Japan — the "empire of signs," as French semiologist Roland Barthes called it back in 1970 — strikes and confounds the foreign visitor with a vast array of alphabets, shapes and designs.
CULTURE / Film
Dec 24, 2010

'Bakamono (Fools)'

Age-inappropriate romance, on screen or off, stirs up passionate reactions. Cougars — an American term for middle-aged women who actively seek out younger lovers — find both supporters (who see them as adventurous and sexy) and slammers (who deride them as deluded and shameless). I like a saying...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 24, 2010

Meet some famous Japanese ghosts of publishing

We live in interesting times. Because of the Internet, old familiar media formats are breaking down or going through changes. More and more printed word publications are going out of business or finding new life online. The old LP/album format is essentially an anachronism in an iPod-centered universe....
CULTURE / Art
Dec 24, 2010

'Snapshots Cast Their Spell'; 'Radiant Moments: The New Snapshot'

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2010

U.S. may up child custody pressure

NEW YORK — Japan and India are among America's key allies. Yet to scores of embittered parents across the U.S., they are outlaw states when it comes to the wrenching phenomenon of "international child abduction."
Japan Times
JAPAN / READERS' FUND
Dec 22, 2010

Poor kids near Manila get gift of education

First in a series
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Dec 21, 2010

Sagami-Ono, Kanagawa: So this is Christmas, and what have you done (in 2010)?

Johnny Klass (Ghanaian)'Klass' restaurant/bar owner, 40I went to Turkey; it was a nice vacation. It was great! I learned how to make kebabs from a Turkish friend who has 25 restaurant branches there. Having kebab on the menu has improved my business.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Dec 21, 2010

Deadbeat dads, navy abuse case, visas and Futenma: readers' views

The other side of the fence Re: "Japan must end the scourge of parental child abduction" by Amy Savoie (Hotline to Nagatacho, Nov. 9):

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear