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Reader Mail
Feb 12, 2012

Mixed messages about manners

For many years, reading manners posters has been one of my commuting pastimes. Others include reading books, sleeping, people watching and, when possible, scenery watching. Sometimes I even try to hold my breath from one station to the next as a kind of fitness check.
Reader Mail
Feb 12, 2012

Different take on entrance exam

Roger Pulvers' Feb. 5 Counterpoint article, "Facts, facts and more facts: 'Education in Japan now only befits the past," states: "Students are admitted on the basis of the results of entrance exams that test rote-learned knowledge. There is little or no space for students to demonstrate their individual...
Reader Mail
Feb 12, 2012

Shaky will to reduce smoking

The Feb. 3 Kyodo article "Health ministry plan aims to cut smoking rate to 12% in 10 years" completely evades the obvious way to reduce smoking and passive smoking: Ban smoking inside all buildings, especially and including all coffee houses, bars, izakaya and restaurants. Join the civilized world.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 12, 2012

This country needs a lot more lovin'

Japan's rather tepid sex life of late has drawn considerable attention, not so much prurient as anxious. What does it mean when young people in their sexual prime are bored by sex or can't be bothered with it? The implications are various: psychological (has life grown too virtual to be real?), economic...
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Feb 12, 2012

Drugs of the future will be computer-designed

The moment Hideaki Fujitani unlocks the heavy door and enters the room, the buzzing noise — which sounded like a simple hum from the outside — gets much louder.
BASKETBALL
Feb 12, 2012

Veterans carry Evessa past Brave Warriors in series-opening triumph

Mike Bell scored 17 points and Lynn Washington and Wayne Marshall added 14 each as the Osaka Evessa notched their third straight victory with an 80-73 triumph over the Shinshu Brave Warriors on Saturday night.
Reader Mail
Feb 12, 2012

The shift to autumn enrollment

With sufficient support, mentorship and development programs, the recent proposal to shift enrollment at the University of Tokyo to autumn could produce positive outcomes in three areas.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 11, 2012

A sure way to get rid of a cold

Have you ever thought about where colds come from? Where they start?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 11, 2012

Enjoying the quiet life in Kanazawa, in black and white

Coincidence can shape people's lives in many ways. Ask Mark Hammond, and he will certainly agree.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2012

Red tape impeding reform of nuclear-reliant energy policy

The hulking system that once guided Japan's pronuclear power stance worked just fine when everybody moved in lock step, but its size and complexity have proved ill-suited for resolving conflict at a time of nuclear crisis.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Feb 10, 2012

Automatic dishwashers: the square peg in the round hole of Japanese kitchens

Dishwashers remain a difficult sell in Japan, even to people who already own one.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 10, 2012

Constructing green cities to save the economy

Want to grow the economy? Shrink your city's emissions.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 10, 2012

Met's mayhem hits the screen

What do you get when the four young lovers from William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" become stranded on Prospero's island from the Bard's "The Tempest"? A lot of fun, mayhem and magic in The Metropolitan Opera's original creation "The Enchanted Island," which had its world premiere Dec....
COMMENTARY
Feb 10, 2012

Russia should back up a bit to find road to the future

I am not going to speak about a time machine and America but about Russia and its urgent need to return to the past in search of a tool to secure a better future.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Feb 10, 2012

Solid record not enough for Ogawa in Fukuoka

The euphoria of Sunday's series-ending road victory for the undermanned Rizing Fukuoka against the Kyoto Hannaryz, a rising power, didn't last very long.
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2012

Unswayed by disaster, Iwaki spa hulas anew

A Hawaiian theme park that has propped up the economy of a rural town in Fukushima Prefecture for 45 years was forced to shut down after the March 11 disasters, but a little less than a year later the hula girls have returned.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Feb 10, 2012

Obuchi's return to form gives Evessa more firepower

For Masashi Obuchi, an innate scoring sense and recognition of when and where to take shots served him well during his early days in the bj-league.
Reader Mail
Feb 9, 2012

JMA doesn't speak for hospitals

Regarding the Jan. 23 Kyodo article "U.S. won't breach 'mixed treatment' medical insurance rules in TPP talks": It would seem to me that the Japan Medical Association (JMA), which consists of mainly nonhospital physicians, should seek the opinion of citizens and hospitals before making pronouncements...
Reader Mail
Feb 9, 2012

Wrong attack against Net piracy

A. Charles Muller's Feb. 5 letter, "Yours-is-mine model doomed," misses the point of the "furor on the Web and in newspapers last month over the attempt by members of the U.S. Congress to pass legislation aimed at cracking down on Internet piracy."
Reader Mail
Feb 9, 2012

Wider road to family medicine

Regarding the Jan. 10 editorial "Improving medical services": In order to achieve better medical services, Japan needs to create an effective family medicine system. Because of (1) distorted medical school curricula that place too much weight on specialization and (2) an educational system that enables...
Reader Mail
Feb 9, 2012

Initiative beats kanji knowledge

Regarding Franz Pichler's Feb. 5 letter, "Only Japanese-speaking nurses": What Pichler seems not to appreciate is that it is not a question of Indonesian nurses being unable to speak Japanese. After three years in a Japanese environment, I'm sure that most of them have a level of Japanese proficiency...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 9, 2012

The emotional cadence of Nambata's abstract score

When you visit Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (TOCAG), you half expect to get a concert, simply because of its name. But such conflation is not as crazy as it sounds. The aural and visual arts have many affinities, and the language of painting and music even share some terms in common, such as tone, rhythm...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 9, 2012

The emotional cadence of Nambata's abstract score

When you visit Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (TOCAG), you half expect to get a concert, simply because of its name. But such conflation is not as crazy as it sounds. The aural and visual arts have many affinities, and the language of painting and music even share some terms in common, such as tone, rhythm...
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2012

Emails bare NRC's Fukushima chaos

In the confusion following the earthquake and tsunami that damaged the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear complex last March, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it was standing by to help.
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2012

Plan for new marketplace on Tsukiji site gets mixed reviews

Moves by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to build a new marketplace on the site of the Tsukiji market have drawn mixed reactions, with some critics saying it is an attempt to bulldoze through the controversial relocation of the famed fish market to a new site.
COMMENTARY
Feb 8, 2012

World economy's uncharted territory

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." — L.P. Hartley, English novelist
COMMENTARY
Feb 8, 2012

China faces rising risks as it looks overseas for resources

China's meteoric rise to become the world's second biggest economy and a global manufacturing center is sustained by ever-growing imports of raw materials and increasing investment abroad, often in under-developed countries shunned by the West for alleged human rights abuses or because they are considered...

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years