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Reader Mail
Sep 13, 2012

Reproaching the nationalists

Regarding the Sept. 10 article "Lee says 'true meaning' of comments about emperor not conveyed to Japan": South Korean President Lee Myung Bak's clarified position is exactly true. Japanese people often, for the sake of national pride, do convey a propensity to defend or water down their history.
Reader Mail
Sep 6, 2012

A perspective on GOP thought

Regarding Jennifer Rubin's Washington Post article, "Ten myths about the U.S. Republican agenda," which was printed in The Japan Times on Aug. 31: I'm confused. If the article is supposed to be about "10 myths," how come the author presents 10 facts?
Reader Mail
Sep 6, 2012

Elderly blocking young workers

Regarding the Aug. 31 Bloomberg article "Willing elderly workers helping to defuse pension time bomb": At 66, I'm also one of those elderly workers. While delaying retirement is helping to defuse the pension time bomb, it's adding to other problems.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 3, 2012

Judgment day for the eurozone

Europe and the world are eagerly awaiting the decision of Germany's Constitutional Court on September 12 regarding the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the proposed permanent successor to the eurozone's current emergency lender, the European Financial Stability Mechanism. The Court must rule on German...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 2, 2012

Will the Takeshima dispute break the Korean wave?

"There's something sad, when a political problem goes so far as to spill over to the entertainment industry," rues journalist Kaoru Kikuchi in Sunday Mainichi (Sep. 9).
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LIGHT GIST
Aug 28, 2012

How did we end up here, in 'Hashimotopia,' 2022?

Walking home the other night, I glanced furtively over my shoulder and clocked the notorious tattoo-enforcement police heading in my direction. I ducked into a nearby konbini and cursed that bad decision inked onto my forearm in the 1990s.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Aug 28, 2012

Paid leave, advice for foreign parents, JET's value: readers' views

Uncompetitive Japan Inc. Not being a Japanese person employed in a private Japanese company, it is hard for me to imagine the hardship experienced by the writer of the July 17 Have Your Say letter ("Working employees to death"). I can, however, say with a high degree of confidence that laws mandating...
JAPAN
Aug 28, 2012

Osaka Ishin no Kai to vow Lower House cuts

A pledge to halve the number of seats in the Lower House will be included in the Osaka Ishin no Kai (One Osaka) manifesto for the next election, party founder and Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto said Sunday.
Reader Mail
Aug 26, 2012

Growth argument stretched thin

Regarding Takamitsu Sawa's Aug. 20 article "Measuring a society's value": I find the article confusing as Sawa seems to be trying to relate the "well fed, well bred" slogan to economic growth.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 20, 2012

A how-to guide to becoming a translator of how-to guides

Thinking back, I never set out with the intention of becoming a translator. I was employed by a small travel agency in Osaka and was only dimly aware that such an occupation even existed. But word got around that I could read Japanese, and one winter day in 1975 I was approached by an inventor who had...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 19, 2012

Yakuza face new battles within and without

The nation's largest underworld syndicate, the Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi, is 97 years old.
Reader Mail
Aug 16, 2012

Danger of apocalyptic thinking

Regarding Shinji Fukukawa's Aug. 9 article "Populism is destroying globalism": I find Fukukawa's observations and the way he supports his title statement problematic at several points, yet they are illustrative of the trend toward "apocalypsism."
EDITORIALS
Aug 15, 2012

Pacifist principle must stand

Japan marks the 67th anniversary of its surrender to Allied Powers in World War II on Wednesday. This year's anniversary is different from past anniversaries. It came amid moves by several political parties to change the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution.
SPORTS / ODDS AND EVENS
Aug 13, 2012

A day in the life of an Olympic reporter

Woke up, got out of bed. . .
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Aug 4, 2012

Atomic bomb survivor credits desire to learn for living 'four lives'

Yuuki Yoshida, 80, divides his lifetime into four different "lives," but he has lived each of them by following one maxim: "Try to learn as if you were to live forever, and live as if you were to die tomorrow."
Reader Mail
Jul 22, 2012

Nuclear power justification fails

I was surprised to read Takashi Kitazume's July 17 article "Global demand for nuclear power remains." The view expressed by energy researcher Jane Nakano, quoted in the article, is simply appalling.
Reader Mail
Jul 22, 2012

Avoid tabloid-style headlines

Regarding the July 15 Kyodo article "Police to grill 300 pupils, parents over boy's suicide": Police to "grill" pupils? Seriously? Are they going to deny them cigarettes and really give them the third degree? Inappropriately dramatic headlines like this always make me visualize gray-haired editors fondly...
Reader Mail
Jul 15, 2012

When the world was on the brink

The July 8 Timeout article by Jon Mitchell, titled "Okinawa's first nuclear missile men break silence," made for gripping reading. To realize once again how close the whole world came to nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 is terrifying and sobering. Testimony in the article also...
Reader Mail
Jul 5, 2012

Leveling the field for women

When I first read the July 1 article "Disabled women speak out on discrimination," I was so angry that I read it again — just to be sure about what I'd read. The first question that came to me: What would it be like if there were no women in the world?
OLYMPICS
Jul 5, 2012

Olympics just keep getting bigger

In the 64 years since London hosted the 1948 Summer Olympics, the ways in which global athletics are promoted and produced have gone through dramatic changes. The challenge to produce a bigger, flashier Olympics is ever-present.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 1, 2012

Ryuichi Sakamoto reminds Japanese what's the score on nuclear blame

"Keeping silent after Fukushima is barbaric," is how composer and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto recently made clear his proactive stance toward Japan's ongoing nuclear disaster.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jun 28, 2012

Tattoos are forever, which is why they cost so much to remove

It costs 10 times more to remove a tattoo than it cost to apply it.
Reader Mail
Jun 17, 2012

Myth of living without an army

Regarding the June 13 front-page Kyodo article "GSDF ranger unit marches through central Tokyo": It is strange that so many seem to truly believe that a country can defend its interests and territory without the need for an army. It seems that Japan's peaceful Constitution has brought about this odd...
Reader Mail
Jun 17, 2012

The right leverage for Taiwan

I both agree and disagree with Hisahiko Okazaki's June 5 article, "Fighting peace for Taiwan." He was right to point out that the vibrant working democracy in Taiwan nowadays is a determinant in shaping the island's foreign and cross-strait policy. Yet, his argument that Taiwan should fight to win the...
EDITORIALS
Jun 14, 2012

Bottom line of welfare

A weekly magazine in April reported that the mother of an entertainer earning an annual income of ¥50 million has been receiving public livelihood assistance known as seikatsu hogo (literally livelihood protection). Through a blog of a Diet member and other media, the entertainer was identified as TV...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Jun 5, 2012

At times, there's no getting away from the neighbors

The house we were inspecting in Shiroi, Chiba Prefecture, looked better and larger in the photos that the realtor had posted on its website. Those pictures had been taken with a wide angle lens at the eastern side of the house, which bordered a leafy promenade. To the north and south of the house, however,...
COMMENTARY
Jun 5, 2012

Fighting peace for Taiwan

Four months after the presidential elections in Taiwan, there is a big difference when comparing the aftereffects of the elections in 2008 to those in 2012.
Reader Mail
May 31, 2012

One way to hide power lines

Regarding the May 26 article "Renewable energy quest to tap ocean-based sources": I am delighted that the government is planning to tap ocean-based energy sources. I fear that the article does a disservice in calling out wind power as an example. Tides and temperature differences are much more predictable....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
May 30, 2012

Boyish style raises questions about gender roles

Men dressing up as women and women dressing up as men — where will it all lead?

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan