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COMMENTARY
Nov 1, 2007

CCP changes but elitism remains intact

HONG KONG — Oh, what a difference a few decades make! Back in the days of Chairman Mao Zedong and his little red book, China was proud to proclaim the Communist Party as the party of workers, peasants and soldiers.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 1, 2007

Fighters help to put smile on fan's face

SAPPORO — Takako Miura says she beats her two plastic sticks together so hard when rooting for her beloved Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters that she almost breaks them.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 1, 2007

Art al fresco in Daikanyama

Years ago, Daikanyama was one of those places you could visit for a bit of peace and quiet in Tokyo. It had beautiful tree-lined streets and lovely old traditional Japanese houses. There was also a slightly bohemian edge to it, with small independent shops and galleries littered among the back alleys....
COMMENTARY
Oct 31, 2007

Consistency, proportionality and hypocris

LONDON — Fifteen months ago, the armed wing of Lebanon's Hezbollah party, listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and most other Western countries, attacked Israel's northern border, capturing two Israeli soldiers and killing eight more. Israel replied with a month of massive air attacks...
EDITORIALS
Oct 31, 2007

A deal in Manila

As an action film star, Mr. Joseph Estrada was constantly dodging perils. Last week, he made another escape; this time for real. The former president of the Philippines walked out of jail after being amnestied by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. This act of clemency may be more than it seems: It looks...
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...
LIFE / Digital
Oct 31, 2007

Whole worlds inside the screen

With a population of Net-cafe refugees in Japan reported in August to be 5,400, and the recent demise of a 28-year-old South Korean, identified as Lee, who reportedly died after playing an online computer game for 50 hours straight, many are wondering what online virtual worlds are all about.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 31, 2007

Meditations on meditation and enhancing the mind

At Enkakuji Temple in Kamakura, at dawn on a March morning several years ago, I came as close as I ever have to satori, the Zen term for spiritual enlightenment. Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming any sort of deep insight, just that there, in that corner of Kanagawa Prefecture, I came to understand...
BASKETBALL
Oct 30, 2007

Neumann eager to build winning team in Fukuoka

Building a professional basketball team from scratch requires patience, energy and a never-wavering commitment to promoting the product in nearby communities.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Oct 30, 2007

Avoid the chemically impaired

Anyone who has cruised around a Japanese supermarket or the basement of a department store has no doubt feasted their eyes on the robust, red and super-shiny apples at about ¥1,000 a pop.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Oct 30, 2007

Lean, green and no hippy aftertaste

Imagine a lasagna without the meat. Now drop the cheese and pasta too. Not much left?
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Oct 29, 2007

Sovereign vultures look Adam Smith in the eye

When Adam Smith wrote "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" in 1776, the industrial revolution had entered its second decade and the relationship between nations and their wealth was still relatively straightforward.
Reader Mail
Oct 28, 2007

Bureaucratic disaster all around

Regarding the Oct. 27 front-page article "Nova applies for court protection from creditors": Are we expected now to congratulate the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry for managing to crack an egg with a colossal steam hammer?
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 28, 2007

Young, curious and adventurous: the 17th-century backpacker

The Travels and Journal of Ambrosio Bembo, translated from the Italian by Clara Bargellini; edited and annotated, with an introduction by Anthony Welch; with the original illustrations by G.J. Grelot; and maps. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007, 452 pp. $24.95 (paper) In the summer of 1671...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Oct 28, 2007

Lost in an Aegean dream

Herodotus, the so-called Father of History, made a few rather extravagant claims in his time (his time being the 5th century B.C., which is when he wrote the world's first history books).
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 28, 2007

Masters of all they survey

"How do you get to the Seibu department store?"
CULTURE / Books
Oct 28, 2007

A friendship's influence across Asia

Another Asia: Rabindranath Tagore and Okakura Tenshin, by Rustom Bharucha, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006, 236 pp., $35 (cloth) This book examines the friendship engendered between two significant thinkers — one Indian and the other Japanese — who were highly representative of their time...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 28, 2007

A rough guide to avoiding ethnocentric cloddery

Writing in The Guardian on Oct. 16, Mark McCrum listed 10 "hot tips to avoid social embarrassment" while traveling overseas. There were three among these travel faux pas that particularly caught my eye.
EDITORIALS
Oct 27, 2007

Part-time all the time

Some days, it seems as if all of Japan is being run by part-timers. Every service job, from store clerks to ticket vendors to front-desk help, seems to be handled by nonregular employees. The enthusiasm of many freshly hired workers is matched by their lack of experience. One hardly knows what to expect...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Oct 27, 2007

Ryozo Tanaka

A question often asked of Professor Ryozo Tanaka is "What made you so keen on English culture and tradition?"
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 27, 2007

Car sales manager helps point the way

While leasing and selling cars is a long way from wanting to emulate Miles Davis, Colin Shea has no regrets.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 26, 2007

Playing to tell her tales

Storytelling lies at the heart of Japanese pianist Yu Kosuge's art.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 26, 2007

Don't go for the gov, go for the good grub

Since comedian-turned-politican Hideo Higashikokubaru was elected governor of Miyazaki Prefecture in January, the previously nondescript, countryside region of 1.14 million people on the southeastern coast of Kyushu, southern Japan, has had its profile dramatically boosted.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / SHORT TAKES
Oct 26, 2007

Narco

Director: Tristan Aurouet
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 25, 2007

Heritage + manga = contemporary art

The key to Takashi Murakami's success was that his art came packaged with a theory, and for that theory he relied heavily on a 1970 book titled "The Lineage of Eccentricity," by art historian Nobuo Tsuji.

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan