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Reader Mail
May 27, 2010

Dissection beyond the call of duty

My mother was born in Japan. I traveled here ready to love her country. Indeed, there is much to love. But one memory I'll take home has forever tainted my perception of Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
May 27, 2010

Geisha Chikako Pari

Chikako Pari, whose stage name is Ichizuru, is the last geisha, also known as geiko, of a small town in Kyoto Prefecture. Her unusual last name, Pari — written in kanji — refers to the city of Paris and her French ancestry, although the details of her French great-grandfather's life were never revealed...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
May 27, 2010

The long-range vision of Monocle

For a jet-setting, award-winning media, design and branding entrepreneur, Tyler Brûlé is pretty accessible. When he called last week, a few days before the opening of his highly anticipated Monocle Shop Tokyo within the new Francfranc Village building in Aoyama, he was at the site making last-minute...
JAPAN
May 26, 2010

Scion a misfit at Toyota helm: expert

An influential writer with ties to Toyota's past presidents is calling for a change of leadership at the recall-battered automaker in a letter to editors of major U.S. newspapers.
OLYMPICS
May 26, 2010

High-tech swimsuits now banned

ATLANTA (AP) For Rowdy Gaines, it was the last chance to squeeze into one of those high-tech swimsuits. No way he was passing that up.
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
May 26, 2010

Casio cell phones in the frame; Panasonic pushing Blu-ray angle for TVs

Mobile snaps: Casio's latest cell phone, the CA005, just released by KDD's mobile phone service "au by KDDI," offers two products in one. A typical glossy clamshell mobile phone, the CA005 also packs a 13-megapixel camera into its sharply rectangular form. The phone's camera features smile detection...
COMMENTARY
May 26, 2010

Science takes another step down a long road

"This is both a baby step and a giant step," said scientist and venture capitalist Craig Venter as he revealed that his team had created the first "synthetic cell." "It's a giant step because, until this was done, it was only hypothetical that it could work. It's a baby step in terms of all the distance...
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
May 25, 2010

Time ripe for slumping Swallows, Takada to part ways

The vote of confidence the Tokyo Yakult Swallows gave manager Shigeru Takada on Friday served only to underscore how much the team is in need of a new voice.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 25, 2010

Nova visas; seeking U.S. citizenship

Reader SB was working for Nova and his visa runs out next fall.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
May 25, 2010

Expat dancer Hibari Misora-inspired

Chris Chavez maintains an upbeat outlook about life in Japan but leaves the rosy-tinted view for idealists or those newly arrived. This Mexican-American's snapping brown eyes differentiate clearly the good, bad and indifferent of living as a foreign woman in Tokyo.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 25, 2010

Looking East as British system goes south

In the months preceding the Lower House election last year, an ambitious Ichiro Ozawa, destined to become Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) secretary general, headed to Britain to study the "Westminster system." His aim was to bring Japan's politics closer to that of Britain, to weaken the power of the...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
May 24, 2010

Old hand Oguchi leads by example

Veteran guard Masahiro Oguchi's leadership, defensive tenacity, scoring and passing skills helped the Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix make a smooth transition from the JBL to the bj-league last season.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
May 24, 2010

Phoenix confirm superiority with bj-league championship triumph

From start to finish, the Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix were the bj-league's best team this season.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
May 23, 2010

The Japan-Swiss EPA means nothing to cheese lovers

The euro has dropped and an agreement with Switzerland has been signed, so why does the price of cheese in Japan still do high?
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
May 23, 2010

Niigata hoping to lure an NPB team to new stadium

City officials in Niigata have, at least three times in the past five years, expressed their desire to land a Nippon Professional Baseball franchise to play in a beautiful new ballpark opened in 2009.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
May 23, 2010

Lance takes off gloves, fires back at Landis over claims

Floyd Landis ignored desperate pleas from his sponsor to avoid a public fight with Lance Armstrong, according to e-mails the seven-time Tour de France champion released in trying to prove the disgraced cyclist has "zero credibility."
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 23, 2010

Can celebs cut mustard in rough-and-tumble politics?

TAs the July 11 Upper House election draws near, the parties add more candidates to their slates and, predictably, many turn out to be athletes and showbiz personalities with no political experience. Celebrity candidates have been a fixture of Japanese elections as long as there have been Japanese elections,...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 23, 2010

What's a rogue gusher when you never had a cherry tree anyway?

Fingerpointing, dear reader, has been elevated to an art. Halliburton is pointing the finger at BP. Transocean is also pointing the finger at BP. And BP, not to be outdone, is pointing fingers at both Halliburton and Transocean.
BUSINESS
May 22, 2010

Thai finance chief lists poll criteria

Thailand's finance minister said Friday that early elections are a possibility, but the government isn't bound by its offer to hold them by November because antigovernment protesters never accepted the deal.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 22, 2010

The Island of Heavenly Fields

I live next to a heavenly field. So do lots of other people on my island.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
May 21, 2010

Municipal meet-ups and pet-owner get-togethers for shy singles

Tired of speed-dating? Maybe your local government can help you in your hunt for the One.
JAPAN
May 21, 2010

Former negotiator lays base woes on Okinawa

Every story has more than one side.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 21, 2010

'King' Solomon mines fresh lease on life

After a few relatively lean years, the Japan Blues & Soul Carnival has landed a big fish again in the person of Solomon Burke, a soul legend of the 1960s who is currently enjoying an incredible late-career renaissance, while serving as an inspiration to everybody from Mick Jagger to Joss Stone.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
May 21, 2010

Your chance to star with two stage legends

Two titans of Japanese theater, contemporary dramatist Hideki Noda (who has also triumphed three times directing kabuki plays at its Kabukiza mecca) and star kabuki actor Kanzaburo Nakamura, will team up on stage at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space in Ikebukuro from Sept. 5-28 to perform a new play by Noda...
MORE SPORTS
May 19, 2010

Woods plans to play British Open

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) Tiger Woods has added the British Open to his summer schedule, he said on his Web site on Monday.

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb