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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Nov 18, 2006

How to tell if you are Gaijin-Japanese

In the U.S. we use the term Japanese-American to refer to Americans of Japanese descent. The Japanese use the terms nisei and sansei to denote second- and third-generation Japanese. Then there is hafu to describe those who are "half Japanese" and half something else (such as mermaid?).
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 18, 2006

Alternative therapy assists on a galaxy of levels

Eight people are sitting in a circle in a meeting room in central Tokyo. One by one they are asked to share a personal problem, choosing one of those present to represent themselves, and the facilitators then positioning the rest of the group as family members or associates so that behavioral and ancestral...
CULTURE / Music
Nov 17, 2006

Me First And The Gimme Gimmes "Love Their Country"

Cover bands usually get scant respect, but leave it up to a few punks to screw with the natural order of things. Comprised of members of Lagwagon, NOFX, Swingin' Utters and Foo Fighters, Me First And The Gimme Gimmes have spent a decade reworking famous pop, R&B and show tunes. Their sixth release, "Love...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Nov 17, 2006

High tea and cocktails

The ghosts of Tokyo past may still haunt the inner recesses of Kagurazaka, but increasingly they are being hemmed in by the encroaching architecture of the brash modern city. As with Sakura Sakura, though, a small but growing number of the surviving prewar low-rise, timber houses are being given a new...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 16, 2006

Two views of Hugo Chavez

BUENOS AIRES -- Hugo Chavez's nearly eight years in power in Venezuela -- which he will seek to extend in presidential elections next month -- seem to defy economic analysis. Indeed, any and all economic examination of Chavez's Venezuela confirms Edgar R. Fiedler's quip that if you "ask five economists...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 16, 2006

A realist and an eccentric

'If you want a real painting, you must come to see me. If it's only a drawing you're after, you should try Okyo," the artist Soga Shohaku famously joked about Maruyama Okyo (1733-95), a renowned practitioner of Western modes of representation.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 16, 2006

Al-Jazeera media revolution turns 10

JERUSALEM -- From its first appearance, the new satellite channel broadcast from Qatar lived up to its name. Al-Jazeera -- Arabic for "the island" -- represented a haven of professional, independent, current-affairs programming in a sea of one-sided, government-controlled Arab media.
EDITORIALS
Nov 15, 2006

Southeast Asia battles haze, again

With fires burning out of control in Indonesia this fall, smog and haze have blanketed much of Southeast Asia. The region knows well the costs involved, and has even come up with a plan to deal with it. Unfortunately, Indonesia, the main offender, has not yet ratified the agreement. Action must be taken...
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2006

Banned goods to North listed

goods that are likely to be used by (government and party) executives, and those they are likely to give to their subordinates," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki told a news conference. "North Korea's leaders need to be sent a strong message from the international community" and abide by the...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Nov 14, 2006

Unique team spirit of Hillman's Fighters brought about success

The Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters may not have been beautiful every waking moment on the way to winning the Pacific League, Japan Series and Asia Series championships, but they were oh so pretty in getting it done.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 14, 2006

Boyfriends of today bring out the prince in Genji

Boyfriend stories used to be boring.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Nov 14, 2006

Masatoshi Uchiumi

Masatoshi Uchiumi, 64, is a landlord in Tokyo's trendy Jiyugaoka area. Divorced and living alone, six years ago he lost most of his eyesight due to a hormone imbalance. Although despondent at first, he soon focused on enriching his life, through lessons in karaoke, voice-activated computers, haiku, English...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Nov 14, 2006

Van Cleef & Arpels' 'Treasures,' Kate Moss in Tokyo, Oakley on Cat Street . . .

Sleeping beauties When Estelle Arpels and Alfred Van Cleef opened their first boutique on Paris' hallowed Place Vendome in 1906, one of France's most revered jewelry maisons was born.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 12, 2006

No ordinary guide to China

SHENZHEN: A Travelogue From China, by Guy Delisle, translated by Helge Dascher. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2006, 152 pp., $19.95 (cloth). Surely those dinosaurs who believed that comics were suitable only for stories of men in tights have all died off. With the popularity of comics growing by leaps...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 12, 2006

Vatican places state of limbo in limbo

HONG KONG -- Theologians of the Roman Catholic Church are recommending the abolition of a special place that has existed for more than 2,000 years and enriched the world of literature and politics, as well as theology. Pope Benedict XVI himself has given his clear opinion, as an eminent theologian, that...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 12, 2006

Ultraman . . . forever

The "Ultraman" live-action science-fiction series has been a rite of passage for Japanese boys (and a few girls) and their families for four decades now, since the first show was aired in 1966.
Japan Times
LIFE
Nov 12, 2006

Serious toys for serious fans

Ultraman is often cited as an example of just how different the Japanese outlook is from that of Westerners. While the bug-like eyes and clingy bodysuit of the hero himself may strike the uninitiated as ridiculous, it is the outlandish aspect of the monsters from whose wrath Ultraman is perpetually saving...
SUMO
Nov 11, 2006

Komusubi Kisenosato

Kisenosato entered professional sumo in 2002 while still in his mid-teens. A native of Ibaraki Prefecture to the northeast of Tokyo and only age 20, he is perhaps the most promising young Japanese rikishi in sumo today.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Nov 11, 2006

U.S. lawyer gets the impossible done in Japan

Legal beagle Tim Langley is both blessed and dogged with an interesting surname. "When I worked inside the Diet as a blue-eyed, moustachioed, Japanese-fluent American fresh out of Japanese law school, the CIA in Langley, Va., naturally came up. Some thought my name was a joke."
Japan Times
JAPAN / ACCORD STILL IN LIMBO
Nov 10, 2006

Back to square one after Okinawa poll?

OSAKA -- In early 2005, senior U.S. officials had become fed up with Okinawa.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan