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Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 9, 2006

Supernatural pathos

The International Theatre Institute is offering half-price tickets for its July 21-23 program at the Kabuki-za theater in Ginza, Tokyo, as part of its "kabuki appreciation for foreigners" campaign. The program features Bando Tamasaburo presenting "Tenshu Monogatari," also known as "The Legend of Himeji...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 9, 2006

Journalists capture life through a lens

The monthly photojournalism magazine Days Japan is currently exhibiting award-winning images from its 2nd International Photojournalism Awards at the Konica Minolta Plaza in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The exhibition, titled "Living on Earth 2006," runs through June 19.
EDITORIALS
Jun 7, 2006

Education policy on trial

In the spring of 2004, a retired teacher urged parents attending a Tokyo high school graduation ceremony to remain seated during the playing of the national anthem. Last week, the Tokyo District Court fined him 200,000 yen for "obstructing" the ceremony.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Jun 7, 2006

Have-nots put elite twits to shame

Right now, on one side of my house there is a profusion of green growing things and golden daffodils; on the other side there's the remnants of a huge bank made by the snow that fell off our roof. In the sunshine, that will vanish today.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 6, 2006

Thaksin best underscores fatal flaws of his kind of rule

HONG KONG -- Thailand's "democracy" is in limbo. Judges of the country's three top courts have decided that April's elections were unconstitutional, and new ones must be held. The Election Commission set October for new elections, but the judges said the commission has no power to set the date and its...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 6, 2006

Murakami arrested over insider trading

Outspoken investment fund manager Yoshiaki Murakami was arrested Monday for alleged insider trading linked to his investment fund's purchase of Nippon Broadcasting System Inc. shares between late 2004 and early 2005.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jun 6, 2006

From the sole, a new soul

There's nothing quite like a foot rub, especially after a hard day's work and a long commute home. It's sure to be even more pleasurable if the person working on your feet is a trained practitioner of reflexology, a holistic therapy currently enjoying a boom throughout Japan. Reflexology is an easy way...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jun 4, 2006

Time to kill -- but not mosquitoes

I am only an hour's drive from my destination -- the lodge of Safari Hoek, where, as promised in the last column, I plan to write up an "ethical" hunting safari outfit -- when I inadvertently bag my first trophy.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jun 3, 2006

Theodore Skillman and Paul Guilfoile

In May 2004, 26 people representing six international schools in the Kanto area met and formed the first International Alumni Council, Japan.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jun 3, 2006

Just say it ain't so, Joe

At times in my life I have been vain enough to imagine my name up in lights, embossed upon a novel or even typed beneath the head of a newspaper column. A good one, I mean.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 2, 2006

Adding color to darkness

Tall, bearded, bald and craggily handsome, Tetsuya Nakashima stands out in a crowd.
JAPAN
Jun 1, 2006

Overwork health claims rise to 330

A record high 330 people became eligible for labor compensation due to mental and heart diseases caused by excessive work in fiscal 2005, marking a rise of 36 cases, or 12.2 percent, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said Wednesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 1, 2006

"Vu Dan Tan -- Tanorigami: Suitcases of a Pilgrim"

Art-U Room Closes in 11 days
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 31, 2006

Philosopher reignites debate over contraception

When it was reported last month that Hollywood actor Tom Cruise intended to eat his wife's placenta raw, I thought it was one of the stranger stories going round at the time. Another, according to some newspapers, was that Cruise had bought his wife, actress Katie Holmes, an adult-sized pacifier to ensure...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 30, 2006

'Gokiburi,' new law and residency

Cockroaches One of our readers has been having problems with cockroaches recently. She has been cleaning the apartment regularly, placing cockroach traps and even used a "bomb" to try and get rid of them, all to no avail.
JAPAN
May 30, 2006

Foes give 'Kimigayo' sarcastic spin

A citizens' group opposed to the government's adoption of the Hinomaru as the national flag and "Kimigayo" as the anthem has posted two sarcastic alternatives in awkward English of the song on its Web site, ruffling the feathers of officials and conservative lawmakers.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
May 29, 2006

Getting to the bottom of foreign currency reserves

In recent months, news about sharp rises in foreign currency reserves held by emerging economies has been making headlines in Japanese papers.
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2006

It's still too early to exit Iraq

PRAGUE -- Last weekend's announcement that Iraqi lawmakers have finally formed a unity government is welcome news, both for Iraq and for President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair. The American and British governments, increasingly unpopular at home, desperately needed some tangible evidence...
CULTURE / Books
May 28, 2006

Japanese scholars contribute to MEGA

In 1998, Izumi Omura, professor of economics at Tohoku University's graduate school in Sendai, and seven other scholars started a rather unusual job -- deciphering voluminous, almost illegible, 19th-century German handwritten manuscripts. The following year, Rolf Hecker from Germany joined the team,...
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2006

Reconciling with wounded minorities

WARSAW -- In France, May 10 is a day to commemorate the abolition of slavery. Jan. 27 is the day we remember the Holocaust, through the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 28, 2006

Japan sleepwalks by design toward peace-renouncing poll

The Japanese people may soon be asked to make a momentous decision in a nationwide referendum. As I write this, the major political parties are at loggerheads over conditions under which that referendum will be conducted. Behind the closed doors of the Diet, but barely touched on in the media, this debate...
Japan Times
LIFE
May 28, 2006

Manga by any other name is . . .

With the video-game business now outgrossing Hollywood's box office, and anime being distributed to destinations as diverse as Patagonia and Phuket, the influence of Japan's entertainment industry on young people worldwide has never been as powerful.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
May 27, 2006

Harriet Boxall

A young woman in England decided, when she was of university entrance age, that she wanted to do something as far away from her own life as possible. So she did a degree in modern Chinese studies at the University of Leeds.
JAPAN
May 26, 2006

Court rejects suit to remove Koreans from Yasukuni rolls

The Tokyo District Court on Thursday rejected demands by former Korean soldiers who served in the Japanese military and relatives of deceased soldiers that the state remove their names from the rolls of war dead at Yasukuni Shrine and pay damages.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 26, 2006

Politics scaled with music

Matthew Herbert's new album "Scale" is easy to like. His signature arrangements of accessible house-inflected beats behind jazzy melodies are polished to a glossy sheen. Strings swoon. Horns sound lushly. Songs like the soulful "Moving like a Train" or "When We Are in Love" positively slink out of the...
BUSINESS
May 25, 2006

Japan Post net profit at 1.9 trillion yen, up 56%

Japan Post announced Wednesday it brought in a whopping net profit of 1.93 trillion yen in the fiscal year that ended March 31, up 56 percent from the year before, thanks to the robust performance of its postal savings business.
BUSINESS
May 25, 2006

Honda unveils thought-guided robot

Honda Motor Co. has developed technology that uses brain signals to control a robot's moves, hoping to someday link a person's thoughts with machines in daily life.

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