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Japan Times
JAPAN
May 25, 2011

Foreign refugees pitch in to help

Myo Myint Swe, a 42-year-old refugee from Myanmar, said that since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, he wanted to help those in the Tohoku region affected by the devastation.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 8, 2011

Hisashi Inoue's great legacy is just the ticket to inspire our best efforts

A beautiful cherry-blossom tree stands right beside the sento (public bath) I religiously go to, and its top branch hangs over an opening in the roof. In early April, petals were falling from the branch down into the water, which comes out of the ground the color of strong coffee.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 15, 2010

Mah-jongg ancient, progressive

Few games may be as addictive as mah-jongg, whose players range from university students to salarymen and tend to go at it all night, often for money.
JAPAN
Jun 12, 2010

Can Kan survive the leadership gauntlet?

Japan has gone through prime ministers at a dizzying rate — Naoto Kan is the sixth in the last four years, and 14th over the past two decades — the highest turnover among the major industrialized countries.
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Jun 9, 2010

Don't count Ozawa out of the scene yet

When Naoto Kan announced his candidacy for the Democratic Party of Japan presidency last week, he told reporters DPJ kingpin Ichiro Ozawa "should remain silent" for a while after quitting as secretary general, considering how his political money scandals helped speed the downfall of Yukio Hatoyama as...
JAPAN / POSTAL REFORM ROLLBACK
Apr 15, 2010

Reversal on deposit limit a major gamble for DPJ

The Cabinet's recent decision to accept a plan to double the ceiling on postal savings accounts to ¥20 million, as proposed by postal reform minister Shizuka Kamei, marks a drastic policy shift for the Democratic Party of Japan, which in the past argued the maximum should be halved from the current...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 13, 2010

Computer whiz turns 'strangeness' into asset

From his early days in Japan as a destitute student sleeping in train station stairwells to living in a 3-mat room that cost him ¥10,000 a month, Richard Northcott went on to head a mobile software company that now enjoys sales of $2 million a year.
JAPAN
Oct 21, 2009

DPJ wants Cabinet to call policy shots, not juniors

It all began with a single notice handed out last month to Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers.
JAPAN
Sep 29, 2009

LDP picks Tanigaki to lead comeback

The Liberal Democratic Party elected former Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki as its president Monday, giving him the task of guiding back into power a party still stinging from its recent electoral thrashing.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 4, 2009

Party offers a third way: happiness

As a historic general election looms on Aug. 30, Japan's long-suffering electorate faces a clear choice: vote for the conservative party that has virtually monopolized power since 1955, or opt for its more liberal but untested rival, which promises long-awaited reform. For those with a taste for the...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 22, 2009

JCP basks in discontent as faith in capitalism crumbles

Under a big red flag, the Japanese Communist Party's headquarters stand as the center of a vibrant grassroots movement.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Jul 12, 2008

Shy Belgian boy falls for worldly Japanese girl

Marc Van Cauteren and Reiko Shinozaki met in Tokyo in 1993 after mutual friends encouraged him to call her during a business trip to Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Apr 19, 2008

Looking in the same direction for four decades

As president of Triumph International Japan Ltd., Koichiro Yoshikoshi helped the women's lingerie maker post revenue and profit growth for 19 straight years by introducing strategies focused on efficiency and swift decision-making.
LIFE / REFUGEES AND JAPAN
Jul 8, 2007

Kleptocracy to 'freedom'?

Hla Aye Maung's nightmare began in the central Tokyo district of Nishi Nippori when he went shopping. A police car pulled up beside him and the officers found he was one of the more than 250,000 illegal aliens apparently working in Japan. They took him to a police station in nearby Ueno, from where he...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 2, 2006

China filmmaker finds wartime sex slaves

In 1995, Chinese filmmaker Ban Zhongyi set out to meet a woman in a remote part of central China to record her story of sexual enslavement by the Imperial Japanese Army.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 30, 2006

And in the Japanese corner is . . . Morita-san

Christina Morimoto is sitting in the office of the Tokyo modeling agency she works for, answering questions about her first acting job in the new movie "I Am Nipponjin."
JAPAN
Mar 4, 2006

Private surveillance cameras on the rise

Is it neighborhood watch or Big Brother?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 25, 2006

Software aids communication in cultural context

Nils Plett, president and CEO of QE Tech, is tall. While angling my camera skyward to get his picture, walking alongside requires two steps to his every stride.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 24, 2005

Cambodian envoy to Japan on three-point mission

"Hello, hello," Pou Sothirak greets warmly as he enters the reception room of the Cambodian Embassy in Akasaka, central Tokyo. Then as a staff member follows on behind, with a camera: "Now stand here with me for a photo. Right, we're done. We have to let him take these official pictures, otherwise he...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
May 1, 2005

Sadako Ogata: Front-line fighter for a better world

Sadako Ogata, formerly United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is one of Japan's most prominent international figures.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 22, 2004

English classes all the rage at elementary schools

Teacher Hideo Iida holds up cards featuring simple images for his 17 second-graders to identify, getting them to name the animals, fruit and other items pictured.
JAPAN
Apr 13, 2004

Chinese, South Koreans top Japanese in English skills

The average English communicative ability of Japanese high school students is below that of their Chinese and South Korean counterparts, according to the results of an international study released Monday in Tokyo.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 6, 2004

'Tokyo Stories' wittily points up the expat scene

Two years ago, as a balance to researching and writing up projects for financial institutions in the U.S. and preparing reports for fund managers in Japan, Christine Cunanan-Miki began a novel -- a series of interrelated tales about expats in Tokyo.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Dec 14, 2002

Carol Iwanaga

Carol Iwanaga, an American woman married to a Japanese man, says the Association of Foreign Wives of Japanese is a helpful organization. "I think it is good for any woman engaged or married, or who has been married to a Japanese man, in order to get a better feeling of community while she is living here,"...
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2002

American brings kabuki to Japanese as well as foreigners

Mark Oshima never imagined he would appear on a kabuki stage when he first arrived in Japan in 1981, taking a year off from university to write his senior thesis on a theme that had nothing to do with the classical Japanese theater.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 14, 2001

Patrick Carey

Patrick Carey thinks he may be the only non-Japanese to have walked the entire distance of the Old Tokaido, from Tokyo to Kyoto, and to have written about it.

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell