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Reader Mail
Jan 6, 2008

Real obligation under Kyoto pact

Concerning the Jan. 3 article "Japan lags as Kyoto pact's action period begins": This article is very misleading and is therefore consistent with the Japanese government's policy of double-speak on the issue of Japan's greenhouse-gas emissions.
Reader Mail
Jan 3, 2008

Challenge for Obama summed up

Regarding Dominique Moisi's Dec. 29 article, "Barak Obama's American revolution": I liked this article so much that I decided to read all of Moisi's essays. I also registered to read The Japan Times (online); I figured that a newspaper with such smart writers may be worth reading as well.
Reader Mail
Dec 27, 2007

Whom would Jesus have bombed?

Whom would Jesus have bombed?1111111111
Reader Mail
Dec 23, 2007

Certification trumps graduate skills

While I do not disagree with professor Takamitsu Sawa's opinions in his Dec. 11 article, "The graduate school fiasco" -- on the low quality of graduate education in Japan -- I was taken aback at the following passage so blithely sandwiched in the middle of the article: "Since Japanese universities give...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 14, 2007

In praise of Chinese women

Though novelist/filmmaker Sijie Dai resides in France and shot his latest movie in Vietnam, he says he will continue to make movies in China because, "I can't think of doing otherwise. It is after all, my country despite our differences."
Reader Mail
Dec 6, 2007

Unpopular solution politically

According to the article "Workforce may shrink by millions by 2030: study", the projected labor shortage in Japan in the next 20 years will be some 4.6 million people -- under a best-case scenario and if all available married women, seniors capable of working, and young workers are convinced to join...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 3, 2007

Setting the record straight on Indonesia

BALI, Indonesia — Japan and India stand as beacons for democracy that surely inspire many of their Asian neighbors. For its part, Indonesia has been struggling with its own experiment with democracy that has enormous implications for the region and the rest of the world.
Reader Mail
Dec 2, 2007

Beautiful fruit that disappoints

Regarding Michael Hoffman's Nov. 25 article, "Taste buds of children destroyed by junk food" (a translation of a Sapio article): It's not just food additives that are destroying taste buds; Japan has a depressing lack of good produce available in stores.
Reader Mail
Nov 25, 2007

U.S. treatment can be worse

As for Michael Hassett's Nov. 20 Zeit Gist article: While I agree that Japan has a long way to go before it will be a friendly environment for foreign residents, I am frustrated at this additional, one-sided, "Japan as abuser, foreigner as victim" diatribe.
Reader Mail
Nov 25, 2007

Why aim for permanent residency?

Regarding the Nov. 21 article "Foreign arrivals get biometric scan": I became a permanent resident of Japan in 2003 after going through so many administrative headaches and being fingerprinted and photographed quite a few times (the process took nearly 20 years!) We foreigners all know how protectionist...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 18, 2007

Grand security plans for a stronger Japan

Securing Japan: Tokyo's Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia, by Richard J. Samuels. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2007, 320 pp., $29.95 (cloth) The security debate is heating up in Japan, revealing more cleavages and anxieties than strategic thinking. Hence, this stimulating and...
Reader Mail
Nov 1, 2007

When to show the alien card

I think the Oct. 28 Timeout article "Masters of all they survey" does a disservice to foreigners when it mentions, without fully stating the law, that police have the right to request to see a foreigner's alien registration card. Police may do so only if a foreigner is suspected of committing a crime...
Reader Mail
Nov 1, 2007

Shifting the blame for suicides

Regarding the Oct. 29 article "Fatal deliverance from an 'iron storm'": Again we have the apologist Hiroaki Sato cutting a path for himself in the revisionist jungle, and of course concluding that all the ills that befell the Japanese in World War II were not their fault. As the title of his article...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Oct 29, 2007

Fatal deliverance from an 'iron storm'

NEW YORK — I was thinking once again about the intractability of Japan's part in the Pacific phase of World War II when the news came: Okinawans had staged a huge rally to protest the Japanese government's downplaying in textbooks the military's role in "group suicides" among civilians during the Battle...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Oct 29, 2007

Ozawa aims for credibility

Ichiro Ozawa's leadership within the Democratic Party of Japan has become stronger than ever following the party's resounding victory in the July 29 Upper House election.
Reader Mail
Oct 21, 2007

Human tragedies amid the gloss

Regarding Yuri Tomikawa's Oct. 16 Zeit Gist article, "The faces behind the numbers: A day feeding Tokyo's hungry": Thank you for bringing this story to the hearts of readers. I had nearly given up on the promise of "news without fear or favor." Hopefully the article will foster change that leads to action....
Reader Mail
Oct 11, 2007

Staggering blow to sumo

Regarding the Oct. 6 article "Sumo stable boss axed for death": The unanimous decision by the Japan Sumo Association executive committee to sack stable master Tokitsukaze (following the death of a teenage wrestler) has somewhat assuaged the heavy damage to the reputation of this traditional Japanese...
Reader Mail
Oct 9, 2007

Clarification on fingerprinting

The Oct. 5 front-page article "Visitors face fingerprinting from November as security tightens" was both confusing and incomplete. First of all, it is special permanent residents (tokubetsu eijuusha) who are exempt from the law, not permanent residents (ippan eijuusha).
Reader Mail
Oct 7, 2007

The young deserve the truth

Regarding the Oct. 4 article "Okinawa leaders press state to keep hands off textbooks": I agree that the books should not be changed. True history is a hard thing to find because it is always the victor that writes the history. Victors will exclude all things that make them look bad. And, again, each...
Reader Mail
Sep 30, 2007

Breaking away from the U.S.

Regarding Robyn Lim's Sept. 20 article, "Defense debate bordering on bizarre": It's Lim's inchoate ramblings that are bizarre. Lim fails to grasp Japanese concern that Shinzo Abe and his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi brought Japan too close for comfort to the United States militarily. A poll showed...
COMMENTARY
Sep 24, 2007

Okinawan state of mind

"An island of deep-seated resentment" — that was the first impression I had of Okinawa Prefecture on my visit there in late July. Everywhere in the island prefecture, I found monuments to the war dead. They number 419.
Reader Mail
Sep 16, 2007

How much liberty can be cut?

Roger Pulvers' Sept. 9 Counterpoint article, "Americans share blame for Bush's 9/11 'devil,' " belongs on the editorial page. The article simply demonstrates again that conspiracy theories are the last refuge of small minds closed to any facts that might persuade them to greater nuance.
JAPAN
Sep 8, 2007

South Koreans testify against Yasukuni's inclusion of their kin

A group of South Koreans testified in court Friday in a bid to have their relatives' names struck from Yasukuni Shrine's list of war dead, saying the inclusion is "shameful and a disgrace."
Reader Mail
Sep 5, 2007

Depression born in the workplace

Regarding the Aug. 22 article "Family doctors enlisted in war on depression": I don't think the health and labor ministry really understands what is causing an increasing number of people to suffer from depression and thus contributing to the toll of more than 30,000 suicides every year. According to...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 5, 2007

Clock ticking as Councilor Kawada goes after what has long ailed Japan

Newly elected Upper House lawmaker Ryuhei Kawada was diagnosed with hemophilia soon after he was born.
Reader Mail
Aug 26, 2007

What about shootings in Japan?

The timing of Hiroaki Sato's article leaves something to be desired. Sato asks why Americans can't give up their guns, yet a Japan Times front-page article on the same day ("Gang boss shot hours after rival gunned down," Aug. 20) is about two yakuza shootings. Why can't the Japanese give up their...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 25, 2007

Ami, guitar team up against sex trafficking

Ami & Her Guitar revolve dramatically through the doors at What the Dickens pub in Tokyo's Ebisu. She's late, she's late, for a very important date, but on a day when temperatures have hit 40 C plus, she is easily forgiven.
COMMENTARY
Aug 24, 2007

The unending humanitarian nightmare

NEW YORK — In August 2002, Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, wrote a prescient article in The Wall Street Journal warning of the dire consequences of invading Iraq. His predictions are confirmed in a new report by Oxfam, the British aid agency...

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan