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CULTURE / Books
Jan 17, 2015

The City that Silk Built

Kyoto has long been generous to its writers, stretching from Murasaki Shikibu, with "The Tale of Genji," right through to Yukio Mishima, with "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion." The poet Matsuo Basho also penned several memorable haiku while decamped here.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 16, 2015

Specter of fascist past haunts Europe's growing nationalism

The real aim of today's would-be authoritarians such as French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is to present themselves as legitimate leaders who are saying what the public really thinks but is afraid to say.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 15, 2015

Whistler: The misunderstood artistic rebel

Though his paintings may not look radical to us today, in his time, James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) often faced incomprehension — both through interpretations of his art and his own uncompromising stance toward it. Museumgoers in Japan now have a rare opportunity to decide for themselves the merits...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 15, 2015

'Fuji Paradigms: Visions of Mt. Fuji'

Mount Fuji, with its beautifully symmetrical ridge lines and snowy peak, has always attracted photographers from near and afar. With nearly 300 stills and posters from its collection, the Izu Photo Museum in Shizuoka celebrates this iconic landmark, charting its representation in the history of Japan....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Jan 14, 2015

A note of concern to wounded MLK from a friend in Japan

Throughout Martin Luther King Jr.'s pursuit of justice and equal rights for African-Americans, he knew he had the support and consideration of Japan through an old classmate who had decided to study abroad and broaden his cultural understanding.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jan 10, 2015

Code + culture: New Internet artists from Japan

If the Internet is an ocean, why do we spend so much time floating on its surface? What's really going on down there? Not just in the deepest, darkest trenches, but among the forgotten protocols, faulty algorithms and emerging parameters outside the busy shipping lanes and far from the crowded life rafts...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 10, 2015

Modern technology aids whale research

In my last column of 2014, "Twelve ways to spend 2015 with nature," I mentioned the possibility of taking a whale-watching trip to the Ogasawara Islands. Ignore the international media hype about the country's pelagic whaling industry — it's a dying custom; instead, focus on the fact that Japan has...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 2, 2015

Challenges of providing safe water in Africa

In Africa's developing countries, waste management often endangers health and the environment, yet it is given low priority by governments often besieged by other problems such as poverty, hunger, unemployment and war.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2014

A great year for the far right

The far-right resurgence is impossible to miss, and 2014 will be remembered as the year extreme nationalists in Europe and Asia made a credible bid for power for the first time since the end of World War II.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2014

Meet Asia's biggest losers in 2014

Warren Buffett wasn't the only bigwig in 2014 to get caught 'swimming naked when the tide rolls out.' The Sage of Omaha shared the year's losers' spotlight with a number of companies, politicians and corporate emperors.
COMMENTARY / World / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Dec 29, 2014

'Comfort women' politics in Japan, Korea, U.S.

Perhaps the wartime existence of 'comfort women' owes its notoriety in recent years to Japan's retroactive bad conscience, South Korean politics and the unwarranted U.S. propensity to be a moral scold.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 29, 2014

Sony's 'Interview' fetches $15 million online in four days

"The Interview" earned more than $15 million in online sales in its first four days of distribution as Sony bypassed a wide theater release amid concerns from major cinema chains about threats of violence.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 27, 2014

The Strange Library

Haruki Murakami's "The Strange Library" is a short story, not a novel. So why, one might wonder, has it been published as a single volume? Reading the story, two answers suggest themselves. The first is that, though it is short — 58 loosely printed pages of text — Murakami manages to endow those...
CULTURE / Books
Dec 27, 2014

Man'yo Luster

Man'yo Luster, by Susumu Nakanishi, Translated by Ian Hideo Levy, Photos by Hakudo Inoue.Pie Books, Poetry.
CULTURE / Art
Dec 25, 2014

'Ukiyo-e New Years Exhibition'

Ukiyo-e Ota Memorial Museum of Art will exhibit paintings from its collection, including works by Keisai Eisen (1790-1848), Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1865) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858).
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Dec 24, 2014

Ceiling collapse leaves Chinese panty thief exposed

A Chinese man who stole hundreds of pieces of ladies' underwear had his secret exposed after an emergency exit ceiling where he had been storing his hoard collapsed, state media reported.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 24, 2014

Review: TM Network at Tokyo International Forum

Just as the year drew to a close, so too did J-pop trio TM Network's touring schedule at the Tokyo International Forum's Hall A.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 20, 2014

The good, and not-so-good, reads from 2014

I was lucky enough to read a number of good and informative books on Japan in 2014, but also read my share of clunkers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 18, 2014

The man who turned his modernist home into an art museum

It's not all roses being the director of an independent art museum, but for Toshio Hara, the human interaction of the art world is still a more attractive prospect than that of being a businessman. In 1979 he turned the family seat — a small cluster of white modernist buildings in a quiet residential...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 16, 2014

Ukraine's frozen war brings big changes to global economy

The durability of September's truce between the Ukrainian Army and its pro-Russian rebel opponents suggests that relations between Kiev and Moscow are gradually reverting toward an uneasy form of peaceful coexistence.
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 16, 2014

'Early Mona Lisa' traced to English country home

Researchers into the provenance of a painting dubbed the "Early Mona Lisa" reported on Monday they had identified an English noble who probably bought it in Italy in the late 18th century and a country house where it was found in 1911.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Dec 13, 2014

Photographer strives to preserve the memory of capital's hub for eternity

There is only one person in the country who has "Tokyo Station photographer" printed on a business card — Naoki Sasaki.
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 13, 2014

Abe's secrets law undermines Japan's democracy

On Dec. 10, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's new special secrets law took effect despite overwhelming public opposition.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Dec 12, 2014

Fashion goes festive for the holiday season

Erimaki Sox collars the market
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 12, 2014

Shonan complex offers a curated lifestyle

A discreet black sign, concrete floors, industrial-style ceilings, wooden shelves filled with design toys and gourmet treats. This may sound like the minimal interior of an urban lifestyle store in some hip corner of Tokyo, but the reality is more surprising. It is, in fact, a new branch of one of Japan's...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 11, 2014

Still photography that will always remain moving

In the late 1950s, after having studied law and while pursuing a masters degree in art history, Ikko Narahara took two series of images that depicted groups of people at the extreme edges of society. One was of a woman's prison in Wakayama Prefecture and the other a Trappist monastery in Hokkaido. These...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 9, 2014

High-level disorganization still hobbles Japan

Although many Westerners think of Japan as a highly unified, hierarchical nation, it often more closely resembles a squabbling confederation of loosely affiliated gangs.
Japan Times
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Dec 8, 2014

U.S. raids to free hostages seen continuing

The death of two hostages during a rescue attempt in Yemen shows how little room there is for bad intelligence or bad luck when U.S. forces go into action on such high-risk missions.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight