Search - u_times

 
 
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 6, 2007

French luxury lobby captain mulls Japan's brand fixation

Japan is famous for its fondness of luxury brands, particularly those from France. In fact, when the money spent shopping on vacation is included, Japanese consumers may buy as much as 45 percent of all luxury goods sold worldwide, analysts at the HSBC Group in Paris recently estimated.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 6, 2007

Dispute over police actions compounds traffic tragedy

On March 25 last year, Michael Laws was driving a minivan full of children for an English-language playschool in Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture, when he hit a scooter. The rider was another foreigner, Patrick Alford, who died at the scene.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 6, 2007

Loneliness of the long-distance impresario

Stand-up comedy can be a surprisingly lonely profession at times.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Feb 6, 2007

"Looking for X," "Beauty Shop for Rent"

"Looking for X," Deborah Ellis, OUP; 2006; 138 pp.
BASKETBALL
Feb 5, 2007

Buzzer-beater sinks Apache

Forward Izaac Sojouner scored a decisive two-pointer with 0:01 left the final period, leading the Takamatsu Five Arrows to an 88-86 victory over the Tokyo Apache on Sunday at Takamatsu Municipal Gymnasium in bj-league action.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 5, 2007

Bears, Colts ready for Super battle

No one will argue that Peyton Manning is already one of the best NFL quarterbacks of all time.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 5, 2007

Hingis claims record fifth in Tokyo

Martina Hingis' record-breaking fifth Toray Pan Pacific Open title was the sweetest of them all.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Feb 4, 2007

Barbaro's incredible will to live provided lesson for all

"Animals and children are the only pure things in life."
MORE SPORTS
Feb 4, 2007

Hingis in final again; Injury hits Sharapova

With Maria Sharapova suffering from an uncharacteristic shaky serve and slovenliness, it was clear the world No. 1 was not having the best of times at the Toray Pan Pacific Open.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 4, 2007

Whatever befell Japan's heady '60s hopes?

Over the past two weeks in this column, I have looked at Japanese society in the 1980s and '90s in order to trace how the nationalistic policies of the current Shinzo Abe administration, particularly in the educational and military spheres, are the outcome of developments in the preceding decades.
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Feb 3, 2007

Evessa coach Tennichi influenced by Westhead

The Japan Times will feature periodic interviews with players in the bj-league -- Japan's first professional basketball circuit -- which is in its second season. Head coach Kensaku Tennichi of the Osaka Evessa is the subject of this week's profile. He led the Osaka Evessa to the bj-league's first championship...
MORE SPORTS
Feb 3, 2007

Sharapova slips into semis

Maria Sharapova may not be keen on on-court coaching, but it is doing her the world of good in her quest for a second Toray Pan Pacific Open title.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 3, 2007

Patricia Hill

Patricia Hill says she is unused to looking backward. "But I see threads running through my life," she said. "I see my love of different sports and of flowers and gardens.
COMMUNITY
Feb 3, 2007

Aikido fuels life of selfless service

Meet Kenkichi Futami, in many ways the archetypal Japanese salaryman of the postwar period whose sacrifice helped position Japan so productively in the world today.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 2, 2007

To oblivion and beyond

Organist Brian Auger's 40-year career has seen him back a young Rod Stewart in the mid-1960s, then hit the top five of the British charts with Julie Driscoll with the Bob Dylan/Rick Danko-penned song "This Wheel's on Fire" in 1968 before he established his own long-running Oblivion Express jazz-pop unit...
CULTURE / Film
Feb 2, 2007

Rookie director digs for the truth

"The Road To Guantanamo" may be the first feature-length film for Mat Whitecross as a director, but his collaborations with Michael Winterbottom stretch back over several years. Whitecross worked as assistant director and editor on Winterbottom films like "In This World," "Nine Songs" and "Code 46."...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 2, 2007

'The Road to Guantanamo'

There's been a lot written in the press about the extralegal prison the American military has been running in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There, people the Bush administration has defined as "enemy combatants" are detained indefinitely, without the protection of the Geneva Conventions or any sort of rights...
MORE SPORTS
Feb 1, 2007

Grown-up Hingis ready to move beyond comeback

Martina Hingis wants to shake off "the comeback kid" tag.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2007

Pending retirees suddenly find, dote on wives

Mitsutoshi Fukatsu has been with his wife for three decades, but their lives have grown apart.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 1, 2007

Chamber doors that shimmer with gold

Uuntil the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Kyoto's Gosho Palace, a rectangular compound of approximately 110,000 sq. meters, housed Japan's Imperial Family for more than 1,000 years. The buildings have been destroyed by fire on a number of occasions, but were rebuilt each time exactly in the original ancient...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2007

Tokyo's dark side

Welshman John Williams first came to Japan in 1988, intending to stay two years, write a script and return to Britain to make a movie. He ended up making eight shorts, a documentary and finally a feature film -- the drama "Firefly Dreams" -- all in Japan and with Japanese casts and crews. Released in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 1, 2007

Treasures from out of the tombs

A monstrous face spans an entire ax blade, with protruding eyes, uplifted eyebrows, and a gaping mouth with serrated teeth. Weighing 5 kg, this imposing blade from a Shang Dynasty (16th-11th century B.C.) royal tomb site in Shandong Province, China, was used in sacrificial rituals to slaughter prisoners...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 31, 2007

England's white Africans cast ironic new light on reality TV's racism row

Reality TV shows, genetic research papers, politics, Hollywood and Bollywood rarely get mentioned in the same article. This week, though, in a maneuver akin to an astronomical alignment that only comes around once in a generation, I will attempt to achieve just that.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 30, 2007

Press clubs: Exclusive access to, pipelines for info

Because "kisha" press clubs provide easy access to information provided by the central and local governments and business associations, membership is considered essential for mainstream news organizations.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 30, 2007

Welcome to Misery Park

Shinjuku's Kabukicho is among the world's largest adult entertainment districts, with thousands of bars and sex clubs providing a cornucopia of nighttime entertainment options.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years