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COMMENTARY / World
Mar 2, 2014

Who will stop the slaughter?

Who will stand up in the world today for the millions of people whose lives are being savaged by evil men and women in states like Syria and North Korea?
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 1, 2014

Masako Shirasu: woman of the world

"If you use beautiful things every day, you will naturally cultivate an eye for beautiful things without giving it a second thought. In the end, you will be repelled when you encounter the ugly and the fake. If only all Japan would come to see this, how much more joyous our lives would be and how genial...
EDITORIALS
Mar 1, 2014

Fukushima's appalling death toll

As the third anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake approaches, new studies show that more people have died of stress and other mental illnesses than from causes directly linked to the triple '3/11' disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant meltdown.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Feb 22, 2014

Mother's love helped actress overcome war, poverty and bullying to find fame in Japan

Rescued from the rubble of a war zone as a young girl in Iran, 28-year-old Sahel Rosa has succeeded in carving out a career in Japan as a model, TV personality and actress.
EDITORIALS
Feb 21, 2014

The volcanoes among us

While the nation continues to step up its defense against earthquakes and tsunamis, it still hasn't made much progress in devising plans to protect people during volcanic eruptions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 20, 2014

McConaughey, Leto transform for roles in 'Dallas Buyers Club'

Acadamy Award nominee Jared Leto, who plays a transgender person with AIDS in the film "Dallas Buyers Club," says he was recently called a shape-shifter.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2014

'Generation Resignation' youngsters defy stereotypes

While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hopes the momentum of his economic policies raises the spirits of the Japanese people and buoys the stock market as well, decadeslong economic malaise has already crushed the hopes and dreams of many young people, who will be leading the nation in the years to come.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Feb 19, 2014

Nasty, brutish and short?: The brief life and times of 'Happy Bob'

March 1984: Ronald Reagan was U.S. president, Yasuhiro Nakasone Japan's prime minister. Afghan rebels were struggling to rid their country of foreign invaders (deja vu!). Break-dancing was a global craze. Tokyo Disneyland was so new it hadn't even been visited by Michael Jackson yet. Pay telephones were...
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 15, 2014

Euthanasia: the dilemma of choice

Euthanasia is an emotionally charged issue for people on both sides of the debate. Proponents of euthanasia argue that a person suffering from terminal illness should be given the freedom to choose how and when they die. Such discourse is given weight by the Japanese term for the practice — anrakushi,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / TELLING LIVES
Feb 14, 2014

Storied family-run toy shop 'sells dreams' to Tokyo tourists

'Continuing a small toy shop for five generations is a kind of miracle,” says Masaki Terao, 58, proprietor and purse-string holder at Toys Terao, which his family has been running on Nakamise-dori in front of Asakusa's Sensoji Temple for nearly 130 years.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2014

Drift rightward has been building for years

Fashion model Junko Amo made headlines on Aug. 15, 2002, when she initiated a visit to controversial Yasukuni Shrine with a group of some 180 people she met via 2channel, Japan's biggest Internet forum.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Feb 14, 2014

Chinese students put Shiga residents online

Chinese exchange students at Shiga University have been interviewing local residents and posting the videos and articles in Chinese under a project called Interviewing 100 People in Hikone.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Feb 12, 2014

ANA caricature speaks volumes about Japan's outdated mind-set

My personal opinion is that the ad is a disappointing anachronism, and a reminder of the parochial outlook of large Japanese corporations. The ad appeals to the facile formula that 'foreigner = white = blonde and big-nosed = English-speaking = globalization.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Feb 10, 2014

Tokyo model community melds fashion and compassion

Male model Dean Newcombe runs what surely must be the most photogenic all-volunteer organization around. And although some of the volunteers are indeed fashion models, the 'model' in Intrepid Model Adventures refers to role models as well as the catwalk variety.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 7, 2014

Lessons for fixing Fukushima

In March 2011 all of Japan was united by the terrible experience of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident. Three years later this unity is increasingly fracturing as a more uneven reality emerges.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 4, 2014

Glasgow's Chvrches score a hit with debvt albvm

Scratch beneath the surface just a little and Chvrches' electro-pop becomes something of real substance. The Glasgow trio's songs, which recall that genre's golden era in the 1980s reimagined through meticulously modern production, initially appear throwaway in the truest sense but later reveal themselves...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Feb 3, 2014

The housing conundrum: To own or not to own

The population is not increasing and there's a shrinking pool of potential buyers for the home you bought 20 years ago, or 10 years ago, or even yesterday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 23, 2014

Searching for hidden meaning in a Kubrick classic

I'm old enough — barely — to have seen Stanley Kubrick's horror masterpiece "The Shining" when it opened in the theaters back in 1980. My strongest memory of this tale of writer's block meets cabin-fever insanity is that my girlfriend's drink wound up in my lap the first time the twins appeared....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 22, 2014

Workshops for theater — and life

"When I worked in an office, I was always nervous and I tensed up a lot just trying to behave correctly. But since coming to these workshops, I often feel like communicating with others spontaneously, of my own free will."
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2014

Internet wiz courts offbeat vote

A Tokyo gubernatorial candidate with an offbeat platform surfaced Wednesday, just one day before applications to run in the Feb. 9 election have to be filed.
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Jan 8, 2014

Restore the shuttered-up New Year's of yore

First of all, I would like to wish a happy new year to all the readers of Labor Pains. While labor news has generally been a gloomy topic of late, it is my hope that this year will bring brighter things for me to write about.
EDITORIALS
Jan 6, 2014

No substitute for overseas travel

Whatever the reasons are for why younger Japanese aren't traveling overseas as much as the older generations, travel can be the best way for people to learn of different cultures and stem the tendency to show bias against people of different ethnic or cultural backgrounds.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 5, 2014

Thailand to court mob rule if opposition boycotts polls

Nothing will be served if Thailand's political opposition continues its campaign to boycott elections. It can only lead to a choice of mob rule or an army takeover, either of which would be disastrous.
COMMENTARY
Jan 5, 2014

The rational ignorance of the American voter

If the political knowledge of American voters is measured relative to government's expanding scope, ignorance is increasing rapidly: There is so much more to be uninformed about.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 5, 2014

Wolf numbers surge across Europe

A twig snaps, a crow calls, but nothing moves in the dense pine forests of Spain's Guadarrama mountains. Vultures and eagles soar over the snowcapped peaks and wild boars roam the valleys below, as they have for centuries. But for the farmers who work this land, a threatening and worrying comeback is...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jan 4, 2014

Kenya Hara: the future of design

Sitting at a plain white table in a meeting room high up on the 12th floor of a narrow building in central Tokyo, product designer Kenya Hara asks me to picture a shallow plate in my mind. "Now imagine a slightly deeper plate," Hara says, "that gets deeper and deeper and eventually becomes a bowl."
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 2, 2014

Public's reaction to 'betrayal'

In light of the recent enact of the state secrets protectiion law, it is urgent that Japan improve its handling and disclosure of government information.

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