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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ANA caricature speaks volumes about Japan's outdated mind-set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.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 30, 2013

Where the wild things are: the animal social network

Stumpy is a hulking fixture in seas around Ningaloo Reef off the coast of Western Australia. Photographed there often, he has a tranquil, inquisitive demeanor — despite his 10-ton heft.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Dec 25, 2013

Tokyo, the city that's not as crazy as everyone thinks

As a Japanese friend of mine who has lived all over Japan once said, 'People from the Kansai area are like Latin people, but in Tokyo they're more like Germans.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Dec 16, 2013

Kyojima: Tokyo's epicenter of disaster risk?

Kyojima in eastern Tokyo is a perfect storm of natural-disaster risk, but while the metropolitan government is trying to get old people out, young people are moving in.
WORLD
Dec 15, 2013

Some Afrikaners unmoved by Mandela death

Dirk Smit's reaction to the death of Nelson Mandela, it would be fair to assume, puts him in the minority of South Africans.
EDITORIALS
Dec 14, 2013

Nursing services under the knife

The health and welfare ministry plans to end some services under the nursing care insurance system for people whose conditions are not so severe, and have municipalities take them over.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 13, 2013

Bike-riding bureaucracy may threaten the classic 'obāchan dismount'

The new regulation decrees that bicycles must be ridden on the left side of the road, in the direction of the flow of traffic. Seems logical, doesn't it? But no one has said how this will prevent accidents or make anything safer; we're just presuming it will.
EDITORIALS
Dec 12, 2013

Repeal the state secrets law

Repeal of the recently enacted state secrets law appears indispensable for ensuring that Japan remains an open society with democratic principles fully upheld.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 10, 2013

Five myths about helping out the Philippines

Among common misconceptions about assistance to victims of communities shattered by storms or earthquakes are that locals wait for the international community to come save them and that goods and services are 'free' donations.
WORLD
Dec 10, 2013

Media overexposure to violence worse than being there

After the Boston Marathon bombings, people who spent six hours a day scouring media for updates were more traumatized than those who were there, a U.S. study suggested Monday.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ADVANCES IN PROGRESS
Dec 9, 2013

Ultracompacts zip into the future

In the near future, the nation's traffic scene may be characterized by the widespread use of ultracompact cars.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 6, 2013

Right renews its war on democracy in Thailand

In most democracies, government spending on free health care and anti-poverty programs would be seen as part of the normal political process, but in Thailand, it is regarded by many rich opponents of the current 'Thaksin' administration as a form of bribery.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 3, 2013

Alive wants to give music fans a say in who comes to Japan

You watched the video for their comeback single on YouTube, devoured the reviews and retweeted the hype. When the album came out, you bought it immediately and had it on repeat for weeks afterwards. And then you waited, waited ... but they never came.

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