Search - life-style

 
 
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 19, 2006

"Takanobu Kobayashi Exhibition"

Nishimura Gallery Closes in 10 days
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 13, 2006

School's out for Oreskaband teens

'I don't think being high-school girls is an important part of our band," says 18-year-old Tae-san, drummer with Osaka ska band Oreskaband. And with mere months until their graduation, we're about to find out if she's right.
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 8, 2006

LONDON CALLING

Home to some 50,000 people born in Japan, London has been well served for some time with aspects of culture and lifestyle from the Land of the Rising Sun.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Oct 1, 2006

Nihon TV's "News Zero," NHK's "Document 72 Hours" and more

Traditionally, Nihon TV has opted out of the nightly news competition. Whereas TBS, TV Asahi and Fuji TV present hourlong, in-depth news shows, Nihon TV settled for a half-hour bulletin-style report called "Kyo no Dekigoto (Today's Happenings)."
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 29, 2006

The past comes alive in Izu

Japanese and foreign residents of the Kanto region head for Izu to seek that elusive thing, "the real Japan."
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Sep 24, 2006

NHK's "Ongaku Idenshi," Nihon TV's "Diet Combat" and more

One of the most common questions asked of pop musicians is, Who are your influences? This question is the premise behind a new series on NHK, "Ongaku Idenshi" (NHK-G, Mon., 11 p.m.), which literally means "The Genes of Music." According to the show's producers, a musician's particular sensibility is...
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2006

LDP election broke with norm

to a certain degree," he said. "Without Koizumi's guidance, Abe would never have become party president." Abe won 464 votes, or 66 percent of the total, although he had reportedly been shooting for more than 70 percent. Aso came in second with 136 and Tanigaki got 102.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 21, 2006

The next Palestinian struggle

LONDON -- An expert in international law and an old friend of the Palestinian people wrote me with utter distress a few days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh were reported to have reached an agreement Sept. 11 to form a national unity government. The content...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 10, 2006

What's love got to do with it? Holding on for a while

Many modern people have probably formed their idea of romantic love through the popular arts. We know from Jane Austen novels that marrying for love is an idea that preceded Hollywood, but people still wed for many other reasons, including simple companionship, convenience and money. Nevertheless, love...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 5, 2006

Future of Japan securities reform at stake

As the trial of Japan's most famous dot-com entrepreneur opened Monday, a much wider issue was also before the court: the nation's tenuous shift toward a more freewheeling market economy.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 4, 2006

An uphill battle for Manmohan Singh

HONG KONG -- When Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, following in the footsteps of Jawaharlal Nehru, spoke from the great gateway of Shah Jehan's Red Fort to celebrate Independence Day, he looked like a tiny, almost insignificant figure, framed by gigantic red sandstone walls, as he looked down on...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Sep 1, 2006

Slow train coming downtown

Arakawa Ward snuggles like a puzzle piece in the bends of the Sumida River. The third smallest of Tokyo's 23 wards, it has an intimate, unpretentious atmosphere that matches the attitude of many of its residents. Asked what makes Arakawa special, locals and even city officials tilt their heads in thought,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 29, 2006

Tofu, magic for both body and taste buds

When the summer heat sets in, my Japanese mother religiously serves hiyayakko (chilled tofu) sprinkled with katsuobushi (bonito flakes) and soy sauce. Just looking at this simple dish, I feel myself starting to cool down, knowing that tofu actually helps lower your body temperature.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 27, 2006

Picturing North Korean propaganda

Japan's comic craze was first documented for the West with the publication of Frederick Schodt's "Manga Manga, The World of Japanese Comics" (1983). Since then, the production and consumption of manga and anime -- its moving picture equivalent -- have spread to China and the Republic of Korea. More recently,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 26, 2006

Doreen Simmons

Quite simply, Doreen Simmons is unique.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Aug 25, 2006

Gattaca, a utopia of good selections

Baar Gattaca is reasonably easy to find -- thanks to the blaring red banners of the bar next door. But, just to avoid confusion, the entrance is immediately to the right of this garish splash of red -- straight down the stairs to the basement. There, you will see the bar's name on the door and the tag...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Aug 20, 2006

Airs and grimaces

You don't even need a guitar to let your hot licks hang out anymore. Duckwalk like Angus (Young; AC/DC), windmill like (Pete; The Who) Townshend and bow like (Jimmy; Led Zeppelin) Page -- no prob; all with air, but not like (Michael; Nike Air) Jordan.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 20, 2006

The unique voice of Ryunosuke Akutagawa

RASHOMON AND SEVENTEEN OTHER STORIES, by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, translated by Jay Rubin, introduction by Haruki Murakami. London: Penguin Classics, 2006, 268 pp., £9.99 (paper). In what is still the finest assessment of Ryunosuke Akutagawa's life and work, Howard Hibbett complained that for most, the...
JAPAN
Aug 10, 2006

Artist finds lifework painting shutters along shopping streets

HANNO, Saitama Pref. -- Sadao Kiyota airbrushes colors on the shutters of the Tonki tofu kitchen, which is closed one recent Monday as are neighboring stores on the Hanno Ginza shopping street near Seibu Hanno Station in Saitama Prefecture.
COMMENTARY
Aug 8, 2006

Danger of education divide

During its five-year rule, the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has completed a number of structural reforms, including the privatization of the postal service. To that extent, the administration deserves high praise.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 6, 2006

Japan's baroque theater

KABUKI: Baroque Fusion of the Arts, by Toshio Kawatake, translated by Frank and Jean Connell Hoff. I-House Press, 2006, 358 pp. with 78 illustrations, 1,905 yen (paper). This is the new enlarged and revised edition of an important book on the Kabuki, originally published by the University of Tokyo Press...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 6, 2006

Welfare's not fair when it comes to single mothers

In show business, you can't look as if you made up your own labels. Only someone as big as Michael Jackson gets away with calling himself the King of Pop.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 4, 2006

72-hour party people

Japan's foremost music festival, Fuji Rock, might be over for another year, but for those who couldn't make the trek to Naeba Ski Resort last weekend, or the 130,000 who did but couldn't catch everything, our reporting team -- Daniel Robson, Simon Bartz, Philip Brasor, Mark Thompson, David Hickey, Richard...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 28, 2006

Window on the West

It's hard not to feel well disposed toward a place like Nagasaki even before you set foot in it. Nagasaki was, after all, the port in western Kyushu that had to bear the torturous brunt of the anti-Christian persecutions assiduously pursued by the Tokugawa shoguns in the 17th century. And had it not...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 25, 2006

Soaking in the urban onsen scene

Taking a nice, long, hot bath has for eras been an ideal way to unwind, whether it is a soak crammed in the tub at home after a hard day's work, a trip to the local sento (public bath) for a leisurely scrub-down or a weekend getaway to the countryside in pursuit of hot springs and the healing powers...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 21, 2006

Mighty Sparrow

Trinidad's famed carnival had two rival Calypsonians: Lord Kitchener and Mighty Sparrow. These two singer/songwriter/tricksters vied every year for the honor of Calypso Monarch and "Road March," the most played song during carnival.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 16, 2006

Adventures in Gerontology

THE OKINAWA DIET PLAN by Bradley J. Willcox, D. Craig Willcox and Makoto Suzuki. Three Rivers Press, 2005, 432 pp., $14.95/2,300 yen (paper). In works like "Awakenings" and "The Island of the Color Blind," neurologist Oliver Sacks showed how serious medical subjects could, in the right hands, be turned...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 13, 2006

Antiestablishment for all

Founded in 1970 by director Sho Ryuzanji, the Engekidan company was a natural bridge between two major theatrical movements in postwar Japan: the 1960s underground scene of dramatists such as Shuji Terayama and Juro Kara and the so-called "small-scale theater movement" started in the 1980s by the likes...
SPORTS / MULLY'S MISSIVES
Jun 29, 2006

Japan fans flock to their 'other' football team

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany -- The Japanese are long gone from the competition, but there is plenty for football to be played.

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building