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Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Jul 27, 2009

How to Japonese

The blog How To Japonese should appeal to anyone studying intermediate and advanced Japanese, but don't expect structured step-by-step courses. Launched in 2008 by Daniel Morales, a New Orleanian who first came to Japan in 2002 and currently works as a translation coordinator in Tokyo, the blog pretty...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 24, 2009

He can't seem to escape from the museum

Ben Stiller is back in the museum. Specifically, in "Night at the Museum — Battle of the Smithsonian."
LIFE / Digital
Jul 22, 2009

Google Books leaves Japan in legal limbo

For a long time, the Japanese publishing industry was in the dark about the Google Book Search Library project, the ambitious endeavor by the Mountain View, Calif.-based Internet giant to create a vast online library by scanning millions of books. Google announced the start of the project in 2004, but...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 19, 2009

Tune in to nature's sounds

The phenomenal diversity of Japan, in its landscapes, climates, ecosystems, fauna and flora, has enthralled me for more than a quarter of a century. For part of each year I am extremely fortunate to be able to travel the length and breadth of the country seeking out its wilder places in order to experience...
JAPAN
Jul 17, 2009

Chongryon swindler gets suspended term

A former intelligence agency chief was sentenced to a suspended 34-month prison term Thursday for his role in a 2007 investment scam aimed at swindling the pro-Pyongyang group Chongryon out of ownership of its Tokyo headquarters.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 10, 2009

'La Raggaza del Lago'

When the nude body of the beautiful 18-year-old Anna (Alessia Piovan) is discovered on the shores of a lake in the Italian Dolomite Alps, the local town recoils like a slapped hand then clenches itself like a fist, hiding any number of secrets and unspoken, unexpressed emotions.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 7, 2009

NHK a fount of info, a lot of it from the government

Sometimes compared with the British Broadcasting Corporation or America's Public Broadcasting System — and by its fiercest critics even to the state-run media in China and North Korea — NHK boasts two terrestrial television services, three satellite television services, three radio networks and the...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 4, 2009

A look into the secrets of the Kanji family

Japanese is comprised of three syllable alphabets: kanji, hiragana and katakana. Yeah, you've heard this before. But do you know the history behind the three?
JAPAN
Jul 3, 2009

Agency moves on 'manga cafe'

Amid continuing objections from the Democratic Party of Japan and others, preparations for the proposed National Center for Media Arts, or "state-run 'manga' cafe" as it is known by its detractors, have begun in earnest.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 3, 2009

Deliberately insignificant gestures

While walking through the courtyard of the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art and interviewing critic Midori Matsui, a frog hopped out of the darkness, stopped for a moment in the light and then slipped back into the night. Matsui, who curated the Hara's current exhibition, "Micropop," had just been explaining...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 3, 2009

A freedom that fostered richness

Two exhibitions now showing at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography offer a fascinating contrast in photojournalism.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 28, 2009

When in war, why bomb the innocent?

How one feels about what one is reading can differ depending on where and when. Reading these essays while boarding a flight from Tokyo, transiting Hanoi and then arriving in Laos — all places that have been subjected to extensive U.S. bombing — is to feel the long arm of history tug at one's conscience....
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 28, 2009

Luang Prabang, Laos: Mekong musings and much more

Watching sunset over the swirling Mekong River from one of Luang Prabang's riverside cafes while sipping a therapeutic Beer Lao is hard to beat.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 26, 2009

A re-imagining of Osaka's riverfront

"Tadao Ando Exhibition 2009: The City of Water/Osaka vs. Venice" seems like a fixed fight. Many would even balk at the idea of the match-up.
Reader Mail
Jun 25, 2009

Bill unlikely to improve recall

The bill just passed to "help" foreign residents by centralizing data collection at the Ministry of Justice does nothing to solve the original problem: foreign residents forgetting to re-register with local authorities after moving. The call for this new law arose at a gathering of city and town officials...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jun 22, 2009

Unions give athletes solidarity, provide more protection

Second in a two-part series
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 21, 2009

Punchy posters urge Tokyoites to mind their manners

It doesn't take a genius to realize that public spaces in Japan are filled with numerous audible and visual reminders about the importance of maintaining personal decorum.
/ Sarah Furuya Coaching
Jun 18, 2009

Ship inspections could be a recipe for conflict

KUALA LUMPUR — In response to North Korea's latest nuclear weapons test, the U.N. Security Council has passed a resolution (1874) that expands and tightens the sanctions specified in its earlier resolution (1718), passed in response to North Korea's first nuclear test in 2006. But it goes a step further...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 12, 2009

Nomura fuses science, mysticism in artworks

If Pythagoras, Aristotle or any of the other axial luminaries of the Classical World were alive today, they might just be working as conceptual artists in the mold of Hitoshi Nomura, rather than philosophers and scientists. This is because the science and philosophy that these intellectual giants practiced...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Jun 10, 2009

Just Hungry, Just Bento

The kitchen has long been used as a portal to distant places and times, and Just Hungry and Just Bento are two blogs by Makiko Itoh that put all the wonders of Japanese cuisine within a cutting-board's reach. For Makiko, cooking has been a way to re-create comfort foods from Japan while living abroad...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 7, 2009

Apichatpong Weerasethakul: No ordinary Joe

Perhaps no Asian film director since Akira Kurosawa has received the critical attention bestowed on 39 year-old Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. His "Blissfully Yours" won a major Cannes Festival prize in 2002; "Tropical Malady," took the 2004 Jury Prize and the Tokyo FilmEx first prize; and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 5, 2009

'Ultra Miracle Love Story'

Johnny Depp seems to be a role model for Japanese actors with leading man looks, but who almost never plays straight leading man roles. That is, roles in which they romance and win the leading lady — comic fight-and-make-up scenes optional. If Depp's career is any indication, this is a brilliant strategy,...
JAPAN / Media
May 31, 2009

Pigs, pimps, prostitutes and other things — Japan's New Age

Fifty years is a long time, especially in film history. The iconoclastic Japanese New Wave, born with the release in 1959 of Nagisa Oshima's debut feature, "A Town of Love and Hope," is now an established part of Japan's cinematic canon. And in contrast to the French Nouvelle Vague, several of whose...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 29, 2009

Dynasties that knew good living

Off the beaten path in the Kita-ku district in northern Kyoto sits a veritable jewel, the charming Koryo Museum of Art, which houses a collection of Korean traditional arts. Koryo is unique in Japan for its more than 20-year mission of exhibiting traditional Korean artwork.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
May 26, 2009

'Manga': heart of pop culture

From "One Piece" and "Naruto" to "Doraemon" and "Sazae-san," comic books have been the heart of Japanese pop culture.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 24, 2009

From Meiji gentleman to 'Japanese Yankee'

This curiosity (a first-person account of the writer's gradual transformation from Meiji gentleman to self-proclaimed "Japanese Yankee") was first published in 1898 (by the Congregational Church) and never again seen until now.
Japan Times
LIFE
May 24, 2009

The beat goes on in Japan's jazz hub

As one of Japan's longest-standing maritime gateways to the world, Yokohama has absorbed many cultures from the West over the last 150 years — not least its abiding love of jazz.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 22, 2009

Rothkos reunited in Chiba

The surfaces of Mark Rothko's canvases loom large, impenetrable and formidable, inviting you in but simultaneously denying you entry. Their deceptive simplicity has long posed a riddle to those who stand before them.

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