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Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 29, 2009

Uncovering an ukiyo-e master in Obuse

The small town of Obuse nestles quietly in the foothills of the Japan Alps, a 30-minute ride on a local rail line from the prefectural capital of Nagano City.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Mar 18, 2009

Clarity up for reading, dieting and television

Tuned in: The small fortunes people spend on television antennas or television sets can be a waste of money if both products are not of a similar quality. Panasonic looks to solve this problem with its new compact LCD high-definition TV, the 17-inch Viera TH-L17F1. The key to this innovative set is that...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Mar 11, 2009

Dust off your old records for one final play

Movie marvel: Just as the arrival of home video in the 1980s impacted heavily on the movie-theater industry, free-to-air TV is now being undermined by pay TV and movies delivered via the Internet. Television-set manufacturers are helping to widen channels for the new methods of movie distribution, and...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Feb 17, 2009

Dealing with a death abroad

Reader S.B. seeks advice on how to deal with arrangements following the death of a foreign relative in Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Feb 11, 2009

Clearing up digital photography

Look sharp: In digital photography, cameras that are small and easy to use tend not to take good pictures in low light and to have a crimped dynamic range. A camera's dynamic range defines how much detail it can capture in shadowy areas of the picture and brightly lit parts at the same time. The better...
CULTURE / Music
Jan 23, 2009

Vienna's Arming strikes the right note

"During these five years, we have often tackled contemporary works," says Austrian conductor Christian Arming, music director of the New Japan Philharmonic (NJP) since 2003. "I believe that broadened our horizon."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 23, 2009

Vienna's Arming strikes the right note

"During these five years, we have often tackled contemporary works," says Austrian conductor Christian Arming, music director of the New Japan Philharmonic (NJP) since 2003. "I believe that broadened our horizon."
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 21, 2009

The key words that kept Japan abuzz in 2008

Last October, publisher Jiyu Kokuminsha released the 61st edition of its "Gendai Yogo no Kiso Chishiki (Encyclopedia of Contemporary Words)" — a massive 1,614-page tome that retails for just ¥2,980. I have a facsimile copy of the book's first edition, launched on Oct. 10, 1948. In the introduction,...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 21, 2009

The key words that kept Japan abuzz in 2008

Last October, publisher Jiyu Kokuminsha released the 61st edition of its "Gendai Yogo no Kiso Chishiki (Encyclopedia of Contemporary Words)" — a massive 1,614-page tome that retails for just ¥2,980. I have a facsimile copy of the book's first edition, launched on Oct. 10, 1948. In the introduction,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 27, 2008

Arts of enlightenment

The exhibition "National Treasures of Miidera Temple," presently at Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, tells a fractured story of the famed Tendai Buddhist temple that spread its influence across the regional temples of western Japan, from the establishment of a core of sacred imagery, staturary and mandalas...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Nov 18, 2008

Escalator etiquette, TV tours

A couple of replies to the query about why people stand on escalators on the right in Osaka and on the left in Tokyo:
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 12, 2008

Tokyo Symphony Orchestra to perform Schubert, Berg

T okyo Symphony Orchestra will perform a concert featuring two symphonies by Austrian composer Franz Schubert along with Alban Berg's 1935 "Violin Concerto" on Sept. 26 and 27.
Reader Mail
Sep 7, 2008

The utter liberty to say 'gaijin'

Should it be assumed that the mere potential to use the term "gaijin" negatively is enough to ban it? I have been called "gaijin" by numerous people, including classmates and friends from Waseda University where I studied, my former home stay parents, my significant other and my significant other's parents...
Japan Times
SPORTS / ODDS AND EVENS
Sep 3, 2008

Kitajima, softball team showed mettle in Beijing

Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part series. Part one appeared in Sunday's newspaper.
Reader Mail
Aug 14, 2008

No-name arrests don't seem right

Regarding Robert McKinney's opinion ("No advantage in a media circus," Aug. 7 letter) of my July 31 letter ("A HREF="http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20080731a4.html">Mind boggles at police reports"): Perhaps the female slasher who attacked six at Hiratsuka Station is "mentally impaired" —...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jun 25, 2008

Japanese Facebook takes Model T approach

Late last month, as part of a rare work-vacation trip to Asia, Mark Zuckerberg made a quick stop in Tokyo to announce the launch of Facebook Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 8, 2008

Viva matsuri!

To commemorate 100 years of Japanese emigration to Brazil, and the countries' continuing close links, taiko drummers from both cultures will be powering a huge festival set for Sao Paulo on June 21
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 9, 2008

South Korean punk band Gumx regroups after military service

"Gumx is back!!" proclaimed the T-shirt for Seoul punk band Gumx's short Japan jaunt in late February. The band's first foreign gigs in more than three years, it had good reason to be excited about returning to the live circuit in its biggest market.
CULTURE / Books
May 4, 2008

Japan as a land of many religions

PROPHET MOTIVE: Deguchi Onisaburo, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial Japan, by Nancy K. Stalker. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007, 265 pp., $49 (cloth) Reviewed by Florian Coulmas Japan has sometimes been called an irreligious country, but students of religion know that this...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 30, 2008

Say it with a picture, then share it wirelessly

Durable digital Ricoh has a habit of coming up with its own smart ideas as to what a camera should offer. Its latest bit of creativity is the G600, which intends to make its name for being water- and dust-resistant, not to mention possessing exceptional toughness.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Apr 29, 2008

Pension system obligations and benefits

As the social welfare system grows in complexity, non-Japanese in particular are likely feeling a sense of frustration at the lack of information available in their native language.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 11, 2008

A manga drunk on French wine

Hearing a 2001 Mont-Perat described as "just like a rock concert by Queen" is enough to make any self-respecting Frenchman expel a snort of derision from his finely-tuned nostrils.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Mar 26, 2008

Phone imitates MP3 imitates phone

Lighter than Air: Anorexic models might no longer be PC on the catwalks, but laptop computer makers believe that consumers just can't keep their hands off them. As usual, Apple is seen as the trendsetter, thanks to its ultrathin MacBook Air model, which is trumpeted as the thinnest laptop of them all...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 27, 2008

A woman who cared

A low-budget film about a woman who operated Japan's first school for disabled children in the Meiji Era (1868-1912) is currently enjoying a long run in Japan and is also being shown in the United States.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Nov 28, 2007

Online goes HD, palm PCs go green

Hail HD: Sony is out to worship at the altar of high-definition. Its eyeVio video-sharing site has started up an HD TV service, which will allow users to put their offerings on public display in the super-resolution of 1280x720 pixels from spring 2008. Sony is also marketing its new BRX-NT1 network set-top...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Nov 3, 2007

International group helps shed light on shadows of injustice

Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, you can pretty much expect to find Akiko Mera in the second-floor Oxfam office in a gray, nondescript building in Ueno, Tokyo, surrounded by a half-dozen desks piled high with papers, pamphlets and books. It looks very much like many other decades-old offices, where the daily...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 1, 2007

Art al fresco in Daikanyama

Years ago, Daikanyama was one of those places you could visit for a bit of peace and quiet in Tokyo. It had beautiful tree-lined streets and lovely old traditional Japanese houses. There was also a slightly bohemian edge to it, with small independent shops and galleries littered among the back alleys....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 16, 2007

The faces behind the numbers: A day feeding Tokyo's hungry

Last in a two-part series O n a typical Saturday evening, I stroll around the bustling streets of Shibuya with my friends, dressed up, heels clicking, ready to hit a couple of trendy shops. The chilly breeze puffs up the hairs on my arms and I shudder — winter is approaching. We chat about school,...
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Oct 16, 2007

Self-study sites welcome you to the world of kanji

When I first suggested in this column using Internet resources for learning kanji in 2001, a Yahoo search yielded 12,700 hits for "kanji learning." That number has now reached a staggering 1.4 million. New, sophisticated online kanji self-study resources are increasingly enabling foreign kanji learners...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Aug 1, 2007

Yamanote Line clocks — perfect for torturing Tokyo commuters

C locks make marvelous torture de vices. For sheer infliction of pain it's hard to top a creation that's dedicated to wrenching you out of your hard-won sleep. Throw in the fact that they insist on rousing you in time to cram yourself into a sardine can on wheels known as a train and you are adding pain...

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past