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Reader Mail
Dec 27, 2009

Act intelligently to make friends

I would like to comment on Shawna Ueyama's Dec. 22 Zeit Gist article, "Too innocent for prejudice?" I have lived in the United States for more than a decade — in various cities because of my husband's job — and have found that no matter where we go, my 8-year-old boy and I are discriminated against...
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 27, 2009

Koza remembered

It's October 2009, and I'm sitting in the parking lot of a convenience store in Koza city, taking photographs of the sidewalk. I've been here for close to an hour — surrounded by a dozen old photographs, four maps and reams of photocopies all weighed down with chunks of brick to stop them blowing away...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2009

Using financial aid to curb suicides

KURIHARA, Miyagi Pref. — Four years ago, suicides in this city in the Tohoku region were running at nearly double the national rate, and as the global financial meltdown hit Japan they might have been expected to go even higher.
COMMENTARY
Dec 9, 2009

Doom and gloom scenarios for lifeboat Japan

Japan is a lucky country. When the global average temperature has gone up by 2 degrees Celsius and most of mainland Asia is ravaged by famines, when civil wars and failed states and waves of climate refugees are the norm from Tehran to Hanoi and from Madras to Beijing, Japan will still be at peace and...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Nov 29, 2009

Deer problem growing fast

This winter, naturalist and woodland conservationist C.W. Nicol will be busy cooking up delicious meals using wild deer meat — slow-cooked keema curry, hearty shepherd's pie and soy-simmered nikudango meatballs, to name a few.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Nov 29, 2009

The warring mind-sets on U.S. immigration

NEW YORK — Over dinner with a consultant friend recently, our conversation drifted to U.S. immigration when she said, "I'm worried about our future."
ENVIRONMENT
Nov 29, 2009

Deer problem growing fast

This winter, naturalist and woodland conservationist C.W. Nicol will be busy cooking up delicious meals using wild deer meat — slow-cooked keema curry, hearty shepherd's pie and soy-simmered nikudango meatballs, to name a few.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 29, 2009

Though elusive to all, the language of Japan surely merits a break

When I was staying in a pension in Seoul for a month in the autumn of 1967, I tried to speak some Japanese, our only common language, with its 80-year-old Korean proprietor. He refused outright until about a week into my stay, when he gave in and said, "I haven't spoken Japanese since the war and I vowed...
EDITORIALS
Nov 24, 2009

The state of criminal affairs

According to the National Police Agency's 2009 white paper on crime, the police recognized 1,818,374 crimes, excluding traffic accidents, in 2008. The figure is 4.8 percent less than in 2007, and has fallen six years in a row.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 22, 2009

'Happiest' revolution of 1989 was in Prague

NEW YORK — It was early June 1989. Vaclav Havel had been released from jail only days before, yet he was full of what now seems an almost prophetic certainty. Thousands of his countrymen had written letters petitioning for his release, at a time when declaring solidarity with Czechoslovakia's most...
EDITORIALS
Nov 12, 2009

20 years on the Imperial throne

The government-sponsored ceremony on Thursday (Nov. 12) to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Emperor's enthronement serves as an occasion to express people's respect and affection not only for the Emperor but also for the Imperial couple and the rest of the Imperial family.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Nov 10, 2009

Betting your family on Japan: readers respond

Life is long, should be long Mr. Cory, I truly sympathize with your comments and experiences. Your comment about mixed feelings toward your wife really struck home with me as well. Indeed, I too am a Richard Cory, living a farcical life with all of the appearances of the enviable.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 8, 2009

Reading between the lines of Hatoyama's far-sighted 'vision thing'

The prime minister's keynote policy address in the Diet affords the nation's leader an opportunity to present their overall thinking to the people — as its name in Japanese, shoshin hyomei (declaration of convictions), would indeed suggest.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 4, 2009

Slow Food founder pushes fair fare

Carlo Petrini, a 60-year-old Italian, is on a mission: He wants cheap, mass produced foods laced chemical fertilizers and artificial flavors to be replaced by safer, high-quality, and higher-priced, fare.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Nov 3, 2009

Demography vs. demagoguery: when politics, science collide

Last June, I attended a symposium sponsored by the German Institute of Japanese Studies. Themed "Imploding Populations: Global and Local Challenges of Demographic Change," I took in presentations about health care, international and domestic migration, and life in a geriatric society.
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Nov 3, 2009

African and Mideast culture in spotlight at biannual Tokyo bazaar

Thousands of people sampled the tastes of Africa and the Middle East during the 15th charity bazaar held in Tokyo's Nihonbashi district on Oct. 27 by Nihon Chukinto Africa Fujinkai.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Nov 3, 2009

Demography vs. demagoguery: when politics, science collide

Last June, I attended a symposium sponsored by the German Institute of Japanese Studies. Themed "Imploding Populations: Global and Local Challenges of Demographic Change," I took in presentations about health care, international and domestic migration, and life in a geriatric society.
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Nov 3, 2009

African and Mideast culture in spotlight at biannual Tokyo bazaar

Thousands of people sampled the tastes of Africa and the Middle East during the 15th charity bazaar held in Tokyo's Nihonbashi district on Oct. 27 by Nihon Chukinto Africa Fujinkai.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 1, 2009

Personifying 'evil' makes war so much easier

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Equating war with individual evil has become ubiquitous — if not universal — in contemporary international politics.
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2009

Feudal warlords' noblesse oblige model for today's execs: novelist

Japan's top corporate executives can glean many useful ideas and hints from feudal warlords on how to manage their teams and find and foster able successors, according to Masashi Hisaka, a noted historical novelist.
EDITORIALS
Oct 28, 2009

Mr. Hatoyama states his politics

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama made his first keynote address to the Diet on Monday. He should be commended for summing up his "politics of fraternity" in his own words — thus dumping the practice of pasting together sentences written by bureaucrats from various ministries.
JAPAN / Q&A
Oct 23, 2009

Lowdown on H1N1 vaccinations

With swine flu inoculations now under way for medical workers, other people may be anxious about when it will be their turn. As cooler weather sets in, and with it higher risks of contracting the new H1N1 virus, the government is administering vaccinations on a priority basis, with healthy working-age...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Oct 22, 2009

Tokyo Girls Collection producer Ayako Nagaya

Ayako Nagaya, 37, is the president of F1 Media Inc. and the chief producer of Tokyo Girls Collection (TGC), a semiannual entertainment extravaganza showcasing Japanese street fashion, music and a myriad of products, from instant noodles to cars. Staged in Tokyo's Yoyogi Stadium, this one-day fashion...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Oct 17, 2009

Japan's gifted children

There are many gifted children in the world, but Japan would have to have the highest number. I'd estimate that nearly 100 percent of Japanese children are gifted. It's not hard to be a gifted child in Japan though.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 16, 2009

Crystal Kay is having a ball

"There is still some racial thing going on," claims a mild-mannered Crystal Kay. "Some people can't accept there are a lot of foreigners out there, even in the industry.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 9, 2009

All aboard for Drive to 2010

It's Aug. 28, 1979, and the audience dutifully files into the old Shinjuku Loft livehouse to take their places, seated on the floor in preparation for another night of quiet musical appreciation. This time, however, something strange starts to happen. People keep coming in, the audience have to shuffle...

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