Search - cul-

 
 
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 7, 2011

Political earthquake in Osaka

Toru Hashimoto's huge victory in the Osaka mayoral election was undoubtedly a political earthquake. The question now is how sweeping and powerful will be the tsunami that follows. My worry is that Tokyo, and particularly the political and bureaucratic establishment, does not comprehend the tectonic forces...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 20, 2011

Roppongi Nouen: Farmers' touch brings peas and quiet to Tokyo

Where does the food on our plates come from? Who grows it and how does it reach our tables? It's almost impossible to know, even when we're at home cooking for ourselves. Eating out in restaurants is a far greater leap of faith.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 19, 2009

Simple seafood and a fish shack

"Meet you at the fish shack in Meguro!" It was a suggestion, a rendezvous, an invitation to check out a new restaurant. But more than anything, in these days of straitened economics, it was an offer we couldn't refuse.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 3, 2009

Busting boundaries with a pioneer of magical music

Hearing Ryuichi Sakamoto talk softly about his 30 years in music, which have elevated him to the status of an officially designated National Treasure, is to witness a perfect exercise in Japanese modesty.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 10, 2008

Pawing in enough to be a fat cat

The world's most coveted kitty wears just a bow, doesn't have a mouth to feed and has never been in trouble.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 4, 2008

Shake Forward! 2008

Hip-hop may have lost its way in the United States, stuck in a cul-de-sac of bling and booty cliches, but in other parts of the world it's grown legs and started popping. No more so than among minority communities, who've seized the music and used it to give themselves the voice they never previously...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Jan 4, 2008

Where ambitions have long soared

First of two parts
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Nov 6, 2007

Design turns over a greener leaf

With climate change a tangible reality, environmental issues are climbing to the top of everyone's agenda. Design is no exception. After a decade-long party accompanying their rising popular profile and commercial success, designers have begun to sober up.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 11, 2007

Peace is found in a historic town

Not since my Adidas-donning days in my hometown Croydon (famous as the breeding ground of chavs) in southeast London, have I ridden trams around town, and even then it was only to pick up a Chinese take-away and buy the odd large hoop earring. So, when I visited Nagasaki with a couple of friends, touring...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 22, 2007

Who dares take the 'Q' out of Japan's 5-star kyushoku?

Is one of the great institutions of Japanese cul- ture succumbing to a slow, gnawing attack? It may be. I tell you, if this icon is lost, all we'll have left of the culture will be a few cartoons and some rusting karaoke machines.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 29, 2007

Globalization made manifest at Midtown

Hooray. Another high-rise office tower. Another five-star hotel. Another premium shopping mall. Another Starbucks. And don't forget culture. With this new development, Tokyo will show the world the richness of Japan's civilization and society.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Nov 17, 2006

High tea and cocktails

The ghosts of Tokyo past may still haunt the inner recesses of Kagurazaka, but increasingly they are being hemmed in by the encroaching architecture of the brash modern city. As with Sakura Sakura, though, a small but growing number of the surviving prewar low-rise, timber houses are being given a new...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 9, 2006

Berlin/Tokyo : Your pick of the isms

See related story: Berlin/Tokyo : Invitation to a car wreck
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jan 14, 2006

Can Newell prove sensational bung allegations he claims?

Mike Newell has either been very brave or very foolish.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 30, 2005

On and off the charts

Cast an eye over those charts that list the top-selling Japanese pop albums of the year and three musical trends come out on top: There were loose-limbed hip-hop party grooves aplenty (Def Tech and Ketsumeishi); American-influenced punk pop (Ellegarden, Ken Yokoyama and scores of others with Orange County-inflected...
EDITORIALS
May 15, 2005

Standing up to the death industry

Maple trees are famous for the gaudy show they put on each fall as their leaves change color. But they put on a spring show, too, as you may have noticed lately. In their anxiety to propagate, maples have evolved a stunningly efficient method of seed distribution. Winged pairs of seeds are released en...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 30, 2004

How green is my Happy Valley

While Tokyo is unbearably hot and humid in the heat of the summer, in Karuizawa verdant grass and moss carpet the floors of forests and the mountain air is perfumed with the scent of larch leaves and wild flowers. The area is a little over a one-hour train ride from Tokyo, enabling visitors to quickly...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 17, 2003

Taking shape: Prehistoric art and us

In the 19th century, scientists finally junked the Biblical idea of a seven-day divine Creation -- with man, at the pinnacle of the process, being fashioned from clay on the sixth day.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 26, 2003

Reasoning against Iraq 'catastrophe'

Few were the world leaders who, in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, withheld moral support for the United States. Longtime friends and onetime foes, Christians, Jews and many Muslims alike sang as in one chorus: They would root out terrorism where it lurked. It seemed the birth of a new world...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 16, 2002

Preventing a new dark age

On May 8 an American citizen with alleged ties to the al-Qaeda terror network was arrested on suspicion of plotting to build and detonate a radioactive "dirty" bomb in the United States. On May 31, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda of Japan -- the emotional touchstone of antinuclear sentiments for...
CULTURE / Film
Nov 14, 2001

What's wrong with a little joie de vivre ?

Le Fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain Rating: * * * * Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet Running time: 122 minutes Language: French Now showing
CULTURE / Film
Oct 24, 2001

Escape to Allen's New York

Small Time Crooks Rating: * * * * Director: Woody Allen Running time: 95 minutes Language: English Now showing
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Oct 14, 2001

The bistro jazzed up to perfection

It's a hard job, as they say -- not that we're complaining. But if there is a down side, it's that the Food File's constant, restless search for new foraging grounds makes it nigh on impossible for us to revisit any of our great new discoveries, let alone keep tabs on all those tried-and-true, all-time...
CULTURE / Film
Oct 3, 2001

We shall, we shall rock thou

A Knight's Tale Rating: * * * Director: Brian Helgeland Running time: 132 minutes Language: English Now showing
MORE SPORTS
Sep 8, 2001

Japan opens rugby season with win

The 2001-2002 rugby season officially got underway on Friday night at the National Stadium with Japan beating a President's XV 22-10.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 22, 1999

'Advance Australia fair' takes on a whole new meaning

"There goes another shiftless Aboriginal," said the Pioneer bus driver to those of us taking the half-day tour of Alice Springs. "We give them cars, they drive them till they're out of petrol, then, bloody hell, they just leave the bloody things by the side of the road."

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan