Search - people

 
 
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 13, 2005

Companies fixing sights on elite as 'lower class' refuse to spend

Boosters of corporate-led globalization like to say that markets are more efficient economic equalizers than governments are. Whether or not you believe this, it only makes sense if you also believe that everyone in the world has the same desire to buy things.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Nov 9, 2005

Study finds broccoli combats gastritis

As futurists get excited by the prospect of engineering ourselves to have longer lives, it's easy to forget that, as well as the high-tech ways, there are very simple ways to live longer.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Nov 8, 2005

Does Japan have a drug problem?

Tori Bentley I.T., 24 No. I'm from the U.K. and most people I know have tried drugs. Whenever I ask people my age here, the textbook response is drugs are very bad and they haven't tried them. There's no drug culture, especially compared with the U.K.
EDITORIALS
Nov 7, 2005

Draft revision tosses principles aside

The Liberal Democratic Party, which has long claimed that the present pacifist Constitution was imposed on the Japanese people by the Occupation Forces, has announced a draft revision. Although the text begins promisingly enough with "The Japanese people, based on their own will and determination, establish...
Japan Times
Features
Nov 6, 2005

Surveying a state of change

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi led his Liberal Democratic Party to a landslide victory in the Sept. 11 general election he called as a de facto referendum on his drive to privatize postal services.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 4, 2005

Portugal and Brazil united in one voice

Fado, the passionate, powerful music of Portugal, was -- and still is -- sung in the local bars and small eateries for working people. The music's spirit is saudade, a word that translates roughly as nostalgia, melancholy or longing, though mixed with happiness and love. Fado's greatest singer was Amalia...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 30, 2005

What lies beneath the myth of middle-class consciousness

A friend sent me an email about some new people, all Japanese, she had met at a party. There was a young man who had worked in Africa for Medecins Sans Frontieres. One middle-age man had quit a stable job in broadcasting to study French in Paris. A female graduate student in marine biology was also there....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 27, 2005

International winners at Praemium Imperiale

In 1989 the Japan Art Association established the Praemium Imperiale to reward major contributions to the arts in the fields of architecture, music, painting, sculpture and theater/film. It was the last wish of Prince Takamatsu, who had served as governor of the Japan Art Association from 1929 to 1987,...
Features
Oct 23, 2005

Japan's take on the issue of diagnosis

Cancer diagnosis has long been a divisive issue in Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 20, 2005

Panic over bird flu isn't wholly misplaced

LONDON -- It would be funny if it were not so serious. As migratory birds carry the avian influenza virus west across Europe, Britain is following in the footsteps of Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Turkey and asking hunters to shoot down as many incoming ducks and geese as possible. They have been issued...
COMMENTARY
Oct 16, 2005

China needs an independent judiciary

HONG KONG -- China has performed a miracle over the last quarter century, lifting hundreds of millions of people from dire poverty and turning the country into an economic powerhouse. In the process, Beijing has raised people's expectations not only of a better life but of a fairer society.
EDITORIALS
Oct 15, 2005

Reining in medical expenditures

The Japanese spent 31.4 trillion yen for medical services in fiscal 2004, or about 246,000 yen per person, an increase of 2 percent from the previous year. The figure of 2 percent may be a small and acceptable growth, requiring no stricter lid on the rise of the nation's medical spending. But Japan's...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Oct 15, 2005

Get all animalistic and 'manner up!'

There is no doubt that Japanese people are losing their good manners. Alarmed, the government and private organizations are doing their part to encourage the public to "manner up!" by displaying posters and signs. These signs, probably designed by elementary school teachers with a grudge, seem to be...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 14, 2005

Playing in the shadows

"Self-effacing" is not an adjective one normally uses to describe a rock band, but everything about the English quartet Electrelane seems designed to draw attention away from the individual players. In Electrelane's case this is particularly significant since all four members are young women, and there...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 13, 2005

From national security to human security

The suffering and death inflicted by last December's tsunami and Hurricane Katrina shows the need to reframe security in human terms.
EDITORIALS
Oct 9, 2005

Nine numbers and 81 squares

Human beings are a famously diverse lot. We come in different colors and sizes, speak a Babel of tongues, worship a pantheon of gods or no god at all, eat our foods bland or spicy, vote or not, and are sorely divided over the value of poetry. But those distinctions pale compared to the big one: the gulf...
JAPAN
Oct 3, 2005

As society grows more aloof, census takers suffer

Hiroshi Tamura is keenly aware of the great changes that have taken place in his neighborhood in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, where he has lived for more than half a century.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Oct 2, 2005

Harumi Kurihara: Homing in on success

As a cook and lifestyle guru, Harumi Kurihara has often been dubbed Japan's answer to America's Martha Stewart or Britain's Delia Smith. But in February this year, she scaled new heights when the English-language edition of her book "Harumi no Japanese Cooking" -- titled "Harumi's Japanese Cooking" --...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 30, 2005

Growl heard loud from New Orleans

Dr. John has been a central icon of New Orleans music for the past four decades. Though famed for his keyboard playing, he started out on guitar in his teens as a studio musician in 1950s New Orleans. He later switched to keyboards and put together his own special flavor of traditional-meets-funk music...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 18, 2005

Japan in the doldrums needs a lot more than hot air

It is not every election in Japan that raises questions about the direction of the nation and the identity of its people. It was natural that last week's poll was a polemical one. After a "lost decade" now well on the way to becoming a "lost double-decade," Japanese people have been asking themselves:...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 17, 2005

Taiwan sees wider recognition as key to upholding democrac

Taiwan has been endeavoring to lift the stature of its 23 million people in the eyes of the international community as a foil to China's plans for unification.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 16, 2005

Keeping up with the Norah Joneses

She may only be 16 years old, but Massachusetts native Sonya Kitchell talks with the assurance of a musician twice her age. It's a couple of days after Kitchell played a live showcase to a largely music-industry crowd in a tiny Shibuya jazz bar, following the recent Japan-only release of her debut album,...
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2005

Voter loyalties split but all seek better future

Voters turned out in droves for Sunday's Lower House election to cast ballots in favor of reforms, hoping the policy steps taken by the victors will strengthen the economy and make people's lives better.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 6, 2005

The empire strikes back

Venerated by militarists and marinated in over a century of militarism and war, Yasukuni Shrine may well be Japan's least friendly venue for a demonstration by pacifists.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 28, 2005

Postal reform gets stamp of approval from celeb politicians

Opponents of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's postal reform plans have a number of complaints, but the point they tend to harp on about, presumably because it's the only one the average citizen can appreciate, is the downsizing of post offices in far-flung regions.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 28, 2005

Cuban salsa godfather keeps his stories real

Despite the embargo imposed by the United States on Cuba since 1961, the music of this north Caribbean island has somehow made its way into every corner of the earth, including Japan. It is no coincidence that "The Sons of Cuba," the most recent film from the creators of "Buena Vista Social Club," culminates...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 13, 2005

Cheap old beaches become modern playgrounds for the rich

I hate to admit it, but our small island in the Seto Inland Sea is becoming a playground for the rich. Not long ago, the only people who came to Shiraishi Island were families looking for a cheap day out at the beach. And I mean cheap. They bring their own everything: food, drinks, beach chairs, parasols,...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 7, 2005

Learning a foreign language is a cultural journey, too

English students of Japan, unite! You have nothing to lose but your (conversation school) chains!
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 2, 2005

The end of silence: Korea's Hiroshima

When Shin Jin Tae's first daughter died, her mother was still breast-feeding her.

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