Search - things-to-do

 
 
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Aug 2, 2014

Toxic gypsy moths — a most unpleasant infestation

Living in the countryside, the usual casual greetings include an observation about the weather, but for the last six weeks around my home in northern Nagano Prefecture, everybody mentioned the caterpillars. Now it's the moths. I've never seen such a plague of them in the 34 years I've been here.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 31, 2014

Abe undermining rule of law

Recent decisions involving security and nuclear power policies demonstrate that Japan's leaders appear to believe that rules were made to be reinterpreted.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Jul 30, 2014

Japan's culture of overtime thwarts Abe's plans for more working moms

Hiroko Yano, who's worked 20 years at the same company, was recently told she could become a manager. The mother of three, who puts in an average of two hours of overtime a day, rejected the idea, saying she doesn't want to be stuck in the office until midnight like the other managers.
CULTURE / Music
Jul 22, 2014

Panicsmile opt for a back-to-basics approach on 'Informed Consent'

For more than 20 years now, Panicsmile has been an unsung hero in Japanese rock.
Japan Times
JAPAN / NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT
Jul 20, 2014

Osaka zone a litmus test of foreign worker policy

As prefectural officials begin talks with Tokyo on a deregulated economic area, local skepticism remains high over the content, necessity of the proposal.
JAPAN / View from Osaka
Jul 19, 2014

Time for legislation to prevent spread of hate speech

On July 8, the Osaka High Court ruled that, yes, standing in front of a primary school while kids are in class, shouting through a megaphone that they and their parents are not human, and then vandalizing the school's property, is legal discrimination.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Jul 17, 2014

Merger talks going slowly

Japan Basketball Association officials said that they would actively keep discussing how to overcome the differences between the nation's top two leagues in order to establish a new professional hoops circuit in two years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 17, 2014

To perceive is to see Felix Vallotton's genius at work

The art of the Swiss painter Felix Vallotton is both deceptive and loaded with revelation. On the surface it has the knowing sophistication and social references of other fin-de-siècle art — Vallotton was active from the 1880s until his death in 1925 — but it also cuts much deeper, pushing us toward...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2014

Speech rules turn college into no-thought zone

In the U.S., vague bans on 'offensive' language and other 'politically correct' measures that most people think of when they imagine college speech codes are increasingly being joined by quarantine policies that restrict all student speech, regardless of its content.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / NBA
Jul 8, 2014

New Utah Jazz assistant coach Lang 'grateful' for past coaching experiences in Japan

Ex-Mitsubishi Diamond Dolphins bench boss Antonio Lang has earned a job in the world's premier basketball league. But he has no intention of cutting his ties with Japanese hoops; after all, he's grown to cherish the game here.
Japan Times
JAPAN / OUR MAN IN TOKYO
Jul 8, 2014

Aussie envoy a student of Japan

Bruce Miller, Australia's ambassador to Japan since August 2011, has been interested in Japan since he was a boy of 11.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 8, 2014

Daymare puts its bands through a hardcore filter for Leave Them All Behind event

"There are people who like aggressive music the way they like sports, but I think 'hardcore' is about being self-aware of what you're doing, about how to create your own space," says Tadashi Hamada, manager of independent music label Daymare Recordings. "That's my first requirement for bands. So hardcore...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 7, 2014

It's all a matter of character — but which one to choose?

Much has been made of the alleged difficulty of the Japanese language for non-native and even native speakers. My personal impression is that this view is most commonly cherished by two types of people: those who don't know much Japanese (or any at all), and those who only know Japanese.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 3, 2014

Nothing is ordinary for Leandro Erlich

'Swimming pools, staircases and elevators are ordinary places that we never question, as we think that we know about them already. But is that true? Do we really know them?' — Leandro Erlich.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 28, 2014

Not ducking tradition in Higashi-Ueno

With its lotus-laden Shinobazu pond, park grounds, and national museums, the Ueno area in Tokyo draws millions of visitors a year. Nearby Higashi-Ueno (Eastern Ueno), however, seems to be another world altogether. When I exit Shin-Okachimachi station, under skies portending summer heat, this low-lying...
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jun 25, 2014

Is Japan a haven for expats with psychological problems? Readers discuss

Readers clash on the merits of William Bradbury's recent Foreign Agenda article, 'Japan: a haven for the psychologically troubled.'
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 23, 2014

Can Japan show the West how to live peacefully with Islam?

Uniting a colorful mix of expats, removed from the context of sectarian strife and the historical Western interference still haunting many Muslim countries, could the Japanese brand of Islam be a showcase for its peaceful essence?
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 21, 2014

Advances in robotics present singular worry

'Singularity' is an odd word. Originally it meant peculiarity. Then 20th-century physicists got hold of it and situated it at the very boundary of space-time, to the eternal bafflement of the lay mind.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 19, 2014

Paul Haggis: Spinning reality into a web of fiction

"Today, too often, we've gotten used to telling the audience things in bold, in all-caps or underlined, and solving everything for everybody." So says Paul Haggis, the screenwriter and director who won Oscars back-to-back with "Million Dollar Baby" in 2004 and "Crash" in 2005. His new film, "Third Person,"...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
Jun 17, 2014

New Lions slugger Mejia relishes opportunity to play in NPB

Ernesto Mejia remembers the bus rides. Those long trips to games in rookie ball, Single-A and a notch up the ladder in Double-A. Some of those rides could last for seven, eight, nine hours.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 17, 2014

Sectarian monster reawakens

The systematic political marginalization of Iraq's Sunni communities demands the establishment of a new political and social contract to re-order the mess created by the U.S. invasion and Iran's intervention.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 16, 2014

The damage done by 'moderates'

Every day the insipid overlords of America's inane corporate news media put out the same message: Extremism is extremely bad. But might the so-called moderates be worse?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 16, 2014

Harassers exploit Gaba's 'man-to-man' lesson format

The first sign that Olivia's Gaba lesson would be anything but ordinary came when her student insisted during the warmup that he didn't like wearing clothes.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Jun 15, 2014

Activist yearns to return to a truly democratic Burma

From his adopted home in Tokyo, veteran democracy advocate Kyaw Kyaw Soe pushes for change in Myanmar and supports his fellow refugees in Japan.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Jun 13, 2014

JOC grooms young athletes for international success at Elite Academy

Since 2008, the Japanese Olympic Committee has run a national youth athlete development program called the JOC Elite Academy. It's a part of the JOC Gold Plan, which was drawn up to improve Japan's international competitiveness in sports seven years before the development program was established.

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb