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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 4, 2014

Mei Shigenobu's words continue the fight for her mother's cause

On her 8th birthday, Mei Shigenobu's mother sat her daughter down and told her that she was the leader of the Japanese Red Army Faction, a group of revolutionary Marxists fighting to violently overthrow global capitalism. It was part of a very unconventional childhood.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Jun 30, 2014

China suffers karoshi, as white-collar workers die from overwork

Chinese banking regulator Li Jianhua literally worked himself to death. After 26 years of "always putting the cause of the party and the people" first, his employer said this month, the 48-year-old official died rushing to finish a report before the sun came up.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Jun 29, 2014

Cartoonist Ernst captured 'fish-out-of-water' gaijin as they floundered

Having often been told by the Japanese that he would 'never understand' their culture because he was not one of them, American cartoonist Tim Ernst decided to embrace this notion and deploy it creatively.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 26, 2014

Facing death at the Earth's highest reaches

Peter Hillary was born in 1954, one year after his father, Sir Edmund Hillary, and Nepalese sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first men in history to stand on the summit of Mount Everest.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 25, 2014

Insects inspire butoh master Maro

"I think if you looked at Earth from space, you'd see that the ones who really hold the reins here are not humans, but insects," Akaji Maro, a master of the expressionist Japanese dance genre butoh, declared in a recent interview for The Japan Times.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Jun 22, 2014

All-consuming school clubs worry foreign parents

School club activities — something that most Japanese parents accept as a normal and desirable rite of passage in their child's development — can leave foreign parents quaking in their boots at what lies ahead.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 18, 2014

The Uemuras were not quite like mother, like son

Shoko Uemura (1902-2001) was born to Shoen Uemura, the most revered and financially successful female painter of the early modern period, who arguably did more to popularize the bijinga genre (pictures of beautiful women) than any other. Artistically, however, his mother is said to have taught him nothing.
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.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 14, 2014

One woman's mark on the nation's Constitution

In December 2012, 89-year-old Beate Sirota Gordon knew she was dying. The women's rights advocate and tireless promoter of cross-cultural exchange in the arts was ill at home in the New York borough of Manhattan. Yet, she pulled herself out of bed one morning, dressed formally and sat in a chair to await...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jun 12, 2014

International Tokyo Toy Show allows a peek at Christmas hits

It's that time of year again. Children erupt with joy as they see their favorite anime characters come to life, and tech-savvy young adults scramble to figure out the latest cutting-edge gadgets. It's not Christmas, but the International Tokyo Toy Show runs a close second.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 12, 2014

'Child's Pose'

In "King Lear," Shakespeare wrote that a thankless child is sharper than a serpent's tooth. In that vein, Cornelia (Luminita Gheorghiu) feels the pain of the serpent's bite throughout"Child's Pose," a film by Romanian director Calin Peter Netzer.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jun 6, 2014

PS3 game predicts success for Japan in early soccer stage

Right now, soccer fans across the globe are wondering how their nation will fare at the upcoming World Cup in Brazil. Usually some company finds a psychic animal to "predict" the results: Paul the Octopus for the 2010 World Cup, an Indian elephant for Euro 2012, and this time a panda.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 5, 2014

The pleasures of driving like an absolute maniac

"Need for Speed" is an ode to the automobile and not the green, hybrid kind either. The vehicles in this movie are sleek, sexy, gas-guzzling, carbon-spewing planet-destroyers, and director Scott Waugh revels in shooting them from every conceivable angle (plus a few you never even thought possible). In...
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Jun 5, 2014

Take time out to learn about the environment

Last weekend's heatwave was likely to have had some people concerned about climate change and other environmental issues, and just in time for World Environment Day, which took place on June 5.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Jun 1, 2014

Accidental activist battles Japan's part-timer purgatory

Miho Marui isn't exactly sure how she wound up standing on top of a bus on a blustery Tokyo day in 2009, staring up at the 35-story headquarters of KDDI Corp.
COMMENTARY / World / COUNTERPOINT
May 31, 2014

People's republic of amnesia: exhuming China's Tiananmen trauma

"Lies written in ink can't hide truths written in blood." — Lu Xun, writer
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
May 30, 2014

Photo series charts the family unit in changing Japan

Family photos in Japan, especially ones taken for formal occasions such as shichi-go-san (seven-five-three) ceremonies, are often as stiffly posed as 19th-century tintypes, with Mom, Dad and Junior never cracking a smile.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
May 28, 2014

Japan: a haven for the psychologically troubled

For the troubled Western expat in Japan, the reality of being on another continent can collide with normalized Japanese antisocialism to form a cocktail effective in tuning out a lot of the 'just be a normal adult' voices.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 28, 2014

Talking Pinter with Leveaux; an 'authorized' interaction

When we met last weekend, the world-renowned English theater director David Leveaux was relaxing with a cigarette "in the lovely sunshine" outside a rehearsal studio by Tokyo Bay. He was there for an intensive afternoon's work with the three Japanese actors who form the cast of his upcoming production...
COMMENTARY / World
May 27, 2014

Understanding Boko Haram

Action against the senseless violence of the so-called Boko Haram movement without understanding the group's attraction risks backfiring, as much of the Nigerian government's response to Boko Haram has done to date.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 25, 2014

Supercharged CEO Musk aims for cars and stars

When Hollywood wanted to bring to life Tony Stark, the comic-book engineering prodigy who grew up to be the billionaire industrialist and slick playboy alter ego of Iron Man, it turned to the closest thing the real world seemed to offer.
COMMENTARY / World
May 18, 2014

China plays down GDP size

China's government does not sound comfortable with new World Bank figures indicating that China will overtake the U.S. this year and become the No. 1 economy.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 15, 2014

Time to get over the 'shock' of aging actresses

"Americans can be strange about aging," said French actress Jeanne Moreau, in a brief interview she gave me back in 2005. She was then at the tail end of her 70s and had just co-starred with French heartthrob Melvil Poupaud in "Le Temps Qui Reste," as his sympathetic but alluring grandmother. As the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
May 13, 2014

Message themes woven into songs by J-pop's Hart

Chris Hart's appearance on "Kohaku Uta Gassen," NHK's annual New Year's Eve music extravaganza last December, "became one of the two most memorable stages (of his career) so far," he said in a recent interview.
JAPAN
May 12, 2014

'Gourmet' comic stokes Fukushima ire

The popular manga series "Oishinbo" came under fire again Monday after a character based on a real-life former mayor refers to Fukushima Prefecture in its latest issue as unlivable because of the radiation leaking from the ruined power plant there.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech / ADVANCES IN PROGRESS
May 11, 2014

High-tech Japan jumps on wearable device bandwagon

Japanese firms are jumping into the race to manufacture a new generation of wearable devices that will link people more intimately with the Internet as they grow more dependent on gadgets to manage their lives.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 8, 2014

'Blue Jasmine'

We love watching rich people be rich and happy, but maybe we love it more when the cash stops flowing. There's a Japanese phrase for that, and roughly translated, it goes like this: "The unhappiness of others tastes of honey." In that vein, Woody Allen's newest work, "Blue Jasmine" — a film that stirred...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 5, 2014

'Ordinary' billionaire behind canal project

Wang Jing, the enigmatic businessman behind Nicaragua's $50 billion Interoceanic Grand Canal, shrugs off skepticism about how a little-known entrepreneur can be driving a huge transcontinental project, insisting he is not an agent of the Beijing government.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
May 5, 2014

Caroline Kennedy, dive with me in Okinawa and it'll change your mind

I entreat you, Ambassador Kennedy, to help protect the marvelous coral reef ecosystem at Oura Bay in northeast Okinawa from certain destruction under the U.S.-Japan plan for military expansion.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?