Search - life

 
 
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 26, 2013

Kaori Shoji's 2013 Top 10: films that aren't backward about coming forward

It has been a year of documentaries made on big ideas and small resources. At the other end of the spectrum, some of the best fiction films had the look and feel of a documentary, attesting to the modern notion that the individual and his/her story are just about the most interesting things around.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 19, 2013

Japanese couple's canvas alive with the art of love

Being an artist can be hard enough — but being part of an artist couple comes with a truckload of angst, as director Zachary Heinzerling demonstrates in his debut documentary feature "Cutie and the Boxer." This is about the life and times of artists Ushio Shinohara and his wife, Noriko, who have been...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 14, 2013

Haruna adds sparkle to a seasonal getaway

As the brilliant red, green and white explosions reflected off the surface of the lake, I turned to my partner with two simple words: "Merry Christmas."
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 7, 2013

Fabled strand of 500 pines

Beautiful beaches, we've all seen our share, right? But a beautiful beach that's also historic and sacred? That sounds worth driving out of our way for — especially as the way takes us over a span I've long yearned to traverse: the Ondo Bridge, a delightful crimson structure over the Ondo Strait, a...
CULTURE / Film
Dec 5, 2013

'A Liar's Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman'

And now for something completely different: a Monty Python movie that is completely, painfully, blindingly unfunny. Well, to be fair, "A Liar's Autobiography" isn't really a Python flick, more of a homage to Python done by 14 different animators. But with poster art that deliberately resembles that of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 4, 2013

Bunraku storyteller speaks out

During the early part of the Edo Period, when Japan was ruled by Tokugawa shoguns from 1603-1867, Osaka — the main city in the Kansai region of western Honshu — thrived as the country's cultural and economic center. It was during those heady days around 400 years ago that a kind of puppetry called...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 2, 2013

Obama may be rare ex-leader who stays in Washington after presidency

Throughout his time in office, President Barack Obama has opened many outside-the-Beltway speeches with a suggestion that he, too, feels like an outsider in the nation's baffling, frustrating capital city. He shouts to the audience about how good it is to be wherever he is that day — Cleveland, Miami,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 25, 2013

Space industry faces choice for next direction

The air is so clear the mountains in the distance look almost fake, as if added digitally. The desert floor is runway-flat, with a few Joshua trees popping up randomly, like lost cowboys. The dominant feature is the sky, preposterously vast, beckoning test pilots, rocketeers and would-be space travelers....
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / CHILD'S PLAY
Nov 19, 2013

Preparing your kids for the Big One

Earthquakes and aftershocks are a fact of life in Japan, and since the tragedies of March 11, 2011 remain fresh in many of our memories it's easy to understand how each significant temblor can weigh on the mind of a Tokyo parent. Nearly everyone in this city has had some sort of preparedness training...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Nov 18, 2013

Doris Lessing, Nobel-winning writer, dies at 94

Doris Lessing, a Nobel Prize-winning novelist and essayist whose deeply autobiographical books and piercing social commentary made her one of the most significant and wide-ranging writers since World War II, died Sunday at her home in London. She was 94.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 17, 2013

Teenagers deserting Facebook as mom and dad join social network

Facebook made a startling admission in its earnings announcement this month: it was seeing a "decrease in daily users, specifically among teens." In other words, teenagers are still on Facebook; they're just not using it as much as they did. It was a landmark statement, since teens are the demographic...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 11, 2013

Odds of mother-child survival in north Nigeria

Nigeria is the second-largest contributor to the under-5 and maternal mortality rate in the world. And most of the deaths could be prevented with simple, low-cost interventions.
Reader Mail
Nov 6, 2013

The deadly side of job hunting

Regarding Tomoko Otake's Oct. 18 article, "Job hunt stressing students, making them suicidal (poll)": Is that true? It is beyond tragic that an estimated 149 young people in their early 20s took their own lives because of job-hunting frustrations.
Reader Mail
Nov 6, 2013

Cheap shots at T-shirt English

The other day, just before leaving for work, I was watching one of the national morning shows. They had a segment on how many Japanese wear clothing adorned with English wording, and how the wearers have no idea what it means.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices
Nov 4, 2013

No safe country for foreign women: the debate

Holly Lanasolyluna's article published Oct. 23 attracted an unprecedented number of online comments. More than 5,000 people also answered the accompanying poll about safety in Japan. Here are just some of the mails and comments.
LIFE / Language / COMMUNICATION CUES
Oct 27, 2013

How young people view the future

Ima-no seikatsu-ni manzoku, demo Nihon-no mirai-wa keizaiteki-ni fuan... Wakamono-no ōku-ga sonna ishiki-wo motte-iru koto-ga Kōseirōdōshō-no chōsa-de wakari-mashita. 3-gatsu-ni 15-sai-kara 39-sai-wo taishō-ni ishiki-chōsa-o okonai, 3-zen-nin-amari-kara kaitō-wo emashita. Ima-no seikatsu-ni 'manzoku'-to kotaeta-nowa, zentai-no yaku 63-pāsento-de, manzoku-no saidai-no riyū-wa 'kazoku, koibito, yūjin-nado-ga iru,' 'shumi-ga aru,' nado, seishintekina juujitsu-ga yaku 83-pāsento-wo shime, 'keizaiteki-ni yutaka'-no yaku 6-pāsento-wo ōkiku uwamawarimashita. 'Nihon-no mirai-wa akarui-ka'-no toi-niwa,'sō omō'-no yaku 19-pāsento-ni-taishi, 'omowanai'-wa yaku 45-pāsento. 'Omowanai' riyū-de ōkatta-nowa 'zaisei-akka-de iryō, nenkin-no kyūfu-ga sagari, zeikin-ya shakai-hokenryō-no futan-ga fueru'-deshita.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 24, 2013

'Le Fils de l'Autre'

You'd think it would be impossible to make a movie about Israeli-Palestinian issues that was not mired in political arguments. But filmmaker Lorraine Levy ("London Mon Amour") has done just that. In a simple, lovingly shot film about two families, Levy gently takes the bull by the horns and has it sit...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Oct 21, 2013

Medical bills mount for 'fired' Tokyo English teacher fighting cancer and HIV

A British language school teacher in Tokyo is struggling to pay for his chemotherapy and cancer surgery after his Waseda University-linked former employer failed to renew his contract, citing his nonattendance due to illness.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 16, 2013

'Edward II': The back story

Atheist, blasphemer, sodomite, spy, counterfeiter, lover of boys and tobacco — playwright and poet Christopher Marlowe has never been easily accepted into the comfortable canon of English literature.
EDITORIALS
Oct 13, 2013

The unraveler of colonialism

he life of Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, perhaps one of finest military strategists of the 20th century, is a reminder of how the spirit of independence can balance raw power.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 13, 2013

Medal of Honor seen as vindication for war hero

Four years after he survived a brutal firefight in a remote Afghanistan valley that claimed the lives of five Americans, retired U.S. Army Capt. William Swenson will be hailed as a hero at the White House on Tuesday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Oct 11, 2013

A really long name — as long as the Mississippi

Small islands in the Seto Inland Sea such as mine are visited periodically by health care boats with doctors, nurses and medical equipment on board to offer health exams for islanders. The boat makes the rounds of all the small islands that belong to Okayama Prefecture, making it possible for even the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Oct 8, 2013

Backlash against Miyazaki is generational

If you haven't lived in Japan, it's hard to appreciate just how beloved are anime maestro Hayao Miyazaki and his creative hub, Studio Ghibli.
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Oct 7, 2013

Fukushima, suicide and nihongo fluency: readers' mails

A grab bag of readers' mail in response to recent Community articles.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 6, 2013

The rich hit back at the poor

The economic divide between the haves and the have-nots may not be as wide in the United Kindom at it is in the United States, but it is growing dangerously.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 6, 2013

Separating Jesus from the legends

There's enough biblical scholarship about the historical Jesus to raise questions about some of the myths that have formed around Him over the past 2,000 years.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Oct 5, 2013

Downtown comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto leans from TV to film

The Downtown comedy duo — comprising Hitoshi Matsumoto and Masatoshi Hamada — are sitting on a train speeding towards Narita Airport outside Tokyo. It's not like they're going anywhere, or doing anything, even — they're just sitting there and waiting for something to happen. "Something" in this...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 5, 2013

Lahiri manages to finely balance the personal and political in second novel

The immigrant experience is always fertile ground for fiction, and Jhumpa Lahiri — born in London to Bengali parents and raised in Rhode Island — has built her literary career exploring this territory as it relates to characters of Indian origin in America, with all the attendant questions of identity,...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 5, 2013

Is the honeymoon over for young, wedded bliss?

A visitor from another planet (a unisexual planet, let's say) would speedily infer that men and women are mutually hostile creatures. Marriage would puzzle her (the feminine pronoun is purely arbitrary) — all the more so if she stayed long enough to learn the language and hear how ancient and universal...

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years