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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Feb 24, 2009

The half, bi or double debate

Following are some of the responses The Japan Times received on the issues raised in Kristy Kosaka's Jan. 27 Zeit Gist article headlined ""Half, bi or double: one family's trouble":
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Feb 21, 2009

Working couple balances family, careers

Emi Takei-Loubaresse could not have advanced in her career without the support of her husband, Jerome Loubaresse, 43, a freelance translator who also looks after their 4-year-old daughter, Mio, and is the family's main cook.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 20, 2009

Funereal flick out to reap Japan an Oscar

The Japanese film industry now turns out about 400 titles annually, but in a given decade only a few Japanese filmmakers win major international awards — including the biggest of all: the Oscars.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Feb 15, 2009

Amazing feats on the hoof

As I joined lines of people shuffling into a covered arena in Kiba, eastern Tokyo, one night recently, the scent of the air became distinctly more rural than urban.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 12, 2009

Japan as the catalyst for improving global public health

What place should Japan occupy in the world? This existential question has troubled Japan's leaders for the past two decades. Military leadership is restricted by the Constitution. Economic might has lost its glimmer. Cultural influence, epitomized by "cool Japan," has yet to take center stage.
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 8, 2009

Japan charts a new course on refugees

Beginning in 2010, Japan will inaugurate a three-year pilot program to accept 30 refugees a year from camps nestled along the remote border between Thailand and Burma.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 7, 2009

Stripped of stereotypes

If you ever have the chance to meet Lu Nagata, you will never forget her style and determination.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Jan 17, 2009

Embroidery center gives women fabric for a future

For bank manager Miki Yoshida, her desire to do volunteer work in rural India started from an unlikely inspiration on an American expressway.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 16, 2009

'Zen'

I was one of those hippies who got into things Japanese via Zen back in the 1970s. I spent two years practicing zazen in Michigan and I had a first-row seat when Alan Watts — that early explainer of Zen to the West — spoke on campus. I even taped a photo of Shunryu Suzuki, the author of "Zen Mind,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 26, 2008

'Paris'/'Funny Games'

Director Cedric Klapisch's breakthrough film was 1996's "Chacun Cherche Son Chat" ("When The Cat's Away"), a documentary-like trifle about a lost cat that nevertheless seemed to say something essential about life in the anonymity of a big city. Klapisch set his film in Paris' 11th arrondisement, and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 19, 2008

'Lars and the Real Girl'

If 27-year-old Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling) in "Lars and the Real Girl" had lived in another community, perhaps life would have been easier for him. As it is, the citizens of a friendly little town located in the American Midwest look upon Lars with protective tenderness.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 16, 2008

Young 'Zainichi' Koreans look beyond Chongryon ideology

Imagine attending school with portraits of the late North Korean dictator, Kim Il Sung, and current leader Kim Jong Il hanging on the classroom walls. This is a reality at schools operated by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Dec 12, 2008

Marriage is no bed of roses

This is great news for all those who have despaired at the tiny portion of straightforward, high-quality, "grownup" stage entertainment that gets served up to theatergoers in Japan — as opposed to all those dollops of third-rate faux Broadway and facile star vehicles.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Dec 10, 2008

Sony brings home the convenience of FeliCa

Smart money: Japan's old-fashioned notions about money are evaporating one innovation at a time. Although people are getting used to carrying around cash that they can't see, managing those funds often involves a trip to a convenience store or a bank. Sony Corp. will relieve some of that hassle next...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 9, 2008

At the heart of Japan rests the ‘reverent middle'

Elsewhere in the world, the heart lies pretty much in its correct anatomical place. But in Japan, it has traditionally been located mid-torso, or more precisely in the hara(腹, belly). For the Japanese, the belly has always been the vessel of emotions. It's where rage festers, love burns or fades away;...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 7, 2008

Graduates' security goes to pot

Last week, a 25-year-old University of Tokyo graduate was arrested for allegedly posting death threats on his blog. The police say that the man, who has been unemployed since graduating from Japan's most prestigious university, had written that he would kill members of the education ministry for misleading...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Nov 23, 2008

Training regime for keirin draws blood, sweat, sometimes tears

When the teenagers at the Japan Bicycle Racing School in Shuzenji, Shizuoka Prefecture, rise at 6.30 a.m. each day, they always have an appetite. The training here is tough, a regimen of cycling, studying, chores and more cycling, so a big breakfast is a must.
BASKETBALL / INSIDE LOOK
Nov 22, 2008

Matsui struggles as season begins

NEW YORK — Editor's note: Entering this weekend, Columbia University men's basketball team is 1-1. The Lions defeated Fordham University 65-62 on Nov. 14 and lost a 71-50 contest to Seton Hall University on Nov. 16.)
JAPAN
Nov 20, 2008

Eileen Kato, special adviser to Emperor, 'waka' translator, dies at 76

Eileen Kato, who died Aug. 30 at the age of 76, was one of the most remarkable Irish women of her generation. Kato was born in Bangor Erris, County Mayo, in Ireland in 1932.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 13, 2008

Picasso: a man of many passions and muses

It's been said that Picasso changed style whenever he changed lovers. That may be an exaggeration, but when viewing the evolution of Picasso's art, it's easy to imagine the upheavals in his private life. Married twice and with four children by three women, the artist's lovers — Fernande Olivier, Olga...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 11, 2008

Exec finds room to grow in NGO

Microsoft executive John Wood has made a name for himself as the founder of nongovernmental organization Room to Read, which has built more than 5,600 libraries in developing countries. Less well known is his right-hand woman, Erin Keown Ganju, who has been flying around, working closely with local staff...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 9, 2008

What a world of difference that one momentous day could make

The stunning victory of Barack Obama in last Tuesday's election is a cause of great joy not only for Americans but for people all over the world.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 31, 2008

'Boy A'

When a 10-year-old commits a horrendous crime, whose fault is it? "Boy A" addresses the question but offers no easy answer in this painful portrayal of the repercussions of a childhood gone terribly awry.
Reader Mail
Oct 30, 2008

Internet can save people

Regarding Jun Numayama's Oct. 19 letter, "Internet crisis of communication": Numayama says the Internet worsens young people's ability to communicate, and that this is connected with loneliness in real life and suicide. I disagree. I think the Internet is saving young people. Japanese people are shy....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 16, 2008

Muslim-Hindu relations explored in PIFF selections

In terms of box office, India has always been the best market for movies, though with its plethora of languages and regional tastes in entertainment, the country has been impervious to imports. In recent months, however, there have been deals struck between Hollywood and Bollywood that allow for movement...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 3, 2008

'Goya's Ghosts'

Milos Foreman's "Goya's Ghosts" significantly lowers the bar of the creative biography, a bar that Foreman himself had raised to unprecedented loftiness in "Amadeus." It's still the one film whose robe most aspire to touch, even fleetingly, before falling to the knees in abject worship.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 27, 2008

Ties that bond though cultures apart

With a wry but happy smile, Jennifer Rose DiLaura recalls the day she and her husband first met their daughter, adopted from China.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / IN BLOOM
Sep 17, 2008

Fig

Across the sea a land there is,Where, if fate will, men may have bliss, For it is fair as any land: There hath the reaper a full hand, While in the orchard hangs aloft The purple fig, a-growing soft.

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