Search - life

 
 
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 28, 2006

Celebrating civilizations

The Islamic world is home to one of the richest and most important musical traditions on Earth. It doesn't hurt that it also spans an incredibly vast area, stretching west to Morocco and east as far as Indonesia, and that it contains an intricate tapestry of races, languages and cultures, or that it...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 19, 2006

End of the Lion

The mythmaker Jim Frederick TIME Magazine The most difficult aspect of reporting on Koizumi was confronting the fixed, immutable and monolithic "Koizumi Myth." What started as a campaign plank -- "Koizumi is a reformer and a rebel who is destroying the LDP and reinvigorating Japan" -- somehow became...
EDITORIALS
Sep 17, 2006

Have a nice 'sol'

It's that time again. Every so often, life on our planet just seems so bleak there's nowhere to look but out. That was certainly the case this past week. Not only did the usual whack-a-mole wars keep flaring and simmering, even good things had their dark sides. Here in Japan, the welcome birth of a prince...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2006

Imperial rivalries are grist for media mill

Harumi Kobayashi has been an enthusiastic admirer of the Imperial family for more than a decade. She has followed the royals around the country, greeted them and taken their pictures. In fact, she has become such a familiar face at Imperial events that some members of the family respond specifically...
Japan Times
LIFE / DISABILITY IN JAPAN
Aug 27, 2006

Unseen sufferers take self-help route

This story is part of a package on "Disability in Japan". The introduction is here.
EDITORIALS
Aug 22, 2006

The possibility of work at any age

Job opportunities for young people, women and elderly people are the main topic of this year's government white paper on people's lifestyles. Many young people can't seem to get the jobs they really want. Women are experiencing a hard time finding jobs after giving birth or after raising their children....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 19, 2006

Bon stories: fire heads and stuffed turtles

"Ne, ne, Amy-chan . . ." Kio-chan is calling to me from across the Moooo! Bar. "Man-chan wa ne . . ." he starts to tell me a story about his best friend, 80-year-old Man-chan, who is sitting next to him. The only thing he likes more than Man-chan is telling stories about him. "You should see Man-chan's...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 17, 2006

Daughters also unable to reach Asahara

When she was finally allowed to visit her father, she found him in a wheelchair, wearing a diaper. A prison guard took notes throughout the 30-minute encounter, which took place in a small, barren room, through a plate of thick, transparent plastic. It was, for her, a dream come true, but yet a nightmare....
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 15, 2006

Meet the chic sikh

Waris Ahluwalia has some good anecdotes. Like the one where Willem Dafoe asks him if it's OK to give Spike Lee his number, and a couple of hours later he gets a call and the voice at the other end of the line says "Hey Waris, it's Spike Lee," and asks him to audition for his upcoming blockbuster bank...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 10, 2006

A loving tribute at the Watari-um for a close friend

"Bye-Bye, Nam June Paik," the current exhibition at the Watari-Um Museum of Contemporary Art, is a loving tribute to an artist who has always been close to that Aoyama art space's heart.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 8, 2006

Osim is next to continue 'sports bully' tradition

In the wake of Japan's disastrous World Cup campaign, the mood in the country has swung quickly from darkly pessimistic to remarkably upbeat. Much of it has to do with the appointment of the new national team coach, Ivica Osim.
JAPAN
Jul 30, 2006

Japan Post firms plan expansion after privatization

The bank and the insurance company to be created through postal privatization next year will try to expand their operations to match those of their private-sector rivals, informed sources have said.
CULTURE / Music
Jul 20, 2006

Senegal is calling

Time and again Western journalists ask superstar Senegalese pop singer Youssou N'Dour, arguably the most successful African musician in history, the same question: Why, despite selling hundreds of thousands of records in the West and collaborating with artists such as Peter Gabriel, Sting, Wyclef Jean...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 12, 2006

Guinea pigs hail 'mystical experience'

What was the most spiritually meaningful moment in your life?
COMMENTARY
Jul 8, 2006

Britain soars without euro

LONDON -- Britain now receives more inward investment than any other country in the world. So says the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) based in Paris.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jul 2, 2006

Tamiyo Kusakari: Dancing with body and soul

Tamiyo Kusakari has been on her toes since the age of 8. Japan's most treasured ballerina virtually grew up in her toe shoes, and spent her youth dancing on one stage after another. Now, at the age of 41, she continues to enthrall legions of fans with the skill and eloquence of her craft.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 29, 2006

"Strange Kinoko, Chie Ito Solo Performance -- I Will Dive In"

Theatre Tram July 6-9, 7:30 p.m. with 3 p.m. matinees on Sat. & Sun.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 29, 2006

Japanese artists meet Duchamp's 'bride'

Given Marcel Duchamp's pivotal role in the history of modern art, you could say that connections could be drawn between his work and that of any other artist. In Japan, his controversial ideas have definitely had a strong influence on modern art, both before and since World War II.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 22, 2006

Bringing "Lepage magic" to Tokyo

Last year, to mark the bicentennial of the birth of author Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75), Denmark held a yearlong celebration titled "Andersen Project 2005." Part of the project was a special commission to French-Canadian dramatist Robert Lepage to create a play commemorating the author's life and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 16, 2006

Having a laugh with Ryuichi Hiroki

A veteran director of "pink" movies, Ryuichi Hiroki won critical acclaim for the 1994 youth drama "800 (800 -- Two Lap Runner)," his breakthrough into straight films. He first collaborated with Shinobu Terajima -- star of his new movie "Yawarakai Seikatsu -- in "Vibrator," a romantic road movie that...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 13, 2006

Bando POW camp: chivalry's last bastion

NARUTO, Tokushima Pref. — At 2:30 p.m. on Aug. 23, 1914, despite opposition among many pro-German military officers and politicians, Japan honored a 1902 treaty with Britain and declared war on Imperial Germany.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jun 13, 2006

Suzue Akashi

Suzue Akashi, 74, is a folk musician who plays traditional Japanese songs on shamisen with taiko drum accompaniment. Her insatiable desire to learn took her from a Tokyo dairy to the education center at Haneda Air Force Base, to university in Tennessee and work in Texas during the 1950s. Back in Japan,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 4, 2006

How shall we dance?

This summer, the movie that shot Johnny Depp to Hollywood stardom, Tim Burton's 1990 fantasy "Edward Scissorhands," comes to Japan as a live dance stage created and directed by Matthew Bourne.
COMMUNITY
May 27, 2006

With the lightest touch, the most powerful healing

Craniosacral therapist Lionel Gougne lays his hands palm down over my feet with the lightest touch imaginable. He asks me to relax, and so I do, stretch out fully clothed, warm and comfortable on a couch seven floors above Shibuya on a cold damp spring morning.
JAPAN
May 24, 2006

Man found guilty in '63 murder case seeks retrial

, convicted in the infamous Sayama Incident murder case, faces reporters in Tokyo while his lawyer holds up evidence of his handwriting that they say proves his innocence.
CULTURE / Books
May 21, 2006

The search for a legendary sword

MISHIMA'S SWORD: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend, by Christopher Ross. London: Fourth Estate-HarperCollins, 262 pp., £14.99 (cloth). On Nov. 25, 1970, Yukio Mishima committed seppuku or, to employ the term he preferred, hara-kiri. He did so with a great deal of fanfare (he had hoped to have the...
EDITORIALS
May 14, 2006

Golden lesson in priorities

Australia's opposition leader, Kim Beazley, made a thought-provoking remark last week after two miners were rescued in spectacular fashion from a partially collapsed gold mine in the southern Australian state of Tasmania. "No amount of gold is worth an Australian life," Mr. Beazley was reported as saying....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 14, 2006

Bewitching tales of when a foreign woman takes a Japanese man

Though it boasts one of the highest living standards in the world and a crime rate that is low compared to other developed countries, many of its citizens believe that Japan is a very difficult place to live for non-Japanese. The most commonly held reason for this belief is that the language and social...

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