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JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Feb 15, 2009

Anti-Japanese Bills, military budget eases unemployment, foreigners shun ski fields and socialists drop class struggle

100 YEARS AGO
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 15, 2009

Do Japanese yet realize that culture's acquired, not in the blood?

There's no doubt that Japanese people's attitudes toward foreigners, and the ways they relate to them, have changed markedly in the 40-odd years since I first arrived here. But is this change we can believe in?
Japan Times
Rugby
Feb 9, 2009

Scandal clouds Toshiba's victory in Microsoft Cup

The Toshiba Brave Lupus are back on top of Japanese rugby, even as scandal looms on the horizon.
JAPAN
Feb 6, 2009

'Anime,' 'manga' grab spotlight at major exhibition

At the Japan Media Arts Festival, prepare to jet into the sky like Superman and dance with speakers blasting at your hips, as the nation's largest showcase of cutting-edge "anime," "manga" and high-tech arts gets more interactive.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 6, 2009

A risky gift of myth for the audience's soul

It would be easy to sensationalize the work of Marie Chouinard, as many other critics have, as purely shock tactics. Her early solo work as dancer and performance artist in the late 1970s and early '80s was overshadowed by press coverage of certain risque incidents, including auctioning herself off to...
CULTURE / Art
Jan 30, 2009

Drama outsider takes a step into the theater

Kuro Tanino leaped into the spotlight in November 2007 with a production of Henrik Ibsen's tragicomedy "The Wild Duck" that was almost sold out for a month at Theater 1010 in Tokyo's Kitasenju.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 30, 2009

A whale of a shortsighted subsidy program

BEPPU, Oita Pref. — After stepping off the train and onto the platform at Ogata station, in the Tosa area of Kochi Prefecture, Shikoku, travelers are greeted by a sign with two whales: "Welcome to Ogata, where the whales also greet you."
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2009

Japan hopes new U.S. leader can demonstrate alliance is still vital

Sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama faces high expectations not only at home, but also from close ally Japan, as he grapples with an unprecedented array of domestic and foreign policy issues.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 21, 2009

The key words that kept Japan abuzz in 2008

Last October, publisher Jiyu Kokuminsha released the 61st edition of its "Gendai Yogo no Kiso Chishiki (Encyclopedia of Contemporary Words)" — a massive 1,614-page tome that retails for just ¥2,980. I have a facsimile copy of the book's first edition, launched on Oct. 10, 1948. In the introduction,...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 21, 2009

The key words that kept Japan abuzz in 2008

Last October, publisher Jiyu Kokuminsha released the 61st edition of its "Gendai Yogo no Kiso Chishiki (Encyclopedia of Contemporary Words)" — a massive 1,614-page tome that retails for just ¥2,980. I have a facsimile copy of the book's first edition, launched on Oct. 10, 1948. In the introduction,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 20, 2009

Coordinate a global stimulus for this crisis

GENEVA — As recession spreads around the world, the global production networks that arose with the globalization of the world economy have become sources of cutbacks and job losses. Postponing purchases of new winter coats in the United States means job losses in Poland or China. These losses then...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jan 20, 2009

Missionary devotes lifework to helping Tokyo homeless

Jean Le Beau says his decision to pursue a life dedicated to the benefit of others was inspired in high school when he read the story of Father Damien, a 19th-century Roman Catholic missionary from Belgium who spent his life caring for lepers cast out of normal society and quarantined on the Hawaiian...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 11, 2009

Learning life lessons in 83 days of death

A 35-year-old-man lies unconscious in a University of Tokyo Hospital intensive-care unit. He has been irradiated. Losing up to 20 liters of body fluids per day, the skin on half of his body is blackened, blistered, and falling off, his internal organs have failed, he is being kept alive by machines....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 6, 2009

Otaru ruling beats 'mob rule'

Paul de Vries' treatise on group accountability in Japanese society ("Back to the baths: Otaru revisited," Zeit Gist, Dec. 2) offered a new take on the now familiar story of the court case between Japan's naturalized enfant terrible, Debito Arudou, and the managers of the Yunohana public bath in Otaru,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jan 6, 2009

Academic career in Japan served as vital lesson in culture, says dean

Bruce Stronach, current dean of the Japan campus of Temple University, has a career in academia that spans two countries and over three decades. Sixteen of those years were spent with schools in Japan and have taught him much about Japanese society.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 1, 2009

Words as images

On a single white sheet, the kanji for "snow" — yuki — printed in black, is repeated exactly 1,352 times in a symmetrical grid formation. A 1970 work by Niikuni Seiichi, "flowery snow" (1970) is at once calligraphy, poem and picture. In the Chinese literati tradition — which was influential on...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2008

Deng legacy after 30 years

SINGAPORE — The approaching close of 2008 should remind us of the day 30 years ago that marked the onset of a chain of events that was to alter the course of Asian — and human — history.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2008

Will Europe rise to the Obama opportunity?

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Will 2009 and the beginning of Barack Obama's U.S. presidency mark the beginning of a new era in trans-Atlantic relations, or will the old divisions linger, nurtured by the depth and gravity of the economic crisis? Will the crisis lead to nationalistic and selfish attitudes on both...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 26, 2008

A turbulent 12 months

Like pretty much everything these days, the fortunes of the music business in 2008 were mainly tied to the global economy. CD sales have long been dropping steadily, mostly due to the steady increase in illegal downloading, but until this year, top artists could still count on fairly decent sales, and...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 26, 2008

Kicking back in Kurohime

A school friend of mine did his in Nagoya. An American I met the other day did hers somewhere in Kyushu. I was sent to central Hokkaido, where I did my one-month home stay in a tiny town called Otofukecho. I occasionally check the map to make sure it's still there. But, I have to admit, I've never been...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 18, 2008

The subcontinent shows its heart

Over the last decade or so, India has gone through unprecedented change, from largely missing out on the advances of the 20th century to rapidly becoming a leader of those in the 21st. But while the fragmented media coverage of the country hails its successful IT and biotechnology industries, it also...
BUSINESS
Dec 14, 2008

Global turmoil trumps trio's gripes

FUKUOKA — The global economic slump transcended historical and territorial rows in East Asia as Japan, China and South Korea met Saturday for their first trilateral summit and discussed ways to fight the financial meltdown.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Dec 11, 2008

Mao faces big challenge from Kim at star-studded Grand Prix Final

Mao Asada silenced her critics — at least temporarily — with her decisive victory in the NHK Trophy on Nov. 29.
COMMENTARY
Dec 5, 2008

Dissing those who give Dalai Lama an ear

HONG KONG — The decision by China to cancel, or at least postpone, a summit meeting with the European Union scheduled this week in Lyon, France, is unprecedented and shows the extent of its unhappiness with the Europeans in general and with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, in particular.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 2, 2008

End the violence against women and girls

NEW YORK — The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women was commemorated Nov. 25, and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is spearheading a global campaign, "UNiTE to end violence against women."
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Dec 1, 2008

Aso reveals more than wealth gap with kanji-reading blunders

So now we know. Aso the "manga" man cannot read Japanese. At least not when it is written in kanji. The newspapers have been full of revelations these past few weeks about Prime Minister Taro Aso's slipups in the art of kanji deciphering.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 30, 2008

Drawing new life out of an old story

RED COLORED ELEGY by Seiichi Hayashi, translated by Taro Nettleton. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 235 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Here's a rough synopsis of the plot of Seiichi Hayashi's "Red Colored Elegy": A young couple, committed to their art, struggle to keep themselves, their art, and their love alive....
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Nov 28, 2008

Where to view Christmas lights in and around Tokyo

It's that time of year again when the streets are filled with red and green decorations bathed in colorful illuminations. Department stores and other shops have prepared events for holiday shoppers, and it seems like the city is throbbing with excitement for the Christmas season. Here are some terrific...

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.