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JAPAN
Aug 14, 2008

CD featuring Lauper, journalist recalls zoo animals killed in war

Music label Epic Records Japan Inc. on Wednesday released a CD in which American singer Cyndi Lauper and a Japanese journalist recite a well-known story from the book "Faithful Elephants" about zookeepers who had to kill zoo animals during the war.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Aug 13, 2008

Collared Scops Owl

Japanese name: Ookonohazuku
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 8, 2008

Atami's Kiunkaku ryokan: The art of a great garden

You enter Kiunkaku through a beautiful, tile-roofed wooden gate flanked by tall trees, reminiscent of some temple gates, which gives a hint of the purpose:historical grandeur you will find within.
BUSINESS
Aug 6, 2008

Nissan cars to push back against speeders

Nissan Motor Co. will soon sell cars with accelerators that push back when drivers try to put the pedal to the metal. It has also developed a test model packed with added sensor technology to avoid collisions.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 3, 2008

The obsession over those dumbed down cute mascots

Japan is overrun with cute mascots. They represent everything from chain stores to police departments, and for the past decade or so there has been a marked increase in the popularity of one species of mascot called "yuru-kyara." The second half of this word stands for "character," while "yuru" is from...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Aug 3, 2008

Respects paid to Allied soldiers in Yokohama who died in Japan

YOKOHAMA — More than 100 people gathered in Yokohama Commonwealth War Cemetery on Saturday to remember the importance of peace as they paid respects to soldiers from the British Commonwealth and other Allied nations who died in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 1, 2008

'Yami no Kodomotachi'

In our anything-goes age, pedophilia remains one subject that makes everyone from film industry executives to ordinary fans nervous, to put it mildly. In "Lolita," Stanley Kubrick made the title character older than the 12-year-old in Vladimir Nabokov's notorious novel, while suggesting the sex rather...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / GRAND OLD HOTELS
Aug 1, 2008

Romancing the West: Kamakura's charming boutique hotel

The symmetrical beauty of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, the meditative colossus of Kotokuin, and the Zen-inspired splendors of Kenchoji and Enkakuji may win Kamakura inscription on the World Heritage List. Comparatively unknown are its Western-style buildings constructed after Kamakura became accessible...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 1, 2008

Suzuran: Chilling with chuka soba

Japan's infatuation with ramen can seem bewildering to the uninitiated. When you see lines around the block outside nondescript noodle joints in remote locations, with waits of up to an hour, it's hard not think the obsession is verging on the pathological.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 27, 2008

Cipangu's landlocked isles

Thirteenth-century Japan has this in common with early 19th-century Japan: a land culture paying scant heed to the sea until the sea, as though in outrage, rises up and compels attention.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 27, 2008

Was the 'Japanese Renaissance' lost at sea?

Last week, Japan celebrated Umi no Hi (Marine Day). First observed as a national holiday in 1996, Marine Day marks the anniversary of the return of Emperor Meiji from a boat trip to Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido on July 20, 1876.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 25, 2008

Photographer finds affection in the Arctic

Love's warmth can be found in the coldest of places — and among the wildest of creatures.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Jul 25, 2008

Spice up your summer menu

Spice up your summer menu The Hotel New Grand in Yokohama is holding a Summer Curry Fair at the casual eatery The Cafe, facing Yokohama's famous Yamashita Park sightseeing spot.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 25, 2008

Kyoto's geisha: Behind the sliding door

A waitress took our drink orders and we waited, my anticipation building by the moment. Suddenly the door slid open and there knelt Ms. Ichimame, our maiko entertainer for the evening. She bowed deeply and introduced herself, smiling slightly.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 24, 2008

Bettye LaVette brings her triumphant soul battle to Fuji

Few artists could have struggled through a career as thoroughly frustrating as that of American soul singer Bettye LaVette and still continue to display the strength and good humor that she does.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 24, 2008

Julian Opie: Great rooms, blank faces

Julian Opie's work is about signals. In his portraits, a pair of dots signals the eyes, a single line signals the mouth — his imagery is a distillation of reality that presents you only with the essential elements needed for your brain to fill in the rest.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Jul 20, 2008

Rethinking the tiniest class of car

They are Japanese cultural icons, easily recognizable by their diminutive size and yellow license plates. But unlike their even smaller anime cousins, such as Pokemon, kei-jidosha (subcompact cars) have remained a completely domestic phenomenon.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2008

The rising middle classes want their wheels

BEIJING — W hat becomes immediately apparent on entering the 10th annual Beijing car show is the emotional intensity with which China has thrown itself into its greatest consumerist passion to date: the first throes of an affair with the car. The entire nation, it turns out, is in love with them, is...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jul 16, 2008

Glasses make movies a personal experience

Eyes front: Video may have killed the radio star, as the song says, but television has only bruised the movie screen, despite 70 years of trying to offer an experience to rival the cinema experience. Now cell phones and other mobile devices are competing with television.
COMMUNITY
Jul 15, 2008

Lawmaker takes 9/11 doubts global: readers' responses

A number of readers wrote to the Community Page in response to John Spiri's June 17 Zeit Gist article on Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker Yukihisa Fujita. Following is a selection of the responses.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 15, 2008

Human rights — strictly personal, strictly Japanese?

Go figure. Just a few weeks after I wrote about how Japanese courts try to avoid doing anything dramatic, on June 4 the Supreme Court ruled that a section of the Nationality Law was unconstitutional. Such rulings being so rare, I steeled myself for a big helping of highfalutin' Japanese legalese and...
Japan Times
Features
Jul 13, 2008

Japan's culture policy lingers in limbo

It's a fact that has long puzzled devotees and plain old tourists alike. Japan's manga and anime arts have been wowing the world for more than a decade, and yet the national government still hasn't got around to setting up a proper museum for their enjoyment, preservation and study.
BUSINESS
Jul 12, 2008

Apple iPhone rings up sales in Tokyo debut

Hundreds of gadget lovers lined up Friday outside stores in Tokyo for the iPhone's Japan debut, as analysts closely watch whether the device will catch on among consumers other than Apple fans.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 11, 2008

Scott Murphy

"I didn't know anything about Japanese, or Japan at all, and I spoke English on stage and no one understood what I was saying."
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 9, 2008

Nature stifling wind power in Japan

CHOSHI, Chiba Pref. — About a 2 1/2-hour drive east of central Tokyo, on the edge of the Kanto plain, stands one of the closest wind farms to the capital, whirring away as it generates up to 25,500 kw of clean electricity.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami