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Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Jul 19, 2008

My Life as a Gaijin, Kimono Reincarnate

My Life as a Gaijin and Kimono Reincarnate are two different blogs written by Melanie Gray Augustin. The former centers around the experiences of an Australian native living and teaching English in a foreign land, while the latter offers a taste of her artistic interests and entrepreneurial efforts...
LIFE / Language
Jul 15, 2008

Learn katakana properly or face full-frontal nudity

I have never understood why Japanese people generally assume that words in katakana, the angular syllabary, are easier for nonnative speakers to master than words in hiragana, the rounded syllabary.
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
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Jul 12, 2008

Shy Belgian boy falls for worldly Japanese girl

Marc Van Cauteren and Reiko Shinozaki met in Tokyo in 1993 after mutual friends encouraged him to call her during a business trip to Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 12, 2008

Relationship coaching over the phone

It is easy to spot Jack Ito and his wife Toshie. They're walking hand in hand around the lobby of the Prince Hotel in Shinagawa, looking as much culture-shocked as in love.
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."
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jul 6, 2008

Noguchi strives to be 1st female to win Olympic marathon twice

Mizuki Noguchi is chasing history.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jul 5, 2008

Omatsu slugs sixth-inning grand slam in Marines' rout of Hawks

CHIBA — The Chiba Lotte Marines looked relaxed during batting practice under a sunny, cloudless sky on Friday afternoon.
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2008

Only world-record-setting Japanese plane remembered

On the evening of May 15, 1938, the Koken Long Range Monoplane, known as the Kokenki in Japan, landed on a runway in Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture, to great public acclaim.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Jul 2, 2008

The right way to reconstruct rivers

It's the end of June and, after three weeks of travel, I'm back at my desk in Kurohime up here in the beautiful hills of Nagano Prefecture.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 29, 2008

Jero: U.S. enka singer takes Japanese soul by storm

Decked out in his broad-brimmed baseball cap, silver necklace and jeans, the young man stands alone on a black stage. With his voice full of emotion, he begins to sing in Japanese:
Japan Times
BUSINESS / U.S. BUSINESS SCHOOL SYMPOSIUM
Jun 21, 2008

Long-term success can hamstring a company's ability to adapt to change and ultimately survive

Adaptability is the key to survival of even big, successful companies over time, said professor Charles O'Reilly, a professor at Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Japan Times
JAPAN / RETRACING ROUTES
Jun 17, 2008

Latin love: Blame it on bossa nova

This is the first of a four-part series featuring Japanese emigration to Brazil. Wednesday marks the 100th anniversary of the first group to venture to the South American country. Lisa Ono, an early Japanese devotee of bossa nova, hopes her songs make people here aware of the wonders of the country of...
Reader Mail
Jun 15, 2008

Adaptation of Japanese, Chinese

I agree with Frank Ching's view in his June 5 article, "Quake warms Japan-China ties," that the people of Japan and China have to change and adapt to new circumstances.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 12, 2008

Rethinking what lies beneath the folds

With its smooth curves, honeycomb fabric and splashes of gold glitter, the apparently abstract sculpture takes center stage in the gallery.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 8, 2008

Giants sweep Marines

The Yomiuri Giants haven't spent too much time at .500 this season.
BUSINESS / UK JOURNALIST SYMPOSIUM
Jun 5, 2008

National pride comes before investment fall

Foreign investments have been a major part of the British economic revival over the past few decades, bringing new capital, ideas and talent to the nation, British journalists told the May 23 symposium.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 5, 2008

The trashy art of Asian diplomacy

When curator Mizuki Takahashi was selecting artists for the Japan Foundation-sponsored exhibition "Kita! Japanese Artists Meet Indonesia," held earlier this year in Indonesia, she deliberately chose ones "capable of involving local people and working in local environments."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 30, 2008

'The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian'

What's the use of a fairyland in which trees don't dance, animals don't talk and one's once majestic castle has fallen into ruins? Returning to the world of Narnia, the Pevensie brothers, Peter (William Moseley) and Edmund (Skandar Keynes), look thoroughly petulant if not downright pissed off, in the...
LIFE / Language
May 27, 2008

Mastery of kanji takes time to build, just like Rome

If you want yuyujiteki no seikatsu wo suru, to live the life of Riley, in Japan, then you should learn as many four-kanji expresssions as you can. (Yuyujiteki implies living in unsurpassed comfort for the rest of your days, an admirable goal if there ever was one.)
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
May 26, 2008

In a world lacking heroes against poverty and inflation, Don Quixote, where are you?

As surely as night follows day, credit crunches are followed by recessions, if not great depressions. Whether we are on the verge of a 21st century version of the 1930s, however, still remains to be seen.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
May 25, 2008

Nishioka scores winning run on Imae's 'sayonara' sac fly

CHIBA — A stiff neck kept Tsuyoshi Nishioka from starting in the Chiba Lotte Marines' game against the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 25, 2008

Children following their ambitions, cartoonists discussion, nature-speciality

One of the most popular segments on the Saturday morning variety show "Shittoko!" profiles children who are working hard to fulfill individual dreams. In order to celebrate 100 segments on the show, TBS will air a special two-hour program, "Kodomo no Chikara wa Mugendai (The Power of Children is Unlimited)"...
Japan Times
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 25, 2008

Morozov blames agent for breakup with Takahashi

When you have been in the business as long as I have, you develop a kind of sixth sense about when something is not right.
LIFE / Language
May 20, 2008

Wielding four-kanji phrases surest way to fluency

You may give yourself heart and soul to something, being focused and determined. Yet, you fail and you have no one to blame but yourself. Well, perhaps it's no consolation, but you can at least learn how to express what happened to you in Japanese.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 17, 2008

Buddha's birthday prompts call to temple

May 12 was Buddha's birthday. Don't tell me you forgot about it! You didn't even send a card? How about a gift? Well, don't feel too bad. I forgot about it too. But luckily, on the morning of the 12th, an announcement came over the loudspeaker saying "Attention Shiraishi Island residents, today is Buddha's...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 16, 2008

R&B queen Double adds jewel to crown

Staying at the top of the game after 10 years is no mean feat in Japan's fickle music business. As one of the first artists to bring American-style R&B to these shores, Double's achievements are doubly impressive. And now she's celebrating her first decade with an album of collaborations with Japanese...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 13, 2008

Hopes of silence in Tokyo undergo brutal assault

The concept of chinmoku wa kin (silence is golden) isn't a Tokyo thing. Like a lot of other nifty modernities, such as buttered pancakes and the subway system, it was imported into Japan and adopted into city living when the country opened up to the West in the late 19th century.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 13, 2008

Team Japan faces huge hurdles on road to Homeless World Cup

Japan's collective image of homelessness is a fairly bleak one: Men in unwashed clothing, faces devoid of expression, hauling armfuls of flattened cardboard that will be their resting place for the night; rows of depressingly permanent-looking blue tarp huts in parks and beneath bridges, tucked out of...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 10, 2008

Cure for what ails you

My hair is rife with dandruff.

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers