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CULTURE / Books
Jun 27, 2010

Indomitable Karen of Burma

This is an impassioned book, the story of an insurgency in Burma drawn from interviews with those who experienced it. The narrative tells how the writer, Mac McClelland, traveled to Thailand to work as a volunteer with a group called Burma Action, and stayed for several weeks, teaching English.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 27, 2010

Must Hello Kitty really die?

"I love Cantonese," proclaims Fiona Yu. "I can express myself at a whole new level of crudeness and vulgarity that I can't with English."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 27, 2010

The guy just needs a home

It's difficult to decide which spelling to use. In Japan, the name of North Korea's striker at the World Cup in South Africa is usually rendered as Chong Tese. North Korea spells it Jong Tae Se, but in those instances where South Korea reports on the 26-year-old soccer player, it's Jeong Dae Se or Jung...
COMMENTARY
Jun 25, 2010

Western media play along in the disinformation game

Are they being manipulated by governments? Or, are they just plain lazy, happy to go along with what everyone else is saying and what readers want to believe without wanting to look too closely into relevant background?
COMMENTARY
Jun 23, 2010

America's China policy flop

Success breeds confidence, and rapid success spawns arrogance. That, in a nutshell, is the China problem facing Asian states and the West. But no country faces a bigger dilemma on China than the United States because the present American policy simply isn't advancing its objectives.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 23, 2010

A hundred Weltpolitiks

NEW DELHI — Mao Zedong once famously called for the Chinese to "let a hundred flowers bloom." Soon, however, he was recoiling from what he saw as a chaos of competing ideas. Today, the world seems to be entering a period when, if not a hundred, at least a dozen varieties of Weltpolitik are being pursued...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 22, 2010

NTT communication giant, answerable to state, politics

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., the nation's biggest phone company, holds a unique place in corporate Japan.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 20, 2010

Is Japan going loopy in a world so alien

"Loopy," "hapless," "embarrassing" — such is the world's, and Japan's, verdict on the short unhappy prime ministership of Yukio Hatoyama. In retrospect, this 21st-century Japanese Don Quixote seems to have been doomed to failure from the start. What he attempted was honorable, but impossible. What...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jun 20, 2010

Flying high with alluring aosagi

A large dark shape flaps in a leisurely fashion on deeply bowed wings across a dark gray sky. It looks somehow lumpy, with very broad, rounded tips to its arched wings — and at a distance it appears like a large black "M," but with long outstretched legs, etched on the glowering clouds.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 20, 2010

I left my bloody heart in London

A complicated tale, simply and well told, "King Death" is Toby Litt's 12th work of fiction, the "K" in his alphabetic collection and the second of his novels to be set mostly in a hospital.
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Jun 19, 2010

Why can't sumo ever seem to get a break?

Sumo is once again under attack in the domestic media — this time on the back of twin allegations. First of all, there's the one involving seniors in the sport, known as oyakata, rubbing shoulders with the Japanese underworld and supplying choice tickets to their contacts at times. The other scandal...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 18, 2010

Lack of funds fail to stop Tokyo's young theater brigade

As a promising playwright, director and actor, 31-year-old Junichi Hirota highlights a cruel fact running through Japan's theater world — namely that once technicians such as lighting engineers, sound people and set-builders are paid from box-office profits, there's often little or nothing left for...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jun 16, 2010

Tokyo-based Mod forges a path for DIY publishing

The arrival of Apple's iPad at the end of last month sent shock waves through Japan's publishing industry. In the ensuing 2 1/2 weeks, dozens of publishers have announced plans to digitize magazine and other content, while others have set up think tanks to ponder their changed marketplace. Even the National...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 15, 2010

A light of hope for abused children

In the dock, Katsuyuki Okuno cut a strange figure as he listened baby-faced, chubby, graying, frightened and seemingly unable to understand what he had done.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 13, 2010

Sweeping tale of love, murder and guilt in old Nagasaki

"Black Swan Green," David Mitchell's fourth novel concerning a year in the life of 13-year-old Jason Taylor, reads like a first novel with its autobiographical backdrop and references to 1980s British pop culture, advertisements and brands. "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" returns Mitchell to...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 10, 2010

Can Kan revive Japan?

HONG KONG — Naoto Kan, Japan's new prime minister, pledged to make the country's sickly economy his first priority and to pull Japan from its "quagmire of an ever- bulging debt." But that is easier said than done. It is not merely a question of when to stop the government stimulus and where to put...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 8, 2010

It'd be wise to think about Japan

HONG KONG — U.S. President Barack Obama has so many things on his plate — including a spreading oil spill that threatens America's fisheries and wildlife, Democratic Party prospects in the midterm elections, the jobless recovery, repercussions of the financial crisis, relentless war in Afghanistan,...
COMMENTARY
Jun 6, 2010

Decks are stacked against China keeping its stake in Korea game

KOREAN DEMILITARIZED ZONE — One of the last Cold War relics, the Demilitarized Zone that cuts the Korean Peninsula in half, is the world's most fortified frontier. Although this division has prevailed for almost six decades, it is unthinkable that it can continue indefinitely, despite renewed inter-Korean...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 6, 2010

Chaos will reign if hidden Buddhas die

"Hidden Buddhas," or hibutsu, are Buddhist statues that are kept out of sight, though only a few are kept so permanently. Most are put on display for worshippers at regular intervals: once or twice a year, once every several years, once every 33 or 66 years.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 1, 2010

Gunma city does battle with beards

I would like to draw readers' attention to the outstanding work of the municipal government of Isesaki, Gunma Prefecture. After receiving complaints that citizens find bearded men unpleasant, Isesaki — just as all levels of Japanese government often do — took decisive action to address an important...
COMMENTARY
May 31, 2010

Internet leveling the news field

SEATTLE — The debate is no longer confined to a few academics in distant universities. It is now a mainstream topic of discussion: How will the news of the future be distributed?
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
May 30, 2010

Does democracy still count if it's conditional?

NEW YORK — With Barack Obama's military policy in the Middle East getting murkier by the day, his predecessor George W. Bush's stated goal of democratizing the region through violence has to be judged to have failed. The thought prompts the reflection that forced democratization could entail considerable...
COMMENTARY / World
May 30, 2010

Healing Thailand's broken spirit

BANGKOK — To pacify a divided nation, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva — blamed for a military crackdown on protesters that left more than 80 dead and 1,500 injured over two months — says Thailand needs to "heal the mind."
CULTURE / Books
May 30, 2010

A double dose of haiku

Of the many cultural exports from Japan, the haiku has been one of the most successful, if recognizability is anything to go by.
Japan Times
LIFE
May 30, 2010

How can it get too late to learn?

Professor Ryusuke Yoneyama was in the middle of explaining to the members of his music-production class why Baroque-era violin bows, which resembled loosely strung archery bows, produced a weaker sound than their contemporary counterparts when he paused to ask a question.
CULTURE / Books
May 30, 2010

Inspirational voice from the land of Gaza: What if postwar Japan had a similar history?

Beginning in a Gaza Strip refugee camp with the author taking tearful leave of his home to travel to the United States of America, this "untold story" is a double memoir/biography charting the lives of Ramzy Baroud's father and relatives and the history of the Palestinian people and Gaza.
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2010

Thai 'multiparty' turmoil not lost on China's rulers

BEIJING — Whatever the effects of political turmoil in Thailand, they have not helped the cause of democracy in China. The images of prodemocracy protesters and the subsequent military crackdown in downtown Bangkok have been openly shown in Chinese media without any apparent bias. Indeed, there is...
JAPAN
May 26, 2010

Scion a misfit at Toyota helm: expert

An influential writer with ties to Toyota's past presidents is calling for a change of leadership at the recall-battered automaker in a letter to editors of major U.S. newspapers.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 25, 2010

Looking East as British system goes south

In the months preceding the Lower House election last year, an ambitious Ichiro Ozawa, destined to become Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) secretary general, headed to Britain to study the "Westminster system." His aim was to bring Japan's politics closer to that of Britain, to weaken the power of the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 22, 2010

The bright career of a literary 'shadow hero'

American author Paul Auster once called translators "the shadow heroes of literature," who have enabled us to understand that we all live in one world. He could also be describing Juliet Winters Carpenter, 61, one of the best-known literary translators from Japanese to English, who has won praise for...

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight