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Reader Mail
May 22, 2011

Can't beat interactive approach

Regarding the May 16 article: "Study: It is not the teacher but the method that matters": I have been a teacher of English for nearly 12 years. My specialty is early childhood education, though I now mainly teach junior high and high school children.
Reader Mail
May 22, 2011

Queen's visit celebrates ties

Last week Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh made a state visit to Ireland. The visit was a historic event in relations between Ireland and the United Kingdom—the first such visit since Irish Independence in 1921 changed political relations on these islands....
Reader Mail
May 22, 2011

Village mayor with foresight

Regarding the May 18 AP article "How one village defied the tsunami": How is it that the tiny fishing village of Fudai in Iwate Prefecture could anticipate the threat of a major earthquake/tsunami? How did this tiny fishing village have the resolve and foresight to build a sea wall and floodgates at...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
May 22, 2011

Recalling fond memories of Killebrew

It is always sad to hear about the death of a ballplayer who, as a youth, you admired.
CULTURE / Books
May 22, 2011

Power play in the Far East

CHANGING POWER RELATIONS IN NORTHEAST ASIA: Implications for Relations Between Japan and South Korea. Edited by Marie Soderberg. Routledge, 2011, $125, 188 pp., (hardcover) From mid-March until mid-April, South Korean charities raised over $52 million for earthquake relief in Japan, a record sum that...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 22, 2011

Untouchable lays bare a divided nation

With ebooks increasingly dominating the publishing market, it is a pleasure to hold a printed book so gorgeously designed as this one; the cover alone would make it a welcome addition to any Kenji Nakagami collection.
Japan Times
LIFE
May 22, 2011

Up close and personal: Why Dylan is so big in Japan

It was the fall of 1963, when — in what seemed like a flash of lightning — I became a fan of Bob Dylan the moment I heard "Blowin' in the Wind" on the radio. I was in my first year of high school.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 21, 2011

Sunny today with a chance of margaritas

When I first moved to the "Harenokuni Okayama (Sunny Okayama)" prefecture, I couldn't help but imagine how lazy the weather forecasters must be. I envisioned them laying in hammocks with margaritas in their hand while spewing out the weekly forecast — "Sunny every day!" — and assuring the public...
COMMENTARY
May 20, 2011

Folly of official obfuscation

Politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen never seem to have learned that they will not be trusted if they repeatedly lie.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 20, 2011

'Freakonomics'/'The Red Baron'

Darren Aronofsky, whose "Black Swan" is now showing here, debuted with the cult flick "Pi" (1997), about a slightly mad math whiz who was convinced there was a pattern in stock market fluctuations that could reveal the markets' movements. As the film's hero put it, "Mathematics is the language of nature;...
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
May 20, 2011

Strawberry picking comes with postpick feast at Osaka farm

Japan's thirst for the nation's favorite red fruit is unabated with seasonal pick-your-own strawberry farms as popular as ever. Kansai's Kinishiwada Farm is entering its final week of peak strawberry season, which means it is your final chance this year to go and gorge yourself in all-you-can-eat fashion...
BUSINESS
May 20, 2011

Renesas to strengthen chip production flexibility in wake of quake

Renesas Electronics Corp., the world's biggest maker of microcontrollers used in cars and mobile phones, plans to expand its ability to make different products using the same technology after the March 11 earthquake shut down a wafer plant.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 20, 2011

'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides'

Those under 25 may not know what I'm talking about, but the older you get, the more thankful you become for things that work and stick around and that you've loved for a long, long time. No, this isn't about Woody in "Toy Story": The man I'm referring to here is Johnny Depp.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 19, 2011

Online Maltine learns old-school tricks

Tomohiro Konuta didn't have lofty ambitions when he and his friend Syem started the online music label Maltine Records in 2005. They were just two teenagers looking for a little attention.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 19, 2011

Art in the realm of the sense of smell

In the battle between sight and smell, sight usually comes out on top as the more valued sense. But while our visual sense supplies us with copious and precise information about the world around us and allows us to appreciate images of beauty, our olfactory sense often has a firmer grasp on our moods,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 19, 2011

MeccaGodZilla "Perfect 天"

Brooklyn-based hip-hop artist MeccaGodZilla is no stranger to Japanese audiences. Indeed it is his travels and love for the country that have inspired his latest release, "Perfect 天" (ten, heaven), for which he has also taken on the new moniker "Ryu Black." To be even more precise, the album pays homage...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 19, 2011

Edo disaster images strike grim chords

How will the experience of the recent natural disasters impact on the work of Japan's artists? It's a question that is playing on the minds of many observers of the art world here these days, and it's a question that is somewhat answered — at least by way of historical parallel — in a show currently...
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
May 18, 2011

Japan, the Twitter nation

According to Twitter's official blog (blog.twitter.com), when the clock stuck midnight last New Year's Eve, Japanese Twitter users went crazy, recording 6,939 tweets per second—a new record at the time. In fact, globally 14 percent of all tweets are in Japanese—second only to English, with 50 percent—which...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 18, 2011

More nuclear reactor shutdowns lie ahead

Electricity supply from nuclear plants, already down by almost 20 percent following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, will drop further during peak summer demand as operators shut reactors for maintenance.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
May 17, 2011

Designers still show collections after Japan Fashion Week cancels

Four days after the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake on March 11, Japan Fashion Week, scheduled to take place March 18-25, was unceremoniously canceled with an announcement on its official website. It sent a small wave of panic through the industry as it became increasingly unclear how the fashion season...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 17, 2011

Print is suffering, but English readers have never had it so good

Returning to Osaka after several years, James wonders what became of Kansai Time Out, the magazine that served the English-speaking community in that region and beyond:

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan