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Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
May 8, 2007

Helmut Lang, Black Label and more

Stepping into the Lang
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / SHORT TAKES
May 4, 2007

Mongolian Ping Pong

Director: Hao Ning Language: Mongolian
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
May 2, 2007

Sony goes drag-and-drop for digital music

Sony's missteps in the world of digital music players provide lyrics for enough blues albums to populate, well, an iPod. But while the electronics behemoth may never script another legend like the Walkman, it refuses to shuffle quietly off the stage. Sony is set to bring out the B100 series of MP3 players....
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Apr 27, 2007

Five years of so solid grooves

Tucked away on the corner of the trendy Spain-zaka street in Shibuya, Tokyo, La Fabrique is set for what it hopes will be its biggest bash since it opened its doors five years ago.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Apr 25, 2007

Oil beetle

* Japanese name: Hime tsuchihanmyo * Scientific name: Meloe coarctatus * Description: A handsome (at least I think so) shiny black beetle, with long legs and an elongated body, which unusually has short elytra (wing covers) that expose most of the abdomen. In most beetles, the hard wing-cases completely...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Apr 25, 2007

Ponder awhile the wisdom of Bhutan

If nations had laws requiring that we all went about our business wisely and with respect for the planet, those laws would prioritize precaution and force polluters to clean up their mess.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 22, 2007

Who dares take the 'Q' out of Japan's 5-star kyushoku?

Is one of the great institutions of Japanese cul- ture succumbing to a slow, gnawing attack? It may be. I tell you, if this icon is lost, all we'll have left of the culture will be a few cartoons and some rusting karaoke machines.
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 22, 2007

Tokyo's Indians in 'home from home'

Hari Hara Krishnan knew no one when he arrived in Tokyo in 1997. But thanks to him, fellow Indians have brought a flourishing flavor of home to the government housing project where he lives in the city's Edogawa Ward.
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 22, 2007

Indian schools make a mark

Every day at the Global Indian International School (GIIS) in Tokyo's Edogawa Ward starts with yoga. All the students -- from kindergarteners to 14-year-old ninth-graders -- have a 20-minute session in their classrooms. The focus is on breathing, which it's thought helps them to relax and concentrate...
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 22, 2007

Mutual benefits as East meets East

Prior to the 1990s, most people in Japan probably knew little more about India than it was the home of curry, snake-charmers and the Taj Mahal.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 20, 2007

Adventures in folk

'At a festival like this, where you're collaborating with highly talented, colorful artists during a short, intense time period, there is always a risk. But the wonderful thing about 'La Folle Journee' is that the artists are given the opportunities to work with partners who they would not have otherwise...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 19, 2007

'Profile ads' riding back of SNS boom

If in recent days you happened to visit the Mobile Game Town community, a social networking site for cell phone users, you may well have bumped into a character named Fanta.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 19, 2007

'Babel'

What surfaces in "Babel" is a feverish, desperate desire for communication. Comprised of four segments spanning three continents in locations as disparate as Morocco and Tokyo, the characters make phone calls, text message, weep, kiss and clutch at each other's arms. The need to reach out is so palpable...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 15, 2007

Train fan's dream buy is derailed online

Internet-auction sites allow people to sell and buy, at the click of a mouse or with a push on a cellphone button, almost anything from brand bags to resort condominiums to moldy Imperial Japanese Army uniforms. And, according to a 2005 report by Nomura Research Institute, in Japan it's a market that...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 15, 2007

Stroll the streets of vending-machine heaven

Fancy some fresh eggs and veggies to go with your can of coffee in the morning? Or how about some sake with a steaming bowl of oden (soy-sauce based stew) for an evening enkai (party)? Who needs restaurants and supermarkets when you can get all you need from vending machines?
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 15, 2007

Women flock to join 'college of change'

Saturday, March 31, was the final day of school for 47 graduates of the interestingly named I'M Personal College in Tokyo.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 15, 2007

Red rubber balls foster fun, motivation and life's sense of adventure

The red rubber ball soared over a wall, traced an arc against the springtime Tokyo sky and fell -- ker-plump! -- into the playground of Takanawadai Elementary School.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Apr 13, 2007

A different kind of glam icon

He captured rock 'n' roll iconoclasts David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed at the height of their fame in the 1970s. Now photographer Mick Rock turns his lens toward a different kind of glam icon, kabuki actor Nakamura Kanzaburo XVIII, for an exhibition at Tokyo Midtown Hall B, April 20-May 6.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 13, 2007

'Dresden'

German movies are making headway into mainstream international cinema ("Perfume" and "Head On" leap to the mind), opening up a new window from which to view stories of love, obsession, history and war. "Dresden" takes all these themes and weaves them into one episode: the bombing of Dresden during World...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 13, 2007

'Koishikute'

Okinawa and the other Ryukyu islands are to the rest of Japan somewhat like what Hawaii is to the mainland United States. Both are sun 'n' surf destinations for the multitudes, with local cultures that are perceived as exotically different, but not threateningly so. The natives speak your language, use...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 11, 2007

Toyota cars get real-time traffic data to map smartest routes

New Toyota cars will have up-to-date map and traffic information for electronically determining the quickest routes in an upgrade of network-linking technology now offered mostly in luxury models.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Apr 11, 2007

Greenshank

* Japanese name: Aoashi-shigi * Scientific name: Tringa nebularia * Description: An elegant, medium-sized wading bird (some 30-cm long in the body), the greenshank lives up to its name: It has long green legs ("shanks"). It also has a long sharp bill, which is gray at the base and, unlike other waders'...
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 8, 2007

'Killing people won't cut crime; there's no data to prove this'

The gallows, like much of the rest of Japan's prison system, are shrouded in thick veils of government secrecy.
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 8, 2007

Japan's way of judicial killing

Japan's application of the death penalty is cruel, secretive and out of step with much of the developed world, say its opponents. As a record 102 inmates now wait on death row for the hangman's noose, in this JT review of the capital-punishment system, the one man alive and free who knows the true horrors...
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 8, 2007

One who has lived to tell the tale

When his body isn't groaning under the weight of its 81 years, and the sun is shining in the skies over his native Kyushu, Sakae Menda sometimes forgets the ordeal he suffered and knows he is lucky to be alive.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Apr 6, 2007

Where mod confronts odd

Several decades ago, commuters riding the Mekama Line into Meguro Station were tagged country bumpkins. Today, developers pack the ward with suburban homes as fast as they can pour cement. Old dwellings with gardens give way to duplexes with flowerpots, and chic furniture stores now clog Meguro Avenue...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Apr 6, 2007

Dance with an eco conscience

The Nagisa Music Festival, taking place in Tokyo on April 7-8 and in Osaka on April 29, is one of the most interesting success stories to emerge from the Tokyo dance party scene.

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