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COMMENTARY
Feb 18, 2009

Face up to a common threat

Despite a spreading jihad culture, U.S. President Barack Obama has ended America's global "war on terror" as dramatically as his predecessor had initiated it. With the stroke of his pen, Obama has effectively terminated the war on terror that President George W. Bush had launched to defeat terrorists...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Feb 17, 2009

Job taken on a whim leads to 35 years in Tokyo

Peter Barakan, 57, wears many hats. He is a radio DJ, a TV program host, an author of books on music and English language education, a long-time Tokyoite fluent in Japanese, husband to a Japanese woman, and the father of a college boy and high school girl. Barakan said he never imagined spending more...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Feb 15, 2009

Celebrating a life with cranes

In the dim gray light just before a winter's dawn, a wash of sound emanates from some 12,000 tall, long-necked and long-legged birds as they awake in the fields of rural Kyushu.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 15, 2009

From a master of versatility

The last page of Donald Richie's most recent offering, "Botandoro," reveals that he has, in his long and productive life, published no fewer than 35 books. The word "prolific" is unavoidable.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 15, 2009

From a master of versatility

BOTANDORO: Stories, Fables, Parables, and Allegories — a Miscellany, by Donald Richie, edited and with an introduction by Leza Lowitz. Printed Matter Press, 2008, 272 pp., $20 (paper) The last page of Donald Richie's most recent offering, "Botandoro," reveals that he has, in his long and productive...
COMMENTARY
Feb 10, 2009

James Brady struck warlike pose for peace

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — If not in memory of the awful Korean War (1950-1953), then in memory of the brilliant author James Brady (1928-2009) — you might want to read, or perhaps re-read, his novel about that war.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 6, 2009

'La Traviata' reworked for Tokyo opera

Aiming to portray a woman with pain hidden inside a gorgeous dress, director Amon Miyamoto will stage a new production of the opera "La Traviata" ("The Woman Who Strayed") in Tokyo in collaboration with Tokyo Nikikai Opera Theatre.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2009

Moving Tsukiji to new site raises fears of toxic seafood

Tokyo's Tsukiji, dubbed "the fish market at the center of the world" for its influence on the global seafood trade, is being forced to move to a site laced with benzene and cancer-causing chemicals.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 1, 2009

Obama magic unlikely to work with India

LONDON — While the rest of the world swoons over the new U.S. president, India is conspicuous by the discomfort that the new political dispensation is generating in the corridors of power in New Delhi.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 28, 2009

Fight prostitution by punishing the solicitors

AMSTERDAM — Prostitution is virtually the only part of the personal services industry in the Netherlands that works. One can't get a manicure in Amsterdam without booking an appointment two weeks in advance, but men can buy sex anytime — and at an attractive price. The legalization of prostitution...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 25, 2009

Sarkozy's Western banner

PARIS — From the Caucasus in August 2008 to the Middle East in January 2009, is France under President Nicolas Sarkozy attempting to incarnate what might be called "the West by default," making maximum use of the window of opportunity opened by America's presidential transition?
COMMENTARY
Jan 22, 2009

China plays maritime chess

The start of Chinese patrols in the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden is intended to extend China's naval role and presence far from its shores while demonstrating, under United Nations rules of engagement, a capability to conduct complex operations in distant waters.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jan 22, 2009

Decades as Tokyo's tower of girl power

In any panoramic photograph of Shibuya's always busy crossing, a structure likely positioned prominently in the background will be the part-wedge-shaped, part-cylindrical Shibuya 109 building. The teen district of Shibuya is continually in flux, with trends and stores coming and going by the week, but...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 20, 2009

'Exam hell' now not so hot

The annual university entrance examination season kicked off Saturday and Sunday as some 540,000 high school students and graduates nationwide took the standardized National Center Test for University Admissions.
Reader Mail
Jan 18, 2009

Consider treatment overseas

Regarding Gregory Clark's Jan. 15 article, "Antiforeigner discrimination is a right for Japanese people": I presume the author does not anticipate ever desiring to use the "bathhouse" mentioned in the article, or he does not have a problem with being excluded. Perhaps he has the illusion that he is one...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 18, 2009

In love with China: from forbidden fruits to futile fantasies

CHINA DREAMS by Sid Smith. London: Picador, 2008, 183 pp., £7.99 (paper)
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 18, 2009

Karori: A wildlife sanctuary for our times

A new year has begun, signs of change abound, and this column has migrated to a new page. The economic crises of 2008 are still with us and the nightmare of global climate shock is not one that we can awaken from. But among all this there are signs of hope.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jan 18, 2009

Of orphans and granddaughters

When I was 10 years old, I found a book titled "Akage no An" ("Anne with Red Hair") in a library. It was a Japanese translation of "Anne of Green Gables" written by Canadian novelist Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) in 1908.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 16, 2009

'Zen'

I was one of those hippies who got into things Japanese via Zen back in the 1970s. I spent two years practicing zazen in Michigan and I had a first-row seat when Alan Watts — that early explainer of Zen to the West — spoke on campus. I even taped a photo of Shunryu Suzuki, the author of "Zen Mind,...
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Jan 11, 2009

Mao's poise under pressure proved decisive in 2008

Mao Asada capped off an incredible year by rallying for her third straight national title in Nagano on Dec. 27.
LIFE
Jan 11, 2009

A meeting of minds

OXFORD ENGLAND — The last leaves were falling and the world was plunging into an economic crisis as journalists from around the world gathered for a meeting in England. The venue, though, was not a conference room in the financial hub of the City of London, but the ancient university city of Oxford,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 11, 2009

Time a Darwinian 'true myth' evolved to rival religion

This year, 2009, is a double anniversary of particular relevance for this column.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 11, 2009

Blood, sweat and tears of Zen

Here is an unusually fine translation of a most unusual best-seller: the 1996 "Ku Neru Suwaru: Eiheiji Shugyoki," Kaoru Nonomura's account of the rigors and rewards of hard Zen training.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 11, 2009

Blood, sweat and tears of Zen

EAT SLEEP SIT: My Year at Japan's Most Rigorous Zen Temple, by Kaoru Nonomura, translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. Kodansha International, 2008, 324 pp., ¥2,600 (cloth) Here is an unusually fine translation of a most unusual best-seller: the 1996 "Ku Neru Suwaru: Eiheiji Shugyoki," Kaoru Nonomura's...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2009

Managing fads, frenzies and finance markets

BARCELONA — The financial crisis, credit crunch and ensuing economic downturn have severely damaged the credibility of financial markets, institutions and traders. More and more people are claiming that markets are characterized by irrationality, bubbles, fads and frenzies, and that economic actors...
JAPAN
Jan 7, 2009

Teachers beset by unruly parents

When the 27-year-old rookie elementary school teacher in Kanagawa Prefecture began receiving phone calls from the mother of one of his students demanding an apology from the parents of their child's alleged "bullies," he thought it was just a misunderstanding by an overprotective parent.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 4, 2009

The beauty of imperfection and much more

"Wabi-sabi," which is two words combined, represents in abbreviated form an elusive concept that is key to the understanding of traditional Japanese aesthetics. Indeed, rather than a single concept, it is a cluster of ideas that permeate artistic practice in Japan, or at least did so in the past. Now,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 31, 2008

Blood types — do they shape a personality or mere stereotypes?

Can blood type determine character?

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