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Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 30, 2013

Blazing a woodland trail through Shin Kiba

Even if you can't read the kanji for Shin Kiba, you'll sniff out its meaning of "new wood place" the moment you arrive. The Yurakucho subway line's terminus there in eastern Tokyo smells like a cedar closet. Inside the station, a display of Japanese carpentry — including beams featuring dovetail, mitered...
Reader Mail
Jun 30, 2013

Laid-back attitude needs work

I beg to differ with the headline for Takamitsu Sawa's article, asserting that top students are shunning Japan. Talented students are not shunning Japan, per se — just the laid-back, everyone-gets-a-degree, pay-your-tuition approach to higher education in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 29, 2013

Exploring Japan's ancient past through pilgrimage

I've been running pilgrimages in Japan since 1997. So far, I've run the Shikoku 88-Temple Pilgrimage, the Mount Hiei Kaihogyo route in Kyoto (of the Tendai-shu monks), and tens of other smaller pilgrimages in Japan. If you are a runner in Japan, you should be running pilgrimages. If you're a hiker, you...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 28, 2013

Throwing may have given humans edge over chimps

In most respects, chimpanzees are physically superior to humans. Pound for pound, they are perhaps four times stronger. They are faster. They can run straight up a tree, climb and swing with an agility that is the envy of an Olympic gymnast.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 27, 2013

Sincerity is the new ecstasy in Funkot's 'Summer of Love'

At the end of the 1980s, British DJs imported a potent new style of house music from the Spanish party island Ibiza in what came to be known as the ecstasy-fueled "Second Summer of Love." Inspired by this trade route two decades later, Katsumi Takano, aka Mandokoro or DJ Jet Baron, hopes to launch a...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 27, 2013

Snowden's stay in H.K. filled with intrigue

The message was blunt and was delivered Friday night by a shadowy emissary who didn't identify himself but knew enough to locate Edward Snowden's secret caretaker: The 30-year-old American accused of leaking some of his country's most sensitive secrets should leave Hong Kong, the messenger said, and...
Japan Times
SOCCER / SOCCER SCENE
Jun 27, 2013

Zaccheroni feels heat for first time after early exit from Brazil

Alberto Zaccheroni has enjoyed an exceptionally smooth first three years as national team manager, but after coming in for widespread criticism in the wake of Japan's early exit from the Confederations Cup, the Italian can expect a bumpy ride before the World Cup begins next summer.
WORLD
Jun 27, 2013

Supreme court rules in favor of gay marriage in California

A divided U.S. Supreme Court gave a landmark victory to the gay-rights movement, striking down a federal law that denies benefits to same-sex married couples and clearing the way for weddings to resume in California.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jun 26, 2013

Supreme Court cripples Voting Rights Act

A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday invalidated a crucial component of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, ruling that Congress has not taken into account the nation's racial progress when singling out certain states for federal oversight.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 26, 2013

A mother helps son in his struggle with schizophrenia

The mother drives her son everywhere because he is not well enough to drive. He sits next to her, and at the red lights she looks over and studies him: how quiet he is, how stiffly he sits, hands in his lap, fingers fidgeting slightly, a tic that occasionally blooms into a full fluttering motion he makes...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 26, 2013

Disaster-relief volunteer networks are essential

Takashi Yamamoto, 42, president of Peace Boat Disaster Relief Volunteer Center, is Japan's leading expert on volunteer disaster-relief activities. In 1995, when he was a staffer of the educational cruise ship Peace Boat, Yamamoto began working on disaster relief for Kobe after the Great Hanshin Earthquake...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 25, 2013

Asia demand making ginseng in U.S. scarce

The long tradition of ginseng hunting in the U.S. can be traced from Daniel Boone, the folk hero frontiersman, to Glenn Miller, a retired concrete inspector.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 25, 2013

Taksim Square and the new ways of mobilizing

Turkey's democratic opposition can address flaws of the system only if it recognizes the need for very different forms of mobilization from those of the past.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jun 24, 2013

In Tokyo, all garbage is not created equal

Charging for garbage collection forces the issue of environmental awareness.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 24, 2013

Africa's 100 million girls with mutilated genitals

Elimination of female genital mutilation in Africa will be impossible unless laws are supported by efforts to change entrenched social attitudes.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 23, 2013

Taking the long Trans-Siberian road to Japan

In the late summer of 2009, while standing hung over on a pier at Fushiki Port in Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, one of those little-visited industrial cities on the west coast of Honshu, I suddenly found myself staring into the eyes of a tiger. This came as no surprise: It seemed a quite proper way to...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Jun 21, 2013

In search of a steamed morsel or two of Hong Kong fare

Bamboo baskets of steaming dumplings, fluffy buns stuffed with sweet-and-savory barbecued pork, crisp spring rolls and endless pots of jasmine tea ... Dim sum (or yum cha), that Hong Kong tradition, is a staple of Chinatowns the world over. Except, it seems, in Japan. However, if (like many people I...
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Jun 21, 2013

Turn the lights out for a piece of 'me' time

"Turn off the lights, and take it slow tonight": If this reads like advice on how to pamper yourself at the end of a long work week, that isn't entirely off the mark.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 20, 2013

Are we all blinded by our sense of beauty?

Sophie Calle is an enigma. She is an artist, writer, photographer and filmmaker yet doesn't work exclusively in any of these areas. She has become famous for her work in photography but her objects and later films have drawn equal attention — work that carries with it the curiosity of a detective who...
JAPAN
Jun 19, 2013

Meltdowns haven't killed anyone: LDP bigwig

Liberal Democratic Party policy chief Sanae Takaichi has created a stir by saying the 2011 Fukushima meltdowns didn't kill anyone and arguing the government should restart reactors nationwide given Japan's scarce energy resources.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Jun 18, 2013

Okigusuri

Dear Alice,
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jun 17, 2013

After Newtown shooting, mourning parents enter into the lonely quiet

They had promised to try everything, so Mark Barden went down into the basement to begin another project in memory of Daniel. The families of Sandy Hook Elementary were collaborating on a Mother's Day card, which would be produced by a marketing firm and mailed to hundreds of politicians across the country....
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Jun 16, 2013

Taiwan's last native tribe, carrier-pigeon trumps train, STEP test launched, rock album nixed for anti-nuke lyrics

Military operations against the tribes in northeastern Taiwan were commenced at dawn yesterday. The government forces consist of 3,000 men, of the police and native troops. Mr. Uchida, Chief of the Civil Administration, is on the scene. General Sakuma, Governor-General of Taiwan, will be in the field early next month.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 15, 2013

Time for a fresh look at the life and art of L.S. Lowry

In a somewhat stark meeting room at Tate Britain, the curators of its forthcoming L.S. Lowry show, T.J. Clark and Anne M. Wagner, are attempting, at my request, to extol the artist's virtues to me. It's a complicated business. For one thing, I have the impression that they regard enthusiasm as infra...
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 15, 2013

Clinton re-enters limelight, plans charitable work — for now

In her first major public appearance since stepping down as secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton embraced key pillars of President Barack Obama's domestic agenda Thursday and said she will strive to act as an envoy between businesses, nonprofit entities and the federal government.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 14, 2013

Firefly festivals in the summer capture spirit of growing up in old Japan

It's hard to believe there was a time when fireflies outnumbered the neon lights of Tokyo. Luckily there are still places outside the capital where the glowing insects still reign.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 13, 2013

Making sense of medieval avatars

The Western model of sexual equality — one that drives women to focus on careers but also contributes to lower birthrates — may not be an entirely unmixed blessing, but the roots of the West's gender attitudes run deep and stem from some interesting places, as "The Lady and the Unicorn" exhibition...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 12, 2013

There's no putting Asia's Gini back in the bottle

Protests in the reputedly 'equal' nation of Sweden — attributed in part to young, unemployed immigrants — raise interesting questions about equality in Asia.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan