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CULTURE / Books
Feb 3, 2008

Journal of an uncommon traveler

WINDOWS ON JAPAN: A Walk Through Place and Perception, by Bruce Roscoe. Algora Publishing, 2007, 308 pp., $31.95 (paper) On the premise that speed blunts the mind, New Zealander Bruce Roscoe decided to make his journey on foot, following a route across the waist of Japan, from the port city of Niigata...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 30, 2008

New approach for the DPJ

When the Lower House of the Diet passed the antiterror special measures law on Jan. 11, it became clear that the Democratic Party of Japan is not in control of the political situation. After briefly setting the agenda in the aftermath of the July 29 Upper House election by opposing the refueling mission...
COMMENTARY
Jan 27, 2008

China isn't blazing a path for anybody

LOS ANGELES — All political systems are peculiar, each in its own way. This is true of democracy, however defined, as well as of communist systems, more easily defined.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 27, 2008

Modern Japanese women: dealing with sex, lies and the dried-flower syndrome

GOODBYE MADAME BUTTERFLY: Sex, Marriage and the Modern Japanese Woman, by Sumie Kawakami. Chin Music Press, 2007, 219 pp., $20 (cloth) Who wants to be a woman in Japan? Misery can't get much worse than the sexless relationships, dreary marriages, loneliness, patriarchal blues and stressed out women portrayed...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 24, 2008

The girl in the corner

She's one of the most admired actresses in Hollywood, both for her talent and versatility.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jan 21, 2008

Sovereign wealth funds warping market, pose insider-trading hazard

The international profile of sovereign wealth funds is expanding, and the Group of Seven's finance ministers and central bankers are expected to discuss the depth of the funds' risk control, management and accountability when they gather Feb. 9 in Tokyo.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jan 20, 2008

62 foreign players signed by Japanese teams for 2008 season

This column, identifying the foreign players signed by the 12 Japan pro baseball teams, normally gets written in mid-to-late February. That's about the time the clubs have usually announced most of their non-Japanese acquisitions for the coming season.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 20, 2008

A solitary shark hunts in Shinjuku's dark side

SHINJUKU SHARK by Arimasa Osawa, translated by Andrew Clare. New York: Vertical, Inc., 285 pp., $14.95 (paper) Looking for a terse page-turner about a hard-boiled detective on the trail of a psychotic cop-killer? With plenty of tough guys, druggies, sleazy cross-dressers, rock musicians and other various...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 18, 2008

Serbia to choose EU orbit or isolation

MAYNOOTH, Ireland — On Saturday, Serbs go to the polls for the first round of a presidential election that may decide the country's future for decades to come.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 18, 2008

Brewing sake amid a cacophony of miracles

Being a 41-year-old male puts me at the end of my yakudoshi, a period when Japanese believe all kinds of calamity are due to befall me and mine. Running to form, a family crisis meant I had to fly home to Britain on Dec. 23. I was back at work before the new year, but these few days off were still more...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2008

Hypocrisy weakens West's whaling protests

PRINCETON, New Jersey — Thirty years ago, Australian vessels, with the government's blessing, killed sperm whales off the West Australian coast. Last month, Australia led international protests against Japan's plan to kill 50 humpback whales. Japan, under mounting pressure, announced that it would...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 16, 2008

Snow season's not what it was . . .

"Winter either bites with its teeth or lashes with its tail." (Traditional proverb)
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Jan 15, 2008

Bento grass

Dear Alice,
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jan 11, 2008

Famed Japanese dancer branches into mime

In 1993, the legendary choreographer and radical ballet master Maurice Bejart created — especially for the Tokyo Ballet Company — a work based on the life of doomed author Yukio Mishima, called "M." For the main role of St. Sebastian, the late, great French artist who died last November selected...
COMMENTARY
Jan 9, 2008

Preventing teenage pregnancy in China

NEW YORK — Parallel to its economic revolution, China is now undergoing a sexual revolution, particularly among youth, that is having far-reaching consequences on their health and quality of life. The response to this challenge will determine how, or whether, young people can overcome serious problems....
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 9, 2008

Let the IMF manage foreign reserves

PRINCETON, New Jersey — The world economy is increasingly threatened by volatile market reactions to global imbalances at a time when the International Monetary Fund has largely lost its original raison d'etre as the world's central monetary institution. These two developments should stimulate the...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 9, 2008

India's 'Bollywood' power

PRAGUE — The world has heard much about India's extraordinary transformation in recent years, and even of its claims to a share of "world leadership." Some of that is hyperbole, but in one respect, India's strength may be understated.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 8, 2008

Following in our fingerprints

It was a quarter of a century ago on an autumn day in 1982 that I decided to engage in a small act of civil disobedience by refusing to give my fingerprint. Little did I realize I was stepping into a decades-long controversy that would be both an education and a circus.
COMMENTARY
Jan 6, 2008

Embodiment of Pakistan's paradoxes

LOS ANGELES — A gift given to me years ago from Benazir Bhutto, an elegantly decorated wood jewelry box slathered in glossy lacquer, still adorns a sideboard in our home.
Reader Mail
Jan 6, 2008

When writing about things Japanese

Regarding Akita Kimi's Dec. 27 letter, "Another way of writing names": In response to Mikami Takashi's Dec. 20 reasoned plea for limiting Japanese names to surname-first usage in English, Akita's argument -- that it can be "confusing" for those who do not know Japanese -- would be patronizing were...
Japan Times
CULTURE
Jan 3, 2008

Hot tickets: Performing arts

Tokubetsu Buyo Koen
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 3, 2008

The artist and the island

Because of strong pressures to belong and conform in Japanese society, the country can be a difficult place for those otherwise inclined. One reaction to this is the hikikomori phenomenon, in which chiefly young males reduce contact with society to a minimum by staying in their rooms. A recently suggested...
COMMENTARY
Dec 31, 2007

Censorship serves to flag our own limits

LOS ANGELES — It appears that many mainland Chinese moviegoers are traipsing over to Hong Kong in droves to view the uncensored version of Ang Lee's latest blockbuster, "Lust, Caution." With their feet, in effect, they are voting for lust — and as if wishing for official Beijing caution to be gone...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 30, 2007

Need something to read in the new year?

THE GIFT OF RAIN by Tan Twan Eng (Myrmidon)
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 27, 2007

The 'browning' of African technology

PRAGUE — Forget MIT. Hello, Tsing Hua University. For Clothilde Tingiri, a hot young programmer at Rwanda's top software company, dreams of Beijing, not Cambridge, animate her ambitions. Desperate for more education, this fall she plans to attend graduate school for computer science — in China, not...
COMMENTARY
Dec 26, 2007

A man of principles in desperate times

LOS ANGELES — There are times when — from a moral standpoint — men and women simply should not remain silent. In such times, seemingly fine lines need to be turned into unequivocal hard lines. This is when the men and women of conscience stand out.
COMMENTARY
Dec 24, 2007

Article 9 fan club quickens

Momentum for constitutional amendments, which grew under the administrations of former Prime Ministers Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe, has diminished following the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's drubbing in the July 29 Upper House election and pro-amendment Abe's surprise resignation in September....
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 23, 2007

Japan's 'Hidden Christians'

"It is 12:30 p.m. in Nagasaki, on March 17, 1865. Father Bernard Petitjean, a priest of the French Societe des Missions Etrangeres, hears a noise at the back door of his little chapel. On opening he is surprised to find a group of 15 middle-aged Japanese men and women — surprised because all native-...

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