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COMMENTARY / World
Aug 10, 2008

Russia's convertible icon

MOSCOW — Prophets, it is said, are supposed to be without honor in their homeland. Yet Moscow has just witnessed the extraordinary sight of Alexander Solzhenitsyn — the dissident and once-exiled author of the "Gulag Archipelago" and "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" receiving what amounts...
Reader Mail
Aug 10, 2008

Rising to India's energy demands

The Aug. 6 editorial, "Nonproliferation Spluttering," contains discrepancies with regard to India's civilian nuclear-use agreement with the United States. First, India has, since the inception of the Nonproliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, opposed discrimination against nonnuclear...
Reader Mail
Aug 10, 2008

Few more details about Yasukuni

Regarding the Aug. 5 article "Yasukuni in spotlight as Aug. 15 nears": I would like to point out a couple of inaccuracies in an otherwise very informative and balanced presentation by writer Masami Ito. The first and most important one concerns the "1978 enshrinement of the 14 wartime leaders convicted...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 10, 2008

Nanjing now: philosophy, history and Jacuzzis

Nanjing is a bustling city of 7 million, about six times its population before the Japanese rampage of 1937, and looks like many of the other modern, gleaming urbanscapes that have mushroomed up across China.
Reader Mail
Aug 10, 2008

Foreigner metaphor off the mark

In his Aug. 5 article "Once a 'gaijin,' always a 'gaijin,' " Debito Arudou says the word gaijin (foreigner) "strips the world of diversity," yet he himself is stripping the diversity of experiences of foreigners in Japan by asserting that we are treated like "n--gers" here.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 10, 2008

Best notes for the bamboo flute

THE SHAKUHACHI MANUAL FOR LEARNING, Revised Edition, by Christopher Yohmei Blasdel. Printed Matter Press, 2008, 202 pp. with many illustrations, musical notations, and an attached CD of practice exercises. ¥3,990 (paper) The shakuhachi is a vertical bamboo flute with five finger holes and a notched...
Japan Times
Features
Aug 10, 2008

War and reconciliation: a tale of two countries

On July 7, 2008, officers of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force visited Nanjing, the ancient capital of China, for an artillery demonstration — a visit barely mentioned in the Chinese media, even though it was the first time Japanese soldiers returned to the scene of the crime — the Nanjing massacre...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 9, 2008

'Hyakunin' translations capture commission prize

In the same way that few British people have read all of Shakespeare's sonnets but many can quote at least a few lines of the lyric tradition, any adult who has gone through the Japanese school system is familiar with the Ogura "Hyakunin Isshu."
SPORTS / ODDS AND EVENS
Aug 8, 2008

Selection of runner Lomong to carry U.S. flag particularly poignant

BEIJING — After a tasty buffet meal at a nearby hotel restaurant followed by a few cups of delicious green tea — I had plenty of choices; there was a separate tea menu, featuring at least a dozen varieties — I'm content to return to job-related duties.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 8, 2008

Batman hits Tokyo

"Welcome to a world without rules" is the tag-line for "The Dark Knight," but, as usual these days, the press conference for the movie held at Roppongi Hills sure had a few. Rule No. 1, of course, was: Do not ask the stars questions about anything except the movie.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 8, 2008

Atami's Kiunkaku ryokan: The art of a great garden

You enter Kiunkaku through a beautiful, tile-roofed wooden gate flanked by tall trees, reminiscent of some temple gates, which gives a hint of the purpose:historical grandeur you will find within.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 8, 2008

Fans, young musicians to unite under the sky at Sora Matsuri

If nature-lovers are tree-huggers, how to describe people who love the sky? Air heads? Plane-huggers? There isn't much else up there you can wrap your arms around. But you can always express your affection through song.
COMMENTARY
Aug 7, 2008

Terrorism and the Games

"Safety is our top concern," said China's Vice President Xi Jinping in late July, pointing to the deployment of 100,000 troops around Beijing and the surface-to-air missile batteries that protect the main stadiums as proof of the regime's determination to ensure that no terrorist attack would disrupt...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 7, 2008

Making art out of Article 9

Perhaps there are two types of Japanese people: those who stay in Japan, and those who leave for foreign shores. Distance means the two rarely interact, and it's just as well, because the results can be fiery.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 7, 2008

Mad about deke-deke-deke

The Ventures' 1962 trip to Japan sparked the "eleki boom." Thousands of young men bought electric guitars and taught themselves how to play. As a movement it worried their elders, who believed such distractions were an obstacle to schoolwork, or worse.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 7, 2008

The Ventures: Still rocking after 50 years

The Ventures have just finished playing 33 songs in the space of two hours in front of some enthusiastic, though seated, middle-aged fans at the Hokutopia concert hall in Tokyo. Kazushi Kojima, who calls himself a "philosopher," is there with his son. He's been attending Ventures shows for 30 years....
JAPAN
Aug 7, 2008

FCCJ presses China to free up reporting

OSAKA — Japan-based journalists have joined growing international calls for China to stop restricting Internet access to journalists covering the Beijing Olympics.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 6, 2008

The challenge of Hiroshima

MEDFORD, Oregon — When the penetrating heat of summer rises to a scorching point, I am brought back to one sunny day in 1945, faraway from my Oregon home today. I was a sixth grader waiting for my mother. On that day, Aug. 6, in Hiroshima, the sun and the Earth melted together. Many of my relatives...
JAPAN
Aug 6, 2008

Aso demands DPJ come to table

With an extraordinary Diet session expected to start later this month or in September, Taro Aso, newly appointed secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, challenged the Democratic Party of Japan Tuesday not to duck talks with the ruling bloc on its own policy proposals.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / CABINET INTERVIEW
Aug 6, 2008

Ailing regions at top of agenda: METI chief

The government needs to take measures this summer to stimulate the weakening economy amid surging fuel prices, Toshihiro Nikai, the new minister of economy, trade and industry, said.
EDITORIALS
Aug 6, 2008

Nonproliferation sputtering

Sixty-three years have passed since an atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima. The Aug. 6, 1945, bombing, the first use of a nuclear weapon in history, killed about 140,000 people. Another atomic bombing three days later over Nagasaki killed about 70,000 people. More than 240,000 atomic bombing survivors...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Aug 6, 2008

City gone wild

In June this year I took a group of Japanese friends and members of our Afan Woodland Trust up here in the Nagano hills on a trip to Britain. We went on an All Nippon Airways tour designed for people with an interest in ecology and nature restoration, and we visited our "twin" forest, the Afan Argoed...
BUSINESS
Aug 6, 2008

Nissan cars to push back against speeders

Nissan Motor Co. will soon sell cars with accelerators that push back when drivers try to put the pedal to the metal. It has also developed a test model packed with added sensor technology to avoid collisions.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Aug 6, 2008

Make a splash with your music

Pool jam:

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji