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CULTURE / Books
Jul 29, 2007

Details from the British Museum

Japanese Art in Detail, by John Reeve. British Museum Press, 2005, 144 pp., £14.99 (cloth) FLOATING WORLD: JAPAN IN THE EDO PERIOD, by John Reeve. British Museum Press, 2006, 96 pp., £9.99 (cloth)
COMMENTARY
Jul 25, 2007

The death of Iraq's Christian community

WASHINGTON — Although Islam long has been in the ascendancy in Iraq, the so-called Assyrians, who speak a neo-Aramaic language, predate the rise of Islam. Today, however, the Iraqi Christian community faces possible extermination.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 22, 2007

Welcome additions to the newest anthology of Japanese literature

The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From 1945 to the Present, edited by J. Thomas Rimer and Van C. Gessel, with additional selections by poetry editors Amy Vladeck Heinrich and Hiroaki Sato. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007, 864 pp., $59.50 (cloth). Anthologists must consider...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 22, 2007

Beijing sleuth's treasure hunt a hit and miss

The Eye of Jade: A Mei Wang Mystery. London: Picador, 2007, 227 pp., £10.99 (paper) Any study of Chinese females portrayed in English and American literature over the past century will find no lack of sources, from the works of Pearl Buck and Louise Jordan Miln to those by Han Suyin, Amy Tan and Jung...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2007

Confused by a Turkish veil

ISTANBUL — On Monday millions of Turks will wake up to a new, post-elections Turkey. What will happen is hard to foresee. Turkish politics is full of surprises that only foreigners find surprising.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2007

That hazy, crazy bubbly feel of liquidity

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut — We increasingly hear that "the world is awash with liquidity," and that this justifies expecting asset prices to continue rising. But what does such liquidity mean, and is there really reason to expect that it will sustain further increases in stock and real estate prices?...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 20, 2007

'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'

A lot of times these days, I'll find myself in some summer-event movie — say, "Pirates Of The Caribbean" — and think, "Gee, I really would have loved this when I was 12." Tastes obviously change as you grow older, for better and for worse, but to try and hang onto your 12-year-old tastes forever...
BUSINESS
Jul 20, 2007

Murakami: investor activist turned greenmailer?

Convicted of insider trading Thursday and more than a year after he stepped down as a high-profile fund manager, it still isn't clear how to define Yoshiaki Murakami.
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2007

Obituary: Sen Nishiyama

Translator, author, historian and pioneer in the field of simultaneous interpretation Sen Nishiyama died at a Tokyo rest home on July 2. He was 95.
Japan Times
CULTURE / OTAKOOL
Jul 19, 2007

'Heavy-metal suicide'

Marty Friedman looks very metal.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 18, 2007

Putting 'rarity' into context

Stepping outside this morning, I heard a skylark singing above the open field adjacent to where I live. It's a rare event for me, but perhaps you hear skylarks all the time. Then again, perhaps you have never heard that silvery cascade of notes pouring endlessly from high in the sky.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Jul 13, 2007

Four top tipples for summer

The first rule for a summer wine is that it needs to be refreshing. High-scoring monster reds that warm the soul on a winter evening become plodding, heavy, alcoholic beasts on a sweltering day. Under conditions of heat and humidity, such big, bruiser wines leave us weary, rather than exhilarated.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 12, 2007

Enabling a war-ravaged state to recover

NEW YORK — War-ravaged countries confront a double challenge: to create dynamic economies and to promote, at the same time, economic and social inclusion. Without both of these elements, national reconciliation will likely prove impossible.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 8, 2007

'Propaganda is the soul of every struggle'

Revolutionary activist Rosa Luxemburg, writing from prison in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland) on Sept. 3, 1918, exhorted colleagues not to relent in their struggles. "Stand your ground," she wrote, "till we meet again at work!"
CULTURE / Books
Jul 8, 2007

Japan, just a puppet of America?

Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, by Gavan McCormack. New York: Verso Press, 2007, 246 pp., $29.95 (paper) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi are usually portrayed as assertive nationalists, but come off here as dutiful and submissive gophers carrying out the...
COMMENTARY
Jul 6, 2007

Low-cost investments to save children

NEW YORK — In the world today there are over 600 million children under 5 years old. They represent the best hopes for the planet, yet more than 5 million of them die every year as a result of environment-related diseases. Their deaths could be prevented by using low-cost and sustainable tools and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 5, 2007

Exposing our tacky selves

Walking through an exhibition of Martin Parr's photography is an emotional experience. The Englishman's works make you laugh, snicker, cringe; they prompt self- and societal reflection; but most of all they make you marvel at the dry wit and superior eye that Parr has for things simultaneously insipid...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Jul 3, 2007

"Tunnels," "The Boy in the Biscuit Tin"

"Tunnels," By Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams, Chicken House; 2007; 463 pp. Books that lead to sequels are good news and bad news bundled into one. Good news because a sequel means that there's more where this came from, and bad news because the author is not obligated to resolving the plot by the...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 22, 2007

Rimbaud revelry

Who ever would've thought a nightclub event would take a page out of a classic literary masterpiece?
JAPAN
Jun 21, 2007

Nuclear industry gears up for global push

KYOTO — Japan's nuclear power industry is pushing to get atomic energy on next year's agenda when this nation hosts the Group of Eight summit meetings, saying it is time world leaders recognize the power source as a practical way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
BUSINESS
Jun 19, 2007

TBS' Rakuten snub reflects protected world

Hiroshi Inoue, president of Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc., does not hide his displeasure when he talks about online shopping mall operator Rakuten Inc.'s attempt to make the broadcaster its affiliate.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 17, 2007

Japan's master of an ancient Muslim art

For Kouichi Honda, writing a beautiful line is what life is about. Getting every detail right — the subtle curves, the varying thicknesses and the density of the ink — matters to him as much as life itself.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 17, 2007

Stand by your language — but not as a nationalist icon

Last month, on May 21 to be exact, something caught my eye in the English-language IHT/Asahi Shimbun newspaper. In an article headlined "Holistic patriotic education still missing," Professor Nobukatsu Fujioka of Takushoku University in Tokyo made an impassioned plea for Japanese children to be imbued...
JAPAN
Jun 16, 2007

Author Inose agrees to become Ishihara's deputy

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara announced Friday that writer Naoki Inose has agreed to serve as a vice governor for the capital.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 15, 2007

'Le prix du desir'

It's a familiar story: The man seems to have everything; a bulging bank balance, a successful career, a house in the country, and a beautiful wife — but he's still bored.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 13, 2007

Pensioners place little premium on pledges to mend record fiasco

Lawyer Tadahiko Tanizawa has spent his 40-year career upholding the principles of law and order, both of which he found lacking during a visit last year to a social insurance office.
COMMENTARY
Jun 8, 2007

Vanity in spinning a legacy

LONDON — Leaders of the summit countries have been changing. Gerhard Schroeder, the German Social Democratic chancellor of Germany, was the first to go. His replacement, Angela Merkel, is a Christian Democrat but leading a coalition with the Social Democrats.
Reader Mail
Jun 6, 2007

Critics loyal to Dalai Lama

I would like to express my appreciation for the publication of B. Gautam's May 26 article, "Dalai Lama's shattered dream for Tibet." I am happy about the way in which the author has spoken about the Tibetan issue and the Dalai Lama, and about the underlying tone of support in his piece.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 5, 2007

A 'socially accepted' act of child abuse

Last October the Supreme Court of Japan unanimously dismissed a young woman's final appeal of an Osaka High Court ruling that had found no illegality in her father's self-admitted act of suddenly touching her breast for a few seconds to "measure her sexual growth" when she was 11 years old.

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