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Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 27, 2006

Going by the book in Shikoku

A classic, once noted Mark Twain wryly, is what everyone wants to have read but nobody wants to read. Thus, Japan has such grand works as the hefty 11th-century "Tale of Genji," which can claim universal respect, but relatively few readers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 26, 2006

A change in gender for new political series

For more than two decades, Yasumasa Morimura, one of Japan's most internationally celebrated artists, has inserted his own face into iconic paintings by van Gogh, Manet and Rembrandt, as well as portraits of stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Vivian Leigh. With his elaborate, hilarious and often gender-bending...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Oct 24, 2006

Kumiko Taguchi

Kumiko Taguchi, 59, is deputy manager of Junkudo book shop in Ikebukuro in Tokyo, which boasts the largest floor space (nine-stories) of any bookstore in Japan. Before moving to Junkudo in 1997, she worked at another bookselling giant, Libro, located opposite Junkudo. After a long career in the industry...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 15, 2006

From the center of Korean conflict

KOREA WITNESS: 135 Years of War, Crisis and News in the Land of the Morning Calm, edited by Donald Kirk, Choe Sang-Hun. Seoul: EunHaeng NaMu, 2006, 13,000 won/$13.83 (paper). To adventurous Western writers and journalists in the late 19th century, the opening of Japan in 1868 was an opportunity too good...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 15, 2006

The first steps to rapprochement

JAPAN'S FOREIGN POLICY 1945-2003: The Quest for a Proactive Policy, by Kazuhiko Togo. Leiden: Brill Academic, 2005, 484 pp., $49 (paper). Kazuhiko Togo, one of Japan's leading strategic thinkers about foreign policy, wrote an article in the June issue of Far Eastern Economic Review calling for a moratorium...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 12, 2006

Sony's battery fiasco a symptom of bigger woes at legendary firm

It was a fine day at Los Angeles International Airport on Sept. 16 when a passenger's ThinkPad laptop, containing a Sony Corp. battery already recalled by other companies, was suddenly wreathed in smoke and started emitting sparks.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 8, 2006

Beware a 'beauty' that would deceive the nation

'Japan lost the war, and Bushido [the samurai spirit] perished. But then the human being was born for the first time in the womb of truth called decadence."
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Oct 4, 2006

Hillman masterful in dealing with Kanemura incident

It has been said that life can be stranger than fiction.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 1, 2006

Plain excitement of the Furin Kazan

THE SAMURAI BANNER OF FURIN KAZAN by Yasushi Inoue, translated with a foreword and epilogue by Yoko Riley. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2006, 210 pp., $14.95 (paper). Yasushi Inoue (1907-1991) was one of Japan's finest historical novelists. Works such as "Lou-lan," "Tun-huang" and "The Roof Tile of Tempyo"...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 30, 2006

Frances Fister-Stoga

The Linguapax Institute, located in Barcelona, Spain, is a nongovernmental organization affiliated with UNESCO. Linguapax Asia, associate of the Linguapax Institute, carries out the objectives of the institute and of UNESCO's Linguapax Project, with a special focus on Asia and the Pacific Rim. The objectives...
EDITORIALS
Sep 29, 2006

Half a glass in Turkey

The case of Turkish novelist Elif Shafak makes it hard to decide whether the glass that is Turkey is half-full or half-empty.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 28, 2006

Irwin's enthusiasm survives his passing

SYDNEY -- His death was bizarre -- stabbed through his wet suit by a stingray. Yet the continuing work of Australia's most famous wildlife activist is winning worldwide acclaim in the cause of conservation.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Sep 27, 2006

Welcome to the new world of cities

Flying into Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, just after sunset last month, I could have sworn we'd overshot the airport and were heading for the distant, frigid waters of the South Atlantic.
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 24, 2006

Koizumi's Shake, Rattle & Roll

Elvis impersonator? Japan's Thatcher? Faction buster? Nah, as the curtain falls on the Koizumi show, he will be remembered above all for his missed opportunities and self-indulgent gestures at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo -- that, and steamrollering the Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9 into oblivion....
LIFE / Language
Sep 19, 2006

Rougher language behind face-value meanings

First of a two part series
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 17, 2006

Monsters out of the closet

MILLENNIAL MONSTERS: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination, by Anne Allison, foreword by Gary Cross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006, 332 pp., 48 b/w photos, $24.95 (paper). When I was a child, toys from Japan were kept in the cheapest bins of Woolworth's and Newberry's. Sparkler-wheels...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 16, 2006

Paul Norbury

In 2003, the Japan Society in London presented to Paul Norbury its award for "outstanding work in the field of U.K.-Japan relations." Since the early 1970s, as publisher, editor and author, Paul of England has been closely associated with Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / CONFUCIUS
Sep 10, 2006

Confucius and his 'golden age'

Is what Confucius said true? Can music, poetry and decorum govern the world? Do rulers, by cultivating benevolence in themselves, plant benevolence in their subjects, and harmony in the polity?
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 10, 2006

Demon swordplay

THE DEMON'S SERMON ON THE MARTIAL ARTS by Issai Chozanshi, translated by William Scott Wilson. Tokyo/New York: Kodansha International, 222 pp., with b/w illustrations, 2006, 2,000 yen (cloth). Early on, Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645), perhaps Japan's greatest martial artist, was complaining about the commercialization...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 7, 2006

Fans lift J-culture over language barrier

Global interest in Japanese entertainment continues to heat up. Quite literally.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2006

Change needed at Yasukuni

In the Washington Post article that ran on this page Aug. 22, "Much to-do about a shrine," conservative U.S. commentator George Will suggests that Shinzo Abe, the front-runner in the Liberal Democratic Party's presidential race, stop visiting Yasukuni Shrine, the memorial for Japan's war dead, if he...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 5, 2006

Grim bar system may hurt legal reforms

Sept. 21 is awaited with a mixture of anticipation and dread in campuses across Japan. It is the date on which results of the country's first new bar examination are announced. How well a school's students do on this test, which is projected to have a pass rate of about 40 percent, may have a serious...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 3, 2006

Toeing the line may take a name-change for the LDP

It's September, and Japan is in the grips of selection fever. This month Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi steps down, and the ever-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will choose a new president. To all intents and purposes, due to the party's parliamentary dominance, selection of an LDP leader is...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 31, 2006

The subversive soul of 'The Wizard of Oz'

T he combination of Irvine Welsh, author of "Trainspotting," and "The Wizard of Oz," Hollywood's quintessential family film, in the stage play "Babylon Heights" may raise some eyebrows. But "The Wizard of Oz" is not innocent entertainment. The significance of the film to gay and lesbian audiences, for...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 30, 2006

Gene finds help to 'unroll' humanity

The English word "evolve" comes from a Latin word, used years before the familiar Darwinian connotation took over, meaning "unroll." As individuals, we don't evolve -- it's genes that evolve -- but as our lives unroll, we can see and feel the influence of natural selection at every stage, from birth...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 29, 2006

Tofu, magic for both body and taste buds

When the summer heat sets in, my Japanese mother religiously serves hiyayakko (chilled tofu) sprinkled with katsuobushi (bonito flakes) and soy sauce. Just looking at this simple dish, I feel myself starting to cool down, knowing that tofu actually helps lower your body temperature.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 27, 2006

Cultural insight past the twaddle

FULL METAL APACHE: Transactions Between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America, by Takayuki Tatsumi, foreword by Larry McCaffery. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 272 pp., 2006, $22.95 (paper). Literary theorist and critic Takayuki Tatsumi's new book, "Full Metal Apache," is both good and bad....
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Aug 23, 2006

Bottled water and problems that flow

Having just spent several weeks in the United States, I can report with confidence that, more than ever before, Americans have their hands full.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Aug 20, 2006

There's gold being panned in them thar hills

There may be many perfectly good reasons to spend a weekend sloshing around in water panning for gold. Trying to get rich isn't one of them.

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