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JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 27, 2012

'Third force' elements scramble for poll position

So far 16 political parties are fielding candidates for the Dec. 16 Lower House election.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LIGHT GIST
Nov 27, 2012

I have a dream: a 'young first' Japan that works for all

It is a political season. Barack Obama was recently re-elected president of the United States, China has anointed Xi Jinping as its new leader, and Japanese politicians are jockeying for position in advance of a general election to be held on Dec. 16.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 25, 2012

Attitude change needed to shake up the workforce

Several weeks ago the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, hung around briefly after the IMF finished up its annual meeting — which happened to be in Tokyo this year — and appeared on a special hourlong edition of NHK's in-depth news show "Closeup Gendai." The topic was working...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 25, 2012

Shedding light on problems with Japan's psychiatric care

MENTAL HEALTH CARE IN JAPAN, edited by Ruth Taplin and Sandra J. Lawman. Routledge, 2012, 148 pp., $155 (hardcover) This collection of seven chapters makes for grim reading because it details the miserable state of mental health care in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Nov 24, 2012

Yaeyama stray cats steal the show on the beaches of Taketomi

After eight days on Miyakojima in which again our departure was delayed by bad weather, we finally set sail for Ishigaki Island, part of the Yaeyama Island chain and the end of our sailing trip through Japan.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Nov 22, 2012

Ishihara's resignation doesn't come cheap

Tokyo taxpayers are going to have to pay a lot for their former governor's capriciousness.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 18, 2012

Yoshiwara busts send message: 'Keep it clean'

On May 24, 1956, the Diet voted Japan's anti-prostitution statute into law, effective from April 1, 1957; but enforcement was postponed a year to give sex workers time to seek new livelihoods.
EDITORIALS
Nov 18, 2012

Students staying in Japan

Japanese college students are studying abroad in fewer numbers than ever before. A new report from the nonprofit Institute of International Education in New York announced that a mere 19,900 Japanese students were enrolled in American colleges and universities in 2011-12. That is down 60 percent from...
Reader Mail
Nov 15, 2012

In the face of the concrete-lovers

Regarding C.W. Nicol's Nov. 4 column: "Breaking new ground with our Tohoku school in the woods": Nicol must really be fed up with Japan's infrastructure ministry and the lapdog politicians who will do anything to win a public works bid, and then pass on the higher construction costs to the hapless taxpayer....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 14, 2012

Red-back spider found in Kawasaki

A poisonous red-back spider was found in the garden of a home in Kawasaki, suggesting the invasive alien arachnid is creeping closer to Tokyo.
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Nov 13, 2012

Today's J-blip: Kasō Taishō's YouTube channel

Give it up for oshogatsu's amateur hour and the common (creative) man.
EDITORIALS
Nov 13, 2012

Asian defense spending doubles

Defense spending has doubled in Asia over the past decade, according to a new study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a bipartisan, nonprofit U.S. think tank.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 11, 2012

The changing face of fatherhood in Japan

My maiden brush with paternity in Japan was in 1982. New to the country and new to my job, I said to my boss, "My wife is expecting a baby on such-and-such a day and I'll want that day off."
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 11, 2012

To Kagoshima in search of a great samurai unbowed

Flying into Kagoshima from Tokyo across the volcanic landscape of Kirishima and Ebino Kogen, I feel as if I'm arriving in another country. The air is moist and warm, the light sharper, the sky bluer and the foliage intensely green, sprawling exuberantly over the rugged hills.
EDITORIALS
Nov 11, 2012

Let them march

Anti-nuclear activists were denied use of Hibiya Park by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government last week. The organizer of the planned rally, Metropolitan Coalition Against Nukes, has been holding weekly rallies in front of the prime minister's office, and the rally set for Nov. 11 was to start in Hibiya...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 9, 2012

Jazzing up the industrial city

On one side you have Montreux, a Swiss resort town on the banks of Lake Geneva that has seen many famous residents over the years, and which has been immortalized in the lyrics of the Deep Purple song "Smoke On The Water." On the other you have a Japanese city in the heart of the world's most heavily...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 8, 2012

No problems with Nisennenmondai's contradictions

There's a basic disconnect at the heart of Tokyo's Nisennenmondai. A series of small contradictions run through nearly all aspects of what the instrumental trio does, but they add up to make it one of the most intriguing bands to come out of Japan's underground and experimental-rock scene in the past...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 8, 2012

China's Hokkaido forest grab all about water

Morihiro Oguma's phone rang every day with calls from brokers representing foreign investors who wanted to buy his Japan Mineral water bottling business.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Nov 6, 2012

If you need to bring drugs to Japan, sort out the paperwork — or else

Reader BM wants to know if morphine can be brought into Japan legally, and if having a tattoo would prevent her from visiting bathing facilities.
Reader Mail
Nov 4, 2012

Time frame for exposure needed

In the Oct. 31 article "Fallout projection irks rice region, new targets," Ayako Mie writes, "Exposure to 100 millisieverts would raise the lifetime risk of dying of cancer by 0.5 percent."
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Nov 4, 2012

Breaking new ground with our Tohoku school in the woods

On Oct. 6, 2012, I took part in a Ji-chin-sai (Shinto ground-breaking ceremony) in the Nobiru area of Higashi Matsushima City in Miyagi Prefecture. Standing with me before an altar constructed in a wooded part of the Omokura Valley was Takahashi Yuugo, a volunteer who had been cutting trees and making...
JAPAN
Nov 3, 2012

Hashimoto likens weekly's slur to hate speak

The clash between Toru Hashimoto and the weekly magazine Shukan Asahi over an article on the Osaka mayor's lineage has raised a question that Japan still refuses to directly confront: What kinds of comments cross the line from criticism into hate speech that should be legally banned?

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan