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Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Dec 2, 2011

Chichibu festival among top three for floats

Japan loves top threes. Since the Edo Period (1603-1867), when it's said Confucian scholar Hayashi Shunsai traveled and wrote his great work "Nihon Sankei" ("Three Views of Japan"), magazines, tourist associations and local governments have captured the public imagination with their own interpretations...
JAPAN
Dec 2, 2011

Noda apologizes for axed official's Okinawa gaffe

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda apologized in front of the media Thursday over an "extremely inappropriate" remark a Defense Ministry official made in relation to the Futenma base relocation in Okinawa.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 2, 2011

Softbank joins Alibaba-led acquisition talks for Yahoo

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Softbank Corp. are in advanced talks with Blackstone Group LP and Bain Capital LLC about making a bid to buy Yahoo! Inc. in its entirety, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
Reader Mail
Dec 1, 2011

Unbalanced article on immigrants

Hiroaki Sato's Nov. 28 article, "Learning to live with the builders of America," is less an examination of current issues than an illustration of the author's bias.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 1, 2011

Let's hope Europe does the right thing at last

The resignations of Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have highlighted how Greece, Italy and many other countries obscured for too long their bloated public sectors' long-standing problems with unsustainable social-welfare benefits. Indeed, for many of...
COMMENTARY
Dec 1, 2011

The Arab Spring's intellectual divide

The so-called Arab Spring is creating an intellectual divide that threatens any sensible understanding of the turmoil engulfing several Arab countries.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 1, 2011

Friends "Let's Get Together Again"

In an interview with The Japan Times in May, Friends frontman Syouta Kaneko put forth U.S. band The Beach Boys as one of their influences. A glance at the artwork for "Let's Get Together Again" — found photos of people enjoying the summer — or any blog writeup of Friends' sound ("beach," "surf" and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 1, 2011

The New Mastersounds hone a jazz-funk style at gigs

The New Mastersounds have many old friends in Japan. The British four-piece was first noticed on these shores by fans of Scottish Northern Soul and funk DJ Keb Darge's "Deep Funk" series of compilations in the early 2000s, and an impressive live resume has followed.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 1, 2011

Issues that covered up Japan's nudes

In his popular anecdotal encyclopedia of Japan, "Things Japanese," the 19th-century British Japanologist, Basil Hall Chamberlain, included the comment that "the nude is seen in Japan but not looked at." This reflected a reality in 1890, when the book was published: Nudity was not a big deal, at least...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / INSIDE ART
Dec 1, 2011

Restless Arab region presents curatorial challenge

In mid-February, Mori Art Museum Associate Curator Kenichi Kondo noticed an article on the Nafas website, which specializes in art news from the Middle East. Egyptian media artist Ahmed Basiony, it said, had gone to Tahrir Square in Cairo to join the protests against president Hosni Mubarak. He had been...
COMMENTARY
Nov 30, 2011

Arab Autumn progress report

The Arab Spring was fast and dramatic: Nonviolent revolutions in the streets removed dictators in Tunisia and Egypt in a matter of weeks, and similar revolutions got underway in Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen. The Arab Autumn is a much slower and messier affair, but despite the carnage in Syria and...
COMMENTARY
Nov 30, 2011

TPP: APEC's anti-China son?

The French have a saying: "The more something changes, the more it remains the same thing."
EDITORIALS
Nov 30, 2011

Creating special economic zones

The government's effort to select areas to be designated as "comprehensive special zones" (sogo tokku) is now in full swing. A law to create such zones was enacted in June as part of the government's economic growth policy. The Diet is now deliberating on another bill to create "reconstruction special...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 30, 2011

Clash of democracy and capitalism

Do capitalism and democracy conflict? Does each weaken the other?
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2011

Agent Orange buried at beach strip?

Dozens of barrels of the toxic defoliant Agent Orange were buried in the late 1960s beneath what is now a busy neighborhood in the central Okinawa Island town of Chatan, near Araha Beach, according to a former U.S. soldier who has recently pinpointed the location thanks to a 1970 map of a U.S. base obtained...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Nov 29, 2011

Kamakura: So what's Thanksgiving all about?

Matt PiaggiStudent, 22 (New Zealander)Some American relatives came over and did Thanksgiving for us. My uncle stood up in front of us and said that it was about giving thanks for the family we've got. I loved the turkey we ate.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 29, 2011

Utilities to cut it close amid winter demand

With winter just around the corner and possible electricity shortages looming from a string of nuclear power plant inspections, utilities and the government are urging people to once again conserve power.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Nov 29, 2011

What do you do when the kids think Colonel Sanders is Santa?

Foreign parents in Japan are faced with the task of trying to reconcile their own childhood memories of Christmas with the different take that Japan has on the holiday season.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 28, 2011

The two pillars of the world's future

Our world is about to be transformed. It is too early to tell what changes will come about. Yet, there is a premonition that the future relationship between America and China will set the course for the entire world.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Nov 28, 2011

Existential fear stalks M.D.s

The Japan Medical Association (JMA), once the most powerful lobby group with mighty political clout, still clings to its position of staunchly opposing any scheme to increase the number of doctors, in order to protect its own vested interests.
Reader Mail
Nov 27, 2011

Send paternalistic types packing

As an "English gentleman," brought up in the latter days of the British Empire, I was encouraged to feel "superior" in being British. As a military officer, I was instructed to be superior to those of a lower rank, so I know much about "superiority". But we were taught NOT to feel superior in matters...
Reader Mail
Nov 27, 2011

Too much to ask of a convention

At this point, not signing the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction would put Japan out in the cold among the leading nations of the world. And at this point, taking a critical view of it would put a person like me (a foreign-born, noncitizen permanent resident) out...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Nov 27, 2011

BayStars have chance for fresh start under new ownership

Last week, we examined the history of the Yokohama BayStars and discussed the impending sale of the Central League team and change of ownership from Tokyo Broadcasting Systems Inc. to the DeNA company, and we mentioned where TBS had tried to turn around the fortunes of the club in 2010 by hiring Takao...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 27, 2011

Dispatches from the labor front line

This timely and excellent analysis of the changing employment system in Japan greatly improves our understanding of what it is like to be a dispatched worker (haken) in contemporary Japan and discourse about nonregular employment, of which haken is only one of various categories such as temporary, contract,...

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’