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CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Aug 30, 2012

The customer is always right, but that's what's wrong in Japan's live-house scene

The roundly despised pay-to-play system in place throughout most of Tokyo's live-music scene, and to a slightly lesser extent in many other cities, is something I've written about in this column before.
COMMENTARY
Aug 29, 2012

Romney poised to fix a GOP problem

Conventions are the seventh-inning stretch of presidential politics, a pause to consider the interminable prelude and the coming climax. Republicans gathering in Tampa face an unusual election in which they do not have a substantial advantage concerning the most presidential subject, foreign policy....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Aug 28, 2012

Hunter Shoji Kuramochi

Shoji Kuramochi, 73, is one of Japan's few surviving hunters, and he may be the only one with 100 trained hunting dogs. Besides being a hunter of wild boars and deer, he's also an expert at the traditional Japanese art forms of bonsai cultivation and the breeding of beautiful and rare types of kingyo...
JAPAN
Aug 24, 2012

Brother keeps Sadako memory alive

Masahiro Sasaki was only 4 years old when the B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped its atomic bomb on Hiroshima, wiping out the central part of the city on that sunny Aug. 6, 1945, morning.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 23, 2012

"Masterpieces from the Permanent Collection II: A Close Look at Private Art Schools of Kyoto"

Gajuku, art schools for painters in Japan, played a vital role in the cultivation of Kyoto's modern art industry. Some gajuku were run privately by experienced painters, while others served as places where highly motivated, like-minded artists could get together and practice their skills.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / Japan Pulse
Aug 22, 2012

Take the kids back in time this summer

Japanese people are rediscovering the charms of a simpler life, if only for a weekend.
COMMENTARY
Aug 20, 2012

Measuring a society's value

Guan Zhong, an ancient Chinese savant, once stated that people learn to behave with good manners only when they have sufficient clothing and food.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 19, 2012

Yakuza face new battles within and without

The nation's largest underworld syndicate, the Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi, is 97 years old.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 19, 2012

Rumbles in the jungle

Japan's poorest prefecture is Okinawa — and on Okinawa the poorest region lies along the northeastern coast blanketed by the dense Yanbaru jungle. Here, the villages of Higashi and Kunigami were the last areas on the island to receive electricity and running water. Until 1978, they lacked even a paved...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Aug 19, 2012

Politics taint Ahn Sehong's 'comfort women' photo exhibition

Visitors to a photo exhibition would not typically be asked to open their bags or walk through a metal detector before entering the exhibition site. Nor would they expect to catch the inquisitive gazes of various plainclothes police officers lurking in the crowd once inside.
LIFE / WEEK 3
Aug 19, 2012

Scholar Tenshin Okakura's seaside pavilion, destroyed in tsunami, witnesses a new dawn

Rokkakudo, a small, six-sided wooden pavilion that overlooks the Pacific Ocean from a low rocky headland in northern Ibaraki Prefecture, is by no means Tenshin Okakura's most important legacy. That honor would go to "The Book of Tea," a now-classic dissertation on traditional Japanese aesthetics that...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Aug 19, 2012

The air around us is teeming with life — it's just too tiny to see

As I approached the top of Mount Tarumae's western peak, located in Hokkaido's Shikotsu-Toya National Park, for a brief moment I thought an early reward was awaiting me in the form of clusters of ripe blueberries in the bush tops. At first glance it appeared that the bushes were in fruit, and it was...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2012

U.S. religious liberty feeling the weight of so many faiths

In the United States, Muslim women trying to maintain modesty should get female-only hours at the public pool, right?
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 18, 2012

Japan's career fairies — they're ready to help you

One job that exists in Japan that doesn't in my country is that of the career fairy. These are people, usually women, who work at places like the central post office or the bank and are on hand to help customers as they walk in the door. And as a customer, of course you need help.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 17, 2012

'Dogtooth'

Dogtooth" shows the kind of stark, nightmarish images that assail the senses during a fretful summer nap, when the body soaks the sheets and you're disoriented for a while afterward. What just happened here? It's not easy to say, except that the long procession of bizarre scenes evoke the distinct sensation...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 17, 2012

Light meals for Tokyo's long, sticky summer

Summertime, and the living is far from easy in the city. Stuck in the middle of the heat island, appetites fray and taste buds wilt like yesterday's lettuce. Simple snacks are called for, not major meals, with copious quantities of liquid sustenance too.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 15, 2012

Palestinian plight's Tohoku parallels

The civil war in Syria is not only affecting its civilians but also the Palestinian refugees living in exile there, and the situation is deteriorating, the head of a United Nations agency supporting the refugees said during a recent visit to Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 13, 2012

Five things Washington could do for Syrians

The United States has a window to facilitate an orderly transition in Syria without deploying military force. But the window is narrowing — and the Obama administration will need to adjust its political strategy to succeed.
OLYMPICS / LONDON POSTCARD
Aug 12, 2012

Wishing the show could continue on indefinitely

There's a different vibe in the air as I walked around Olympic Park on Friday.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 12, 2012

Pyongyang: the Orwellian city through its architecture

PYONGYANG ARCHITECTURAL AND CULTURAL GUIDE, by Philipp Meuser. DOM publishers, 2012, 368 pp., $49.95 (paperback) Imagine an easy-to-navigate, pedestrian- and car-friendly city with enough space to avoid the kind of congestion that typically threatens to choke similar places worldwide — a city whose...

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years