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Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Oct 4, 2013

Rural exchange program for city kids draws down

Amid a rapidly aging and declining population in rural areas of Aichi Prefecture, an exchange program to send young students from cities to the Tomiyama district in the village of Toyone will be terminated in March 2015, along with the closure of the district's only elementary and junior high school....
Reader Mail
Oct 2, 2013

Mindset trumps English ability

In his Sept. 23 article, "The communication skills for vying in the world," Sadaaki Numata expressed concern about Japan's ability to hold its own in international forums and negotiations.
Reader Mail
Oct 2, 2013

U.S. interest in a Japanese affair

In the Sept. 26 Kyodo article "Abe tries to counter militant image in U.S.," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says that under the current interpretation of Japan's Constitution, Japan's warships cannot "come to the aid of U.S. warships operating around Japan in international waters if they are attacked from...
Reader Mail
Oct 2, 2013

Rights to our body after death

I usually enjoy Ted Rall's opinion essays, but I didn't fancy his Sept. 27 article "Mandatory organ donation." Even though he writes as he usually does, provocatively and tongue in cheek, there are serious people among us who seriously propose this dystopian stupidity.
Reader Mail
Oct 2, 2013

Playing 'softball' with an autocrat

Regarding Tom Plate's Sept. 23 article "The good side of Singapore icon Lee Kuan Yew": Plate seems obsessed with men like Lee, who has been described elsewhere as autocratic, arrogant, vindictive, vicious and just plain mean and nasty.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 30, 2013

Youths should learn from Malala's courage

What will it take to get more young people in Japan to break out of their shell and go out into the world to experience interacting with people of different cultural backgrounds
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Sep 30, 2013

Cultural and legal hurdles block path to child adoptions in Japan

While more than 7,000 couples applied to adopt or become foster parents every year between 2006 and 2010, only 309 children were adopted in fiscal 2010, according to government figures.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Sep 30, 2013

Foreign iPhone fans, be aware of Softbank's two-year visa rule

Softbank requires that you have at least two years remaining on your visa if you wish to pay for a new iPhone handset in monthly installments rather than fork out for the whole lot up front.
WORLD
Sep 29, 2013

NSA gathers data on U.S. citizens' social connections: report

The National Security Agency began mining Americans' email and phone data in 2010 to map out their social connections and locations, according to The New York Times.
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Sep 29, 2013

Unions mull a 'Labor Party'

The Japanese Trade Union Confederation, feeling somewhat estranged from the Democratic Party of Japan, is mulling the idea of realigning opposition parties into a labor party.
LIFE / Language / COMMUNICATION CUES
Sep 29, 2013

Majority of students experience bullying

The National Institute for Educational Policy Research (NIER) announced on the fifth that according to a survey it had conducted, only 30 percent of students are free from being bullied in junior high school.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 28, 2013

Nothing is clear about court ruling on illegitimate kids

Evidently I was wrong.
Reader Mail
Sep 28, 2013

Keep tabs on Lake Biwa water

It was with great distress that I read the Sept. 19 Kyodo article "Cesium-tainted wood chips found near (Lake) Biwa."
Reader Mail
Sep 28, 2013

In the interest of human security

The Sept. 17 Bloomberg article by Dmitri Trenin, "Why the West misread Russia," provides deep insights into the thinking behind Russia's proposed arrangement to disarm Syria of its chemical weapons — without the use of force.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Sep 27, 2013

Maglev veteran keeps looking toward the future

The route for the Linear Chuo Shinkansen between Tokyo and Nagoya has been announced, and the country's first magnetically levitated train is moving toward the start of operations in 2027.
Reader Mail
Sep 25, 2013

Questionable link to innovation

Professor Takamitsu Sawa made some factual mistakes in his Sept. 17 article, "Lack of liberal arts education is sapping Japan's creativity." In Japanese universities, students of science, engineering and medicine take courses in social studies their first year. As an economics professor at Nagasaki University,...
Reader Mail
Sep 25, 2013

The men that lack 'life skills'

Regarding Michael Hoffman's Aug. 31 article, "Married or single, Japan is a desolate country": I have a few elder moms as students, all with adult sons living at home.
Reader Mail
Sep 25, 2013

What will replace the signature?

Regarding the Bloomberg Global Perspective of Sept. 20, "The case against cursive writing": I do not think less of children or young adults who cannot write because they were not taught cursive handwriting in school. It is a laborious, lengthy, time-consuming lesson in an environment where teachers are...
Reader Mail
Sep 25, 2013

So much lost in progress' name

Regarding Michael Hoffman's Sept. 22 article, "Ancient tales by the 'savages' of Hokkaido have lessons for today": British traveler Isabella Bird wrote "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan" (1880) after she traveled by horseback from the Port of Yokohama to the wilds of Ezo (Hokkaido), on a journey through a relatively...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 24, 2013

The limits of multitasking

Studies of the effects of chronic multitasking suggest that the overwhelming risk of letting no task go untended is that you do nothing well.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 24, 2013

TPP, Hague treaty, Senkakus to top agenda for Kennedy

At her Senate hearing last week, Caroline Kennedy, tipped to be the next U.S. ambassador to Japan, faced numerous questions about the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact, tensions over the Senkaku Islands, and what she would do about nearly 400 cases of American children allegedly abducted to Japan.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 22, 2013

The communication skills for vying in the world

espite the introduction of curriculum changes in English-language teaching at Japanese junior and senior high school levels, little progress has been achieved to date.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Sep 22, 2013

Pacman, Peso and Pyongyang

A few weeks ago, a Kickstarter project was posted on the Internet featuring two young men who went by the names of Pacman and Peso.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 21, 2013

Crossing the Himalayas through memory to Ladakh

I'm in a small van careering along a rough and narrow road beside a rushing river with brightly painted temples along its banks and craggy peaks towering overhead. We're traveling in the prescribed Indian fashion — drive as fast as you can and hope for the best or, better still, pray.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Sep 20, 2013

Animal shelters strive to reduce euthanasia

The Welfare and Management of Animals Law was revised Sept. 1 in an attempt to reduce the number of abandoned dogs and cats.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Sep 19, 2013

You are where you eat: McDonald's Japan sets prices by region

McDonald's has found that it won't lose customers if it raises prices.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 18, 2013

Getting to the bottom of Africa's rape problem

Why is rape so much more prevalent in Africa than anywhere else in the world

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past