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Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jan 19, 2013

Zen and the cross-cultural art of tree-climbing

In the upstairs meeting room of a camping lodge in Komagane, Nagano Prefecture, two women and about 20 men walked slowly and intently in circles one rainy day last November. At the front of the room, a weathered and wiry Englishman intoned the sort of instructions a yoga aficionado would find familiar....
Reader Mail
Jan 19, 2013

Coach may be just tip of iceberg

Regarding the Jan. 12/13 Kyodo article "Osaka basketball coach tries to justify physical discipline after beaten boy's suicide": Whether the student was struck one time, 10 times or 30 times does not make any difference. People with a mind-set like this teacher's have to be kept away from pupils.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 19, 2013

Rumors rife that Sony may unveil next-generation PS4 this summer

Speculation is growing that Sony Corp. plans to release a new version of its PlayStation game console in early summer following a recent remark by senior official Hiroshi Sakamoto during an interview with Chilean website emol.com.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jan 19, 2013

Theater's collection of historical documents endangered

The Misonoza theater, long a fixture in Naka Ward, Nagoya, will be closed down at the end of March. Highly regarded as a symbol of the art world in Nagoya, its basement houses the only library for live theater in the Chubu region.
Reader Mail
Jan 17, 2013

Keep Christianity in perspective

Kevin Rafferty's Jan. 7 article, "Christianity vs. secularism," was lambasted by secularist Scott Mintz in his Jan. 13 letter, "Inequality in Christian nations." Now I'll lambaste Rafferty from the other side.
EDITORIALS
Jan 17, 2013

Third-pole parties' policy positions

The so-called third-pole opposition forces gained a slight foothold in the Dec. 16 Lower House election, although the Liberal Democratic Party and its ally Komeito control more than two-thirds of the Lower House seats.
Reader Mail
Jan 17, 2013

Corporal punishment common

The Jan. 11 Kyodo analysis article, "Physical punishment at elite school shows limits of ban," is unfortunately not surprising. I have seen firsthand as well as heard from others how sadly common the practice of corporal punishment is.
EDITORIALS
Jan 16, 2013

Stimulus package alert

The Abe Cabinet on Friday endorsed an emergency economic stimulus package designed to buoy the sagging economy. It is only second in size to the one adopted after the Lehman Brothers shock in the fall of 2008. Government spending will reach ¥10.3 trillion. If spending by local governments and the private...
EDITORIALS
Jan 15, 2013

Stimulus package alert

The Abe Cabinet on Friday endorsed an emergency economic stimulus package designed to buoy the sagging economy. It is only second in size to the one adopted after the Lehman Brothers shock in the fall of 2008. Government spending will reach ¥10.3 trillion. If spending by local governments and the private...
LIFE
Jan 14, 2013

Tour guide exams another example of national licensing frenzy

Colin P.A. Jones wondered if he was alone in laughing out loud at a question about impaired thinking in the national nursing exam ("Stop thinking — the exam is about to start," Zeit Gist, Dec. 18).
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jan 14, 2013

Our menacing infrastructure

"Expressway tunnels as well as other infrastructure throughout Japan are nearing the crisis stage," warns a university professor who is a member of an advisory body for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
Reader Mail
Jan 13, 2013

Some might find it shallow

In my opinion, Roger Pulvers' Dec. 30 Counterpoint article, "Is juggernaut Japan being driven to destruction (and no one's to blame)?," lacks the power to persuade because it comes off as another stereotyped view of social trends by a foreign journalist.
Reader Mail
Jan 13, 2013

Who will care for the elderly?

Regarding Jun Hongo's Jan. 9 article, "Foreign nurse success story has message for Japan: Open up": Why did Japan bother to invite these poorly paid, overworked and under-appreciated nurses from Indonesia and the Philippines to work here.
Reader Mail
Jan 13, 2013

Another arrest bites the dust

Regarding the Jan. 8/9 AFP article "Cyber harasser's trail of riddles leads cops to memory card on cat collar": So, once again, lazy cops pulled in four "suspects" off the street and extracted bogus "confessions" (related to sending threatening messages) before finding out that the four actually had...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 13, 2013

Mascots bear cash for local authorities

In September 2007, after Shinzo Abe had abruptly quit his first stint as prime minister, sales of Shin-chan Manju, a bean-paste-filled bun named after Abe, spiked. The maker of the buns had tried to promote the product over the course of Abe's year as the Liberal Democratic Party leader, changing its...
Reader Mail
Jan 13, 2013

Inequality in Christian nations

Kevin Rafferty's Jan. 7 article, "Christianity vs. secularism," is a disjointed and mostly aimless sermon in disguise. He laments the absence of Christ in Christmas, but unfairly points to holiday festivities in Hong Kong as an example. Why should the Nativity story be taken seriously in a historically...
LIFE
Jan 13, 2013

What Japan needs to do

With its economy spluttering, large parts of its northeastern region still devastated by the effects of the mammoth Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 — and releases of radioactive materials that followed — its population shrinking and aging at unprecedented rates and its citizens despairing of...
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2013

'71 Pentagon paper says Agent Orange was stored on Kadena Air Base

Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jan 12, 2013

Ise donates cypress logs to fix Tohoku shrines

"Hinoki" cypress from Ise Shrine in Mie Prefecture will be used to rebuild Shinto shrines damaged during the deadly March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, whose monster tsunami devastated the Tohoku region.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 12, 2013

Abe huddle with Nippon Ishin duo just on economy?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met Friday with Osaka Gov. Ichiro Matsui and Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto in what the latter two said was purely a discussion of the supplementary budget, economic issues, structural reforms, and the goal to make Tokyo and Osaka the twin engines of Japan's growth.
Reader Mail
Jan 10, 2013

Jet scramble all huff and puff

Regarding the Jan. 6 article "Japan scrambles F-15 fighter jets after Chinese aircraft spotted near Senkakus": The interesting question for me is, what would those F-15s have done if the Chinese airplane had completely encroached on Japanese territory, did loops and rolls, and even dived in a simulated...
Reader Mail
Jan 10, 2013

Debunking 'facts' about guns

In his Dec. 31 article, "Supreme copout: twisted justification for guns," Hiroaki Sato makes an unprincipled argument when he suggests that U.S. Supreme Court justices should allow their personal experience of victimization to factor into their interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 8, 2013

Xenophobia finds fertile soil in web anonymity

As diplomatic strains with China and South Korea worsen over territorial disputes, more and more Japanese are using the relative anonymity of cyberspace to vent their political spleens online.
EDITORIALS
Jan 8, 2013

Mending ties with China

The dispute between Japan and China over the sovereignty issue involving the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea has caused bilateral ties to plummet. China is repeatedly violating Japanese territorial waters and airspace around the islands. Japan needs to enhance its ability to protect its territorial...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 6, 2013

Abe returns to 'retrieve' Japan from its history — or will he just repeat it?

Way back in the heady 1960s, Japan was one big Cathedral of Optimism, and I found myself among a people who believed their country was finally on that road laid out before them in the post-feudal Meiji Era (1868-1912) to "catch up with and overtake" the West. And indeed, by the end of the decade Japan's...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 4, 2013

Cleaning 'angels' reinforce positive image of Japanese workers

Train cleaning crews are the new heroes of Japanese commerce.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 4, 2013

Child custody injustices hard to fix

On May 6, 2010, Yasuyuki Watanabe, an internal affairs ministry bureaucrat, came home to find his wife and 2-year old daughter gone, along with their clothes.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jan 4, 2013

Golden Kings hammer Hannaryz for straight day

Sure, there are others who can call Jim Boeheim a mentor or a source of inspiration.
Reader Mail
Jan 3, 2013

Cost of gun 'freedom' too high

Regarding Robert J. Spitzer's Washington Post article that was published in The Japan Times on Dec. 26 under the headline "Five myths about U.S. gun control": Again we are on that old spinning wheel watching the United States convulse over another mass shooting at a school with young, innocent victims....

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