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Jun 20, 2012

Finding common ground in East-West dialogue

With the rise of the "Asian Tiger" nations to global power, Eastern and Western scholars have been re-evaluating elements of East Asia's moral and literary heritage that were once viewed as obstacles to modernization. Efforts by these scholars to transmit this heritage to non-Asian audiences are welcome...
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Jun 19, 2012

In 'right-to-work' Japan, employees should also have the right to rest

According to the tagline for the 1991 film "City Slickers," "All you need in life is love, courage and paid holidays." Indeed, some of us may find meaning to our lives through single-minded devotion to our jobs, but without leisure time our bodies and minds would inevitably putter out. Taken to extremes,...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jun 19, 2012

Dealing with isolation and exclusion in Japan

Q: As mental health professionals dealing chiefly with native English-speakers in Tokyo, do you often have to deal with people who feel isolated and excluded in Japan, e.g. long-termers who have failed to "fit in" here, as in they lack Japanese friends, despite knowing the language, culture and so on?...
Reader Mail
Jun 17, 2012

Views about college validated

Regarding Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson's article "It's time U.S. dropped the college-for-all crusade," which ran in The Japan Times on May 30: What Samuelson calls the largest mistake in educational policy since World War II was actually first identified in 1963 by John Keats in "The...
Reader Mail
Jun 17, 2012

Sweet dream for Fukushima

Regarding the June 11 article "18% of Fukushima evacuees may be unable to return home even after 10 years": This figure is laughable; there is no way. The example is Chernobyl. Not one person has returned to Chernobyl because the hazard is still present in the soil.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jun 17, 2012

Watanabe working to steer Lions in right directions

The Saitama Seibu Lions, often seen in the Pacific League Climax Series in recent years, are currently struggling to move out of the second division in the PL.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 17, 2012

Hunting ivory netsuke carvers is like a big game

Netsuke are the diminutive works of art that dangled from cords attaching purses or other pouches to a kimono's obi sash before Western garb ousted traditional dress after the modernizing Meiji Restoration of 1868.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Jun 14, 2012

Bolt hungry to take star to new level during Olympics

Has anyone, anywhere, had a greater love of the camera than Usain Bolt? Maybe Marilyn Monroe.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 12, 2012

China's brooding 'Dragons' complicate standoffs at sea

Chinese maritime law-enforcement agencies operate and are organized in such a complicated manner that they appear embroiled in a turf war. That became apparent when Japan and China held its first intergovernmental talks on maritime affairs in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, May 15-16.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 12, 2012

'Flyjin' feel vindicated, worry for those left in Japan

Although more than a year has passed since the magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami struck Tohoku on March 11, 2011, Ivan Stout's memory of the moment when the Shinmarunouchi building in Tokyo's Chou Ward began to tremble is as vivid as ever.
Reader Mail
Jun 10, 2012

Energy costs of noise abatement

Regarding the June 6 article "A few simple steps can save energy": Here in the mountains of Shiga Prefecture, it never gets too hot. Yet, we bought an air conditioner and use it 365 nights a year because we need to sleep with the windows closed.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 10, 2012

It's not that easy to quit

"If you don't like it, quit."
Reader Mail
Jun 10, 2012

Osaka mayor should be watched

In my understanding of human nature, most of us have a hidden agenda in our dealings with the world at large — private thoughts and desires often not shared with those nearest to us. I believe this is even more true of politicians. Assessing the depth and width of their humility and humanity is usually...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 10, 2012

The self-styled 'Land of the Free' nurtures yet another facet of hypocrisy

Last month, two members of the U.S. Senate vilified Eduardo Saverin, the cofounder of Facebook Inc., for doing something that Americans are apparently coming to consider a punishable sin.
Reader Mail
Jun 10, 2012

Pejorative use of 'homophobic'

Philip Brasor's June 3 Media Mix column, "Homophobic joke goes awry for 'Beat," shows just how far prejudice has permeated the media. But not the way most readers think.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jun 9, 2012

Scholar to help restore Kesennuma treasures

An engineering scholar at Toyohashi University of Technology in Aichi Prefecture is helping to restore cultural assets damaged by the March 2011 tsunami in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, in an effort to make them "a symbol of reconstruction" in the coastal city not far away from his hometown.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Jun 9, 2012

Matsuda eyes rematch against Olympic legend Phelps

An athlete can tell you a tale with words that are as relevant as live action. Use your imagination to fill in the details.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 8, 2012

Refugee pines to go back to, help Myanmar

When Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi announced her trust in President Thein Sein last August, Tin Win Akbar decided it was time to return home after spending almost 16 years as an exile in Japan.
Reader Mail
Jun 7, 2012

Don't let nativism trump health

In the April 24 Kyodo article, "Some municipalities set to deny services to illegal foreign residents: poll," I was appalled to read that "33 [municipalities] said they will not vaccinate illegal foreigners against tuberculosis and other diseases" (when the revised basic resident registration law takes...
EDITORIALS
Jun 6, 2012

Cabinet reshuffle for convenience

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda reshuffled his Cabinet Monday — the second in nine months. His aim is clear: removing obstacles — Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka and infrastructure and transport minister Takeshi Maeda — to facilitate negotiations with the opposition Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 5, 2012

Much ado, but micro-important

A few weeks ago, as a panelist at a symposium on Japan's accession to the Hague Convention on international child abduction, I found it hard to disguise my ire. One of the speakers was a lawyer opposed to Japan joining the convention, and who refused to even use "abduction" to discuss what she called...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 5, 2012

Rumors, lies fill void left by police in Furlong case

It is one of the more ugly tasks in journalism: trying to extract a quote from a bereaved family after a violent death. By the time I called Nicola Furlong's mother on May 25, she had learned that her 21-year-old daughter had been sexually assaulted and probably throttled by a stranger in a city 10,000...
Reader Mail
Jun 3, 2012

Value the people who can build

Regarding Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson's May 30 article, "It's time U.S. dropped the college-for-all crusade": It is indeed interesting to read that there are those in America now questioning the wisdom of "college for everyone."
Reader Mail
Jun 3, 2012

Kan's response understandable

Regarding the May 29 front-page article "Kan tells nuke probe: 3/11 overwhelmed us": However former Prime Minister Naoto Kan is judged, to me his actions in the wake of the 3/11 Fukushima nuclear plant accidents were like those of a father desperate to protect his family facing an unimaginably enormous...
Reader Mail
Jun 3, 2012

Talk about a drag on the economy

Regarding the May 31 Kyodo article "Aging population a drag on economy: Shirakawa": Isn't Bank of Japan Gov. Masaaki Shirakawa forgetting something? The very same aging demographic whom he bemoans for being a "drag" on the economy built a world-class economy during the 1960s and 1970s!
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 2, 2012

Japan's great outdoors becomes Oregonian's office-cum-playground

Gliding through powder across Mount Hakkoda in Aomori Prefecture or scanning the surfers at Shonan Beach in Kanagawa Prefecture, Gardner Robinson's life and work merge so completely that on the clock and on the slopes are one and the same.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jun 1, 2012

Coaching carousel back in full swing for summer

With Ryan Blackwell out of the picture, will the Osaka Evessa hire an experienced, big name coach or hand the reins to another rookie bench boss? Or will the team simply hire from within and promote Blackwell's assistant, 33-year-old Keisuke Hirose, to the top spot?
Reader Mail
May 31, 2012

Feeling for bankers is gone

Kevin Rafferty's May 29 article, "Frustrated financial dreams," is excellent. I am an ex-banker and feel the same! It's a shame that the trust in banks has gone. That's why worldwide protest movements like "Occupy" have reasons to exist. Politicians behave like they were endorsing greedy bankers returning...
Reader Mail
May 31, 2012

Logical deterrence for Pyongyang

Regarding Ralph Cossa's and Brad Glosserman's May 24 article, "Beijing's North Korea policy only emboldens Pyongyang": In presuming to tell China how to deal with North Korea "in its own interests," the authors display astounding arrogance and bellicose bias. It is quite logical for North Korea to strive...

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?