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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Sep 15, 2009

For TV anchor, learning the lingo is key

Gene Otani, a Japanese national who attended an international school in Kobe throughout his youth, had to take Japanese lessons as a salaried worker when he realized he needed more skill in reading and writing.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Sep 10, 2009

Tour guide Shinobu Nimura

Shinobu Nimura, 50, is an experienced tour guide who organizes long-distance bus journeys through Asia, Africa and South America. His tours take one to two months and cover vast territories. In 25 years, he has clocked up an incredible 280,000 km on buses, the equivalent to riding around the Equator...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Sep 10, 2009

Tour guide Shinobu Nimura

Shinobu Nimura, 50, is an experienced tour guide who organizes long-distance bus journeys through Asia, Africa and South America. His tours take one to two months and cover vast territories. In 25 years, he has clocked up an incredible 280,000 km on buses, the equivalent to riding around the Equator...
EDITORIALS
Sep 7, 2009

Guarding against H1N1 flu

The rapid spread of influenza in Japan calls for vigilance. In the city of Kizugawa, Kyoto Prefecture, a 69-year-old man became the 10th person in Japan to die of H1N1 flu. He had suffered from cardiac and pulmonary diseases before becoming infected.
EDITORIALS
Sep 4, 2009

Indictment of a pop idol

Singer and actress Ms. Noriko Sakai was indicted Aug. 28 on a charge of possessing a stimulant drug (amphetamine). Her arrest and indictment are regrettable not only because her popularity as a pop idol extends beyond Japan to China, Taiwan and Hong Kong but also because she took part in a government...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 29, 2009

Corporate exec puts the planet's needs on par with the bottom line

The church that Bill Werlin attended as a child had no walls. "I grew up in the mountains. People would ask me where my church was and I would point out the window and say, 'right there,' " he says.
JAPAN / ELECTION 2009
Aug 29, 2009

Game almost up for LDP in Aomori

AOMORI — Perched on the upper tip of Honshu, Aomori Prefecture is tired of being left behind.
EDITORIALS
Aug 21, 2009

New flu claims lives

The first deaths from the new H1N1 influenza have been reported in Japan during the past week. A 57-year-old man of Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, died Aug. 15; a 77-year-old man of Kobe on Aug. 18; and an 81-year-old woman of Nagoya on Aug. 19. Both of the men had chronic renal insufficiency and were...
COMMENTARY
Aug 21, 2009

Decay of Japanese politics

Japan's politics in recent years has lacked dynamism and incurred people's distrust. The purpose of politics is to present a vision for the nation's future, identify the systems and policies needed, and ensure the safety and prosperity of the nation and its people. Recently, though, Japanese politics...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 21, 2009

Aimee Mann clicks into a disturbed world

The title of Aimee Mann's latest album, "@#%&*! Smilers," does a good job of conveying the tone of the singer-songwriter's output, not to mention her wry sense of humor; which isn't to say Mann has nothing to smile about. After years of hassling with major record labels about the direction of her music,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Aug 18, 2009

In anonymous packed train lurk gropers

A perverse reality that periodically surfaces on the country's crowded urban trains is the groper.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2009

Foreigners size up lay judge system

The launch of the lay judge system for criminal trials is being observed with great interest overseas, where public participation in court cases is well established, a prominent expert on the U.S. jury system said.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 15, 2009

Former AIG manager cooks up new career as chef

The collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and other U.S. financial giants changed people's lives around the world, and David Cisan, a former manager at American International Group in Japan, is one of them.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 14, 2009

Cory Aquino's legacy of enriched freedom

MANILA — The death of former President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino — "Tita Cory" to most of the 92 million people of the Philippines — left behind a precious inheritance: a legacy of freedom that the Philippines came to share with oppressed peoples around the world.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Aug 14, 2009

The spiritual side of making wine

Between the cold steel of enormous fermentation tanks and the state-of-the-art equipment in the tasting rooms of today's modern wineries, it's hard to believe that there is any element of the winemaking process that is not governed by the strict dictates of science. So imagine my surprise when, visiting...
JAPAN
Aug 13, 2009

Sakai bust puts spotlight on narcotics evil

The recent headline-making police search and arrest of actress and pop star Noriko Sakai shocked fans both at home and abroad and cast a harsh spotlight on "kakuseizai," or stimulants, which she and her husband allegedly used.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 8, 2009

Everyone knows it's windy

Most people don't find much humor in typhoons. But maybe that's 'cause they don't look.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 8, 2009

Working humbly to serve everyone

Ian De Stains has a place in a decades-old British order of chivalry created by King George V in 1917. Yet after knowing him, this may be hard to believe.
EDITORIALS
Aug 7, 2009

Pension premium delinquency

The premium payment rate for Kokumin Nenkin (national pension) — a public pension system for self-employed people, part-time workers, jobless people, etc. — fell to a record 62.1 percent in fiscal 2008. The situation suggests that modifications should be made to the plan under which the Social Insurance...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 4, 2009

Party offers a third way: happiness

As a historic general election looms on Aug. 30, Japan's long-suffering electorate faces a clear choice: vote for the conservative party that has virtually monopolized power since 1955, or opt for its more liberal but untested rival, which promises long-awaited reform. For those with a taste for the...
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Aug 4, 2009

Unlike humans, swine flu is indiscriminate

The biggest news a few months ago, now affecting every prefecture in Japan, has blipped off our radar screens. For the time being.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 28, 2009

Japan's funerals deep-rooted mix of ritual, form

Funerals in Japan incorporate a unique mixture of religion, tradition, culture, ritual and geography that to the outsider may appear perplexing.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 26, 2009

China vets shock archivist with 'horrible things they did'

In 1999, Sinitirou Kumagai dropped out of university, got on his motorbike and set out to begin what he now calls his "life work" — traveling from one end of Japan to the other to record the testimonies of former soldiers stationed in China between the 1930s and the end of World War II in 1945.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 25, 2009

Lifetime of travels at root of keen insights into Japan

One person you want to meet for a coffee in Tokyo: Stephen Mansfield. The British author and photojournalist has written 10 books (14, including collaborative work) and produced over 2,000 published articles for newspapers, magazines and journals since 1992.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Jul 25, 2009

Belgian no waffler on love, life in Japan

Pascal Latui, 28, first fell for Yumiko, 36, on a backpacking trip in Japan in June 2006. She was a receptionist at the Tokyo youth hostel where he was staying.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 17, 2009

East German backs Japan's public theaters

Peter Goesnner was born in Leipzig, in the former communist East Germany, in 1962. His dream was to be a great football player, but 40 years later, the witty, easy-going German is in Tokyo directing "Sekishoku Elegy" ("Red Elegy") by absurdist playwright Minoru Betsuyaku. Staged in 1980 for only one...

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear