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Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 11, 2009

Ranks of homeless swell in Osaka

OSAKA (Bloomberg) Within two months of losing his job packing shelves at a cold-storage company in Osaka, Toshiyuki Miki said, he was homeless. He counts himself among the many people worldwide whose life has been turned upside down in the wake of the "Lehman Shock."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 10, 2009

Mark Wahlberg:'You are what you are'

Before the telephone interview, I am advised by an assistant to the star not to mention the name Marky Mark, by which Boston-born Mark Wahlberg became famous as a rapper after achieving notoriety as a male underwear model for Calvin Klein. These days, I am informed, Wahlberg is trying to consolidate...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 9, 2009

Bankers invited to 'pink slip party' at local Roppongi watering hole

Soichiro "Swimmy" Minami, a former Morgan Stanley banker, is organizing what he says is Japan's first "pink slip party" for finance professionals, in a Tokyo bar where Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. employees once mingled.
EDITORIALS
Apr 4, 2009

Recognize the A-bomb victims

On March 27, the Kochi District Court declared that a man who entered the city of Hiroshima just one hour after the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing is a sufferer of an illness caused by radiation. Similar suits have been filed by some 300 people at 17 district courts. They are challenging the state's refusal...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 3, 2009

Managers beware: Herren hits Japan

"That's always been their therapy: to bring it together, at least for themselves, in their own environment and their own space. You know, like flowers and rainbows, beautiful people everywhere, and everything's nice."
EDITORIALS
Mar 31, 2009

Nursing home safety

The death of 10 people in a March 19 fire at a nursing home for the elderly in Shibukawa, Gunma Prefecture, has brought to light the harsh conditions in which low-income elderly people must live. When the fire started, 16 elderly people and one staffer were at the home. It came to light that 13 of the...
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 29, 2009

Bodies beautiful

At 2 a.m. on a spring morning in 2002, photographer Mitsuhiro Mouri received a phone call from the most famous actress in Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2009

A place for charity even in these tough times

PRINCETON, New Jersey — As I tour America promoting my new book, "The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty," I am often asked if this isn't the wrong time to call on affluent people to increase their effort to end poverty in other countries. I reply emphatically that it is not. There...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 17, 2009

Canucks abroad fret over new curbs on citizenship

Citizenship can mean the difference between "belonging" and being just a visitor. Some people endure years of waiting in line and filing applications in a bid to change citizenship; others, by virtue of their birthplace and familial ties, begin their lives with the opportunity to be citizens of two or...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Mar 16, 2009

Survival instincts need rethink before killer disease spreads

We used to think that SARS was the killer disease. No doubt it still is. But at least it seems dormant for the moment. In its place we now have a potentially more potent epidemic going around that looks set to engulf the whole world. I hereby christen that disease SLICS. This is short for "So long as...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 14, 2009

Japan Cat Network seeks help in Tokyo expansion project

American Susan Roberts, of the Kansai-based Japan Cat Network, met with a dozen interested persons March 8 in Tokyo as part of the animal welfare group's expansion to the capital and its plans to open a cat rehoming center in west Tokyo's Hachioji.
JAPAN
Mar 12, 2009

Annual language test to turn twice-yearly

The Japanese Language Proficiency Test has long been a recognized way to measure one's Japanese ability.
EDITORIALS
Mar 9, 2009

HIV/AIDS cases on the rise

Last month the health ministry reported that the number of new HIV cases and AIDS diagnoses in Japan hit a high of 1,545 in 2008. According to the health ministry, 1,113 people were found to be infected with the HIV virus that can lead to AIDS, and 432 others were diagnosed with AIDS. This is the sixth...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Mar 7, 2009

Statistically speaking

The way the pieces fit together in my local jigsaw puzzle of suburbia is that my property borders on that of seven other homes. Four of these families I have a nod-and-smile acquaintance with. The other three I might recognize by voice, for their words sometimes cut right through our walls.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Mar 3, 2009

Frenchman's flavorful twist on green tea has good of farmers at heart

Stubbornness and prudence seem to have paid off for Stephane Danton, a 44-year-old French entrepreneur who runs Ocharaka, a Japanese tea shop in Tokyo's trendy Kichijoji district.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 27, 2009

Humans, not cogs

Twenty-six years after it premiered at the Cottlesloe Theatre in London, David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross," which caused a sensation in 1983 with its horrific yet realistic depiction of the dog-eat-dog real-estate business in a recession-hit America, could almost be considered a classic. The play went...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 27, 2009

Ivan Ramen, ready in an instant

The success of Ivan Ramen, a noodle shop founded in 2007 by U.S.-born chef Ivan Orkin, has been well documented in the press over the past year. Indeed, it is not unusual for the 10-seat restaurant in Minami Karasuyama, Setagaya Ward, to have dozens of people waiting outside its doors to try the handmade...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Feb 26, 2009

Jazz Taxi driver Toshiyuki Anzai

Toshiyuki Anzai, 67, is a cabbie in central Tokyo whose love of jazz drove him to start a unique Jazz Taxi service. His 90-minute cruises pair cityscapes with the most fitting music. Anzai plays songs that match not only the view but his passengers' moods — though he is partial to jazz, he sometimes...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 25, 2009

Firms warming to work-sharing

Yasuo Igarashi spends a lot of time these days on the jungle gym with his daughter, after his employer joined the growing ranks of companies adopting work-sharing to ride out the global slump.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 2009

Snow yaks and yetis — an ice man cometh

Fans of Pop Surrealism were no doubt tickled pink to hear of their messiah, painter Mark Ryden, making an appearance in Tokyo for the opening of "The Snow Yak Show" at the Tomio Koyama Gallery. The solo exhibition features eight new works from the masterful painter, each exquisitely detailed in his characteristic...
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Feb 17, 2009

Correspondents, PR reps warm ties at annual 'Hacks & Flacks' dig

The relationship between a journalist and a corporate public relations representative can be a tense one. Journalists, pressured by deadlines, hound the PRs for precise and prompt information, while PRs, irritated and a bit bewildered by the incessant questioning, respond with gritted teeth.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Feb 17, 2009

Kanagawa Prefecture can be Japan's clean-air trailblazer

Dear Kanagawa Gov. Shigefumi Matsuzawa,
EDITORIALS
Feb 17, 2009

Bailing out the jobless

The steep economic downturn is causing a large number of job losses. As unemployment worsens, some local governments have started offering job opportunities to those who have been fired. Along with such measures, there is a pressing need for both the central and local governments to provide adequate...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 14, 2009

Painting pictures from an artistic lyrical palette

As a narrative goes, lyricist Chris Mosdell's story is anything but a straightforward one.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 13, 2009

Theater unchained in Marx-themed play

The grave of Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery, North London, is marked by a bronze bust of the German political philosopher and economist atop a massive granite block on which is inscribed: "Workers of all lands unite."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 12, 2009

U.S. expert urges death penalty rethink

While 80 percent of the Japanese public is in favor of capital punishment, support for executions would drop if life without parole sentences were also an option, according to an American criminologist who visited Tokyo recently.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight