Search - people

 
 
EDITORIALS
Jul 25, 2008

Public explosions in China

Explosions on two buses during the morning rush hour Monday in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province in southwest China, killed two people and injured 14 others, as Chinese authorities were tightening security ahead of the opening of the Beijing Olympics in less than three weeks. Both the Kunming public...
Reference / Special Presentations / WITNESS TO WAR
Jul 23, 2008

Veteran sheds hatred, finds Japan now like second home

21st in a series
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jul 20, 2008

Fly fanboys in the living room

Parents the world over would surely prefer their children not to throw things about. It's just plain bad manners, among other things. But Atsushi Kikuchi, a serious-looking father of two boys, positively encourages it. And, he evenmaintains, his sons' ballistic behavior has produced considerable benefits...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 15, 2008

Human rights — strictly personal, strictly Japanese?

Go figure. Just a few weeks after I wrote about how Japanese courts try to avoid doing anything dramatic, on June 4 the Supreme Court ruled that a section of the Nationality Law was unconstitutional. Such rulings being so rare, I steeled myself for a big helping of highfalutin' Japanese legalese and...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 12, 2008

Relationship coaching over the phone

It is easy to spot Jack Ito and his wife Toshie. They're walking hand in hand around the lobby of the Prince Hotel in Shinagawa, looking as much culture-shocked as in love.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 10, 2008

Asian stars united by earthquake disaster

'When it has to happen, it will happen," declares a bullish Judy Ongg, a Taiwan-born actress, singer and novelist based in Japan. "When you think it has to be done, you have to do it yourself."
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 8, 2008

Japan's last frontier took time to tame, cultivate image

Hokkaido, where the Group of Eight summit is taking place in Toyako, is known for its hot springs, ski resorts, seafood and magnificent scenery.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 8, 2008

Cardboard coffins boast eco-merit

As more consumers pursue environmentally friendly lives, businesses are introducing products and services catering to those quests.
COMMENTARY
Jul 7, 2008

Work traditions worth keeping

When I had a chance to meet with a group of students, I asked them for what purpose each would do the job that he or she got in the near future. A majority replied "something that makes work worth doing and life worth living," although some did say "for money."
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 4, 2008

A wave of migrating brains and barbarians

MUNICH — Europe is experiencing a huge wave of migration between east and west. This movement resembles the Great Migrations (Volkerwanderung) of the fourth to sixth centuries.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 1, 2008

Low key, off key, but anyway it's your way

Born in Japan three decades ago, karaoke has evolved into a global fixture.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 29, 2008

Akihabara killer followed plot mapped by the media

After serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki was hanged on June 17, some death-penalty opponents wondered out loud if Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama had signed the execution order as a response to the indiscriminate murders of seven people on the streets of Akihabara nine days earlier. Of course, Hatoyama didn't...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 29, 2008

Thomas Charles Marshall: Irishman excels at age-old biwa

With his back straight and his head up, Thomas Charles Marshall sits down in an arbor overlooking a lotus-filled pond on the compact but verdant campus of the University of Creation; Art, Music & Social Work in Yoshii, Gunma Prefecture. He slowly reaches for his pear-shaped biwa, a century-old mulberry-wood...
EDITORIALS
Jun 27, 2008

Unrelenting suicide toll

The year 2007 saw 33,093 suicides in Japan, with the number of people taking their own lives topping 30,000 for the 10th straight year. This is a sad situation. Some suicides may have been caused by strictly personal problems, but the National Police Agency's statistics hint that social factors also...
CULTURE / Music
Jun 26, 2008

CSS put their crazy show back on the road

It is January, and squeezed away upstairs in their favorite sushi restaurant in downtown Sao Paulo are the six members of CSS plus a stray boyfriend. (Turns out he belongs to producer-cum-drummer Adriano Cintra, the only fella in the group.) After 18 months touring the world, they are back home in Brazil...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jun 25, 2008

Japanese Facebook takes Model T approach

Late last month, as part of a rare work-vacation trip to Asia, Mark Zuckerberg made a quick stop in Tokyo to announce the launch of Facebook Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 24, 2008

Not everyone is celebrating the Ogasawara Islands' anniversary

It is one of Asia's earliest and oddest ethnic melting pots, with citizens boasting names like Savory, Webb, Gonzales and Chaplin. The first piece of Far East territory to fall under U.S. control, local landmarks include the Yankeetown, the Charlie Brown and the Church of St. George, and old-timers speak...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 23, 2008

The global food crisis: It's time to empower the world's have-nots

HONG KONG, (AP) The Times of London ran a cartoon offering its "solution" to the world food crisis as leaders gathered for their recent Rome summit: It showed Pope Benedict XVI holding a cross in his left hand and a packet of "extra safe" condoms in his right.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 22, 2008

Grounded rulers of the sky

His sharp, calm gaze follows yet another aircraft swooping down from the cloudless sky, its tires screeching in clouds of blue smoke as it returns to Earth on Haneda's concrete runway. One more flight successfully completed, he thinks — and now the next.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 22, 2008

Has Japan's dogged idealism of '68 become truly poodled?

On June 7, The New York Times' op-ed columnist Bob Herbert wrote an intriguing piece about the United States in 1968, recalling the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy exactly 40 years ago, and also referring to Sen. Barack Obama clinching the 2008 Democratic Party nomination for the presidency....
BUSINESS / U.S. BUSINESS SCHOOL SYMPOSIUM
Jun 21, 2008

Trading off the benefits of a 'globalizing' world

Despite much hype about the world becoming flat and more global, the world is in fact becoming more regional than global, said Richard Rumelt, a professor of business strategy at UCLA Anderson Business School.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 21, 2008

An up-close look at global intelligence

Jun Isomura is delighted to meet twice. The first time I am in the front of a car, taking notes, he in the back, out of sight, answering questions in impeccably accented British English. It is only when we disembark that we finally meet face to face.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 19, 2008

Tracing political cause and effect

Dramatists in their 30s have moved to the forefront of Japanese contemporary theater in recent years. Since 2004, the country's most prestigious theater accolade, the Kishida Drama Award, has gone to thirtysomething playwright/ directors Daisuke Miura, Toshiki Okada and Shiro Maeda. Also, the New National...
COMMENTARY
Jun 19, 2008

What's Europe's next move?

The Irish have spoiled the party. By decisively voting down in a referendum the proposed Lisbon Treaty on the future organization and governance of the European Union, the Irish have brought the whole process of EU reform to a dead halt.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 15, 2008

Nuggets of 'wisdom' can speak volumes beyond what's said

"Biting Comments, Curious Statements and Famous Misstatements" is the headline on the lead article in the June 5 issue of the popular Japanese weekly magazine Bungei Shunju. It features dramatic ejaculations of famous politicians, sports figures and entertainers, among others.
EDITORIALS
Jun 12, 2008

'Anyone' was a target

Sunday's brutal indiscriminate slaying of seven people in Tokyo's Akihabara district is both a tragedy and a horrific crime. It took a 25-year-old man about five minutes to commit the crimes as shoppers were enjoying Sunday afternoon in a temporary vehicle-free zone in the world's largest electronics...

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