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COMMENTARY
Jan 30, 2012

Economic crisis exacting tolls on public health

The deteriorating global economic outlook is increasing worries among health experts on the effects that the economic crises will have on people's health.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jan 30, 2012

Royal challenge awaits Noda

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda appears strongly committed to revising the Imperial Household Law to let female members of the Imperial family remain in the royal family even if they marry commoners. The Imperial family is the oldest royal family in the world and Chapter 1 of the Japanese Constitution...
Reader Mail
Jan 29, 2012

Fall enrollment will make waves

Regarding the Jan. 19 Kyodo article "Todai panel recommends fall enrollment (within five years)": I think this reform will have good effects on Japan. The movement toward fall enrollment by one of Japan's most prestigious universities will influence other institutions and motivate them to offer classes...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 29, 2012

Disaster adds tension to year-in-the-life TV

Fuji TV's Sunday afternoon documentary series "The Non-Fiction" usually covers individuals over long periods of time. "The Old Man and Radiation," aired in two parts on Jan. 15 and 22, was about Toshihiko Kawamoto, an 80-year-old former carpenter who moved from Tokyo to the wilds of Fukushima Prefecture...
Reader Mail
Jan 29, 2012

Purpose of a higher education

Regarding the Jan. 23 article, "More crucial than English" (by Takamitsu Sawa): The question of why Japanese students' intellectual capacities are not developed has not been adequately addressed. When it comes to the humanities, Japanese students are discouraged from developing critical thinking skills....
Reader Mail
Jan 29, 2012

A less ascetic word for 'monk'

There must be a better word to apply to some male adherents of Buddhism than "monk," as used, for example, in the Jan. 19 Kyodo article "Matchmaking service gives Buddhist monks a boost in dating market." If there isn't, then perhaps we ought to make one because, in English, "monk" denotes a man living...
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jan 28, 2012

Aichi's denizens warm to foreigners

Most Aichi residents like the idea of having many foreign residents living among them, according to a prefectural survey.
COMMENTARY
Jan 27, 2012

Conciliating the Armenians

I go to France quite often, but after this article is published, I may be liable to arrest if I set foot in the country. The French parliament has just passed a bill, proposed by President Nicolas Sarkozy's party, that will make it a crime to question whether the Armenian massacres in eastern Turkey...
Reader Mail
Jan 26, 2012

Last in, first out is hard to know

Regarding the Jan. 21 Kyodo article "Noda not on Obama's buddy list in Time magazine": Why should that be a disappointment to government officials? Since U.S. President Barack Obama has been in office, Japan has had as many prime ministers as the years Obama has been in office.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 26, 2012

Witnessing China's new cultural revolution

Chinese culture is on the long, slow rebound. Back in 1989, the Chinese government was shocked by the sudden appearance in Tiananmen Square of an icon of Western culture. This was a ten-meter-tall statue created by protesting students that was modeled on the Statue of Liberty, and called the "Goddess...
CULTURE / Art
Jan 26, 2012

Witnessing China's new cultural revolution

Chinese culture is on the long, slow rebound. Back in 1989, the Chinese government was shocked by the sudden appearance in Tiananmen Square of an icon of Western culture. This was a ten-meter-tall statue created by protesting students that was modeled on the Statue of Liberty, and called the "Goddess...
Reader Mail
Jan 26, 2012

Pointless Futenma deployment

In the Dec. 7 op-ed article "Toward a peaceful Pacific," Malcolm Fraser, a dour yet programmatic former prime minister of Australia, states that as the United States "will never place a large land army on the Asian mainland again," the proposed stationing of U.S. Marines in northern Australia appears...
COMMENTARY
Jan 23, 2012

Europe's potion is now its poison with China inheriting the benefits

Today's lecture is on the sorry state of that dismal science called economics.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 22, 2012

Can showbiz really sever yakuza ties?

Last August, comedian and TV emcee Shinsuke Shimada retired from show business following allegations that he'd been palling around with an underworld figure. His withdrawal came on the eve of the implementation of a well-publicized police crackdown on organizations that work with antisocial elements,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jan 21, 2012

Three prefectures' trash flowing down to isle

Discarded trash and other debris is being carried by rivers running through Aichi, Gifu and Mie prefectures and washing ashore on Toshi Island in Ise Bay, an Environment Ministry study found.
Reader Mail
Jan 19, 2012

Why go along with warmongers?

Regarding the Jan. 13 front-page article "Iranian oil imports to be cut to aid U.S. pressure": Politicians in the Diet seem to forget, or to not even know, that at one time (mid-19th century) Japan was doing fine on its own when U.S. warships showed up on its doorstep and demanded entry. This neighborly...
Reader Mail
Jan 19, 2012

Breath of fresh air by comparison

I realize that the Jan. 17 article "Corporate Japan: woeful lack of outside directors" was on Corporate Japan, but actually fraud and deception are no different within any big corporation.
Reader Mail
Jan 19, 2012

Prisoner of a personal pronoun

I always enjoy Kaori Shoji's writing, and her Jan. 16 article, "Men can be sexy when talking about themselves," was hilarious.
COMMENTARY
Jan 16, 2012

Finer details of atmospheric science in Beijing

In July 2009, China's Foreign Ministry made a demand of the American embassy: Stop taking measurements of air pollution in Beijing available to ordinary Chinese since they conflicted with official data and could lead to "confusion" among the public and undesirable "social consequences."
Reader Mail
Jan 15, 2012

Shedding light on war victims

Regarding John Tirman's Jan. 12 article, "U.S. overlooks the true tolls of its wars" (reprinted from The Washington Post): It is hypocritical of President Barack Obama to praise American troops who served in Iraq when he voted against any invasion of Iraq and criticized the previous administration's...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jan 15, 2012

Kabuki workout helps students to stand out in a crowd

Looking for an enjoyable way to get back into shape after gaining a few pounds over the festive season? Well, look no further than kabuki — or learning a few moves basic to this traditional Japanese theatrical form, to be precise.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 15, 2012

'Made in Japan' label under assault

Take a stroll through home sweet home. You'll almost certainly see an entertainment system, refrigerator, microwave oven, rice cooker, toaster, mixer/blender, vacuum cleaner, heater/air conditioner, hair dryer, electric blanket and so on. From personal hygiene to food preparation to recreation and entertainment,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jan 14, 2012

Aichi hospital to launch training center for robot-assisted surgery

Robots are increasingly being used in cancer surgeries nationwide.
Reader Mail
Jan 12, 2012

Henoko relocation a no-go

Under strong pressure from the U.S. government, an environmental impact assessment report was finally delivered to the Okinawa prefectural government on the presumption that work for relocating U.S. Marine Air Station Futenma from the more densely populated Ginowan to the Henoko area must start without...
COMMENTARY
Jan 11, 2012

Are protests loosening Putin's grip on power?

Russia cannot be understood with the mind alone,
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 10, 2012

International education a triple-A investment in your child's — and Japan's — future

Bicultural families are on the rise in Japan. In 1970, less than 6,000 "international marriages" — where one partner is non-Japanese — were registered, or 0.5 percent of the total. In 2000, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare reported that one in 22, or 4.5 percent, of all marriages that year...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jan 10, 2012

Paper artist Gannon cut his own niche

Patrick Gannon admits he loves puzzles. As a literature major and aspiring writer in university, he delighted in deconstructing ideas and consciously pulling together disparate pieces to make a whole. Twenty years later, as a "cut paper" artist in Japan, Gannon, 40, employs the same intellectual techniques,...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jan 9, 2012

China's Un-relenting watch

The entire world was shocked by the news of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who was as vicious a dictator as Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin or Mao Zedong.
Reader Mail
Jan 8, 2012

Fear of background radiation

Regarding the Jan. 3 front-page article "Fukushima meltdowns set nuclear energy debate on its ear": It appears that the Japanese are just now discovering natural background radiation. The fossil-fuel industry is playing their emotions like a violin. Please go to http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2000_1.html...

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