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Reader Mail
Jan 1, 2008

Hope for moral recovery in 2008

I would like to write a few lines of appreciation to The Japan Times for keeping our interest keen and alive in observing the conduct of our fellow citizens, both good and bad. As the high priest of Kiyomizu Temple (Kyoto) lamented last month, the Japanese should feel ashamed that 2007 has been symbolized...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 29, 2007

Watami empire built on concept of family 'izakaya'

Until Miki Watanabe opened his first Watami "izakaya" pub in April 1992 in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward, such eateries were considered places for business workers and college kids to have a cheap drink and a few side dishes.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 27, 2007

The 'browning' of African technology

PRAGUE — Forget MIT. Hello, Tsing Hua University. For Clothilde Tingiri, a hot young programmer at Rwanda's top software company, dreams of Beijing, not Cambridge, animate her ambitions. Desperate for more education, this fall she plans to attend graduate school for computer science — in China, not...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 26, 2007

Lightning-fast arms named robot of the year

A mechanical arm that picks 120 items a minute from a conveyor belt won Japan's Robot of the Year award last week, defeating a dozen other flashier finalists, including a walking humanoid, a firefighter robot and a transparent torso for simulating surgery.
LIFE / Language
Dec 25, 2007

'A Happy Winter Holiday' to you one and all

In many places, celebrations will be getting into full swing. But if you're in Japan, by the time you read this, Christmas (kurisumasu) will have already been forgotten. Like everywhere else, in the runup before, there have been carols sung and trees and lights and images of Santa hung up, especially...
Reader Mail
Dec 25, 2007

Americans seem just as gullible

In his Dec. 9 letter, "Japanese seem easy to brainwash," Grant Piper appears a little un-evenhanded in claiming that Japanese have cornered the market on susceptibility to brainwashing. I'm sorry to say Americans are just as easily brainwashed.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 24, 2007

Christmas letter to Pope Benedict XVI

HONG KONG — Until three years ago, you had a well-earned reputation as the fierce watchdog of the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. You were nicknamed "God's Rottweiler."
EDITORIALS
Dec 24, 2007

Draft budget bypasses priorities

The government's draft budget for fiscal 2008, the first one compiled under the administration of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, points to the difficulties faced during its compilation amid a slowdown in the growth of tax revenues. Furthermore, the compilation is under heavy pressure from lawmakers of...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 21, 2007

Tasting the good life

Karuizawa is known as a getaway magnet for the rich, and based on a recent trip to the town in Nagano Prefecture, Japan's wealthy take their pleasures very seriously.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2007

'Kazoku no Hiketsu'

The Kansai region, which includes the cities of Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, is Japan's comedy center. The biggest comedy talent agency, Yoshimoto Kogyo, is based in Osaka and its comics mostly deliver their quips in the Kansai dialect.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 20, 2007

Human conditions

Like Picasso at his most mythologically cubist or a dark dream from the subconscious, the Dairakudakan butoh dance troupe took its audience back to the primordial for its 35th anniversary performances last week — and then brought it right back to the present.
EDITORIALS
Dec 16, 2007

Stars in their guides

Last month, Tokyo's restaurants received their stars. For the first time, the famed Michelin Guide, the most respected and feared guidebook in Europe, published a volume outside the Western world. Noted for its make-or-break effects on European hotels and restaurants, the publication was greeted in Tokyo...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Dec 16, 2007

A drama of our own making

One recent sunny afternoon, I set off for a performance of "Tokyo/Olympic" by the city's Port B theater company.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Dec 16, 2007

Tokyo's real floating world

One interesting phenomenon this year has been the growing popularity of tours to such unlikely places as factories and old bridges, where grimy stone walls, rusting mazes of pipes and crumbling concrete constructions have become a lure for worshippers at the altar of brutalism. In many ways, these tours...
SOCCER
Dec 15, 2007

Nakata expresses confidence in Okada

Hidetoshi Nakata has backed Takeshi Okada to be a success at the helm of the national team and praised the decision of the Japan Football Association in rehiring the coach.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2007

Bringing books, schools to the world's children

Immediately after meeting John Wood and hearing the story of his Room to Read program, I was reminded of one of my favorite childhood books. Though he isn't prone to wearing green leotards or stealing from the rich, this modern-day Robin Hood acquires donations from the world's largest companies and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 14, 2007

Party planner

New Year is almost upon us again, and for those not satisfied with the TV and sake followed by a shrine, there are plenty of places about Tokyo to listen to good tunes and get monkeyed. While the city may not boast New Year mega-lineups to compete with the likes of London and New York, there are enough...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 12, 2007

Legislating history obscures the truth

NEW YORK — In October, the Spanish Parliament passed a Law on Historical Memory, which bans rallies and memorials celebrating the late dictator Francisco Franco. His Falangist regime will be officially denounced and its victims honored.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Dec 11, 2007

Hemp OK as rope, not as dope

A Justice Ministry report released last month says the number of Cannabis Control Law violations set a record in 2006, while the amount of marijuana seized dropped to half from the previous year.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 11, 2007

'Eikaiwa' firms face Nova fallout

Too big, too fast, and with too little quality — that's the consensus view of many industry analysts on former language-school market leader Nova Corp., whose collapse left over 420,000 students and 4,000 non-Japanese instructors without an "eikaiwa" home.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Dec 11, 2007

Shipping, martial arts, health costs

Heading home HB has been teaching English in Aomori Prefecture for over 20 years and is planning to retire in the U.S.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Dec 9, 2007

Japan's 'fix'ation with a risky ride

A group of young men huddle around a bicycle in a small shop named Carnival on the second story of a cream-brick building peering over the Yamanote Line in Shibuya.
COMMENTARY
Dec 4, 2007

Unwanted kids of Russian HIV moms

NEW YORK — One of the most disturbing aspects of Russia's HIV/AIDS epidemic is not only how rapidly it is spreading but also how many children from HIV-infected mothers have been abandoned and left to the care of the state. Efforts by authorities to place them in kindergartens or schools are in most...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 3, 2007

Main challenge is how to price carbon

NEW YORK — Imagine that a huge asteroid is hurtling toward Earth. Scientists tell us that there is a 10 percent chance of a collision in 10 years and the consequences of its impact will be catastrophic. Your government advises you not to panic and reminds you that there is a 90 percent chance that...
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Dec 1, 2007

Bond forged in Nepal still going strong

Praveen Lama and Kazuko Tanikawa have lived in a bustling shopping street in Tokyo's Kita Ward since July 2003, when the Nepalese married his Japanese wife after a long-distance love affair that lasted several years through e-mails and phone calls.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Dec 1, 2007

Group helps volunteers get their hands on work

No matter how badly someone wants to put their good will to use, getting a handle on where to start is often the hardest thing to grasp. Realizing this difficulty, a group of U.S. volunteers in the late '80s got together to create New York Cares, an organization that helps link the ambitious aims of...

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