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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jan 27, 2011

Champion itasha drivers Rei and Cloud

Rei Densetsu and his sister Cloud are champion itasha (decorated car) drivers. At the 2010 Fuji Speedway itasha event, where Japan's best-decorated cars are judged on their designs, Cloud won the Impact Prize and Rei received the Special Award for their outrageously decked-out vehicles. The term "itasha"...
COMMENTARY
Jan 26, 2011

Universal values do matter

NEW DELHI — With a Nobel Peace Prize to his credit, U.S. President Barack Obama was widely expected to advance universal values. Yet he has signaled that promotion of human rights is a tool to be used only against the small kids on the global block who hold no major economic benefits for the United...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 25, 2011

Hilton Hotels bag white elephant, turn it around

What is a luxury brand hotel like Hilton doing with a hot spring resort in the mountains of Shizuoka?
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 25, 2011

Carnet crucial when doing Japan in a van

Diana and Peter were pleased to find the column "How to do Japan — in a VW camper van" (Lifelines, Nov. 16) on the Japan Times website.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jan 25, 2011

Can selling 'cool Japan' save the ailing economy and help avert a demographic disaster?

Hedinn Haroldsson
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 23, 2011

Mystery at a crossroads of continents

By the time I reached the small town of Palmyra, way out in the middle of the Syrian desert, I had become somewhat accustomed to the ways of the locals.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jan 23, 2011

Forests worldwide: a primer

For those living in Japan, it's easy to forget that forests are not a given.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 22, 2011

German braumeister puts Otaru brewery on map

While Japan's major breweries continue to report flat beer sales amid an ailing economy, there is one Hokkaido-based beer maker that's brewing up a storm.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 21, 2011

Mogwai

Since making their first live appearances in Japan in 1999, Mogwai have returned to tour the country a dozen times. With this in mind, it is unsurprising that the Scottish postrock quintet played only two gigs last year, and one of them was in Japan.
BUSINESS
Jan 21, 2011

Daihatsu plans ¥1 million gas-sipping minicar

OSAKA (Kyodo) Daihatsu Motor Co. will begin marketing its new highly fuel-efficient gasoline-engine minivehicle this summer at a sticker price of ¥1 million or less, company President Koichi Ina said in a recent interview.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jan 19, 2011

Nets still hoping to land Anthony in trade

NEW YORK — The Nets' game plan to suit up Carmelo Anthony against the Jazz on Wednesday night — dubbed "An Evening of Russian Culture Night" — cannot succeed unless Mikhail Prokhorov, who will be in attendance, met with the Nuggets' fast-fading franchise player days beforehand to alleviate concerns...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 18, 2011

Russian-held isles: So near, so far

On the morning of Nov. 1, Dmitry Medvedev became the first Russian leader to set foot on one of the four islands off Hokkaido seized by the Soviets at the end of World War II that Japan has long wanted returned.
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Jan 16, 2011

New Year song, Japan withdraws from naval talks, ski enthusiasts, Challenger explosion

100 YEARS AGOSunday, Jan. 1, 1911
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 16, 2011

Osaka: mecca for foodies, and more

A visit to Osaka is all about enjoyment, entertainment and indulgence — particularly in the fine fare to be found everywhere around its historic sites and along the buzzing neon streets of Japan's food-fueled second city.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 15, 2011

Authentic slice of Japan preserved in South Florida

The first two weeks of the new year are over, and Tom Gregersen, 61, is putting away the kine and usu, the traditional wooden mallets and mortars used in the mochitsuki (rice-cake pounding) event held as part of the O-shogatsu Festival at The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens.
BUSINESS
Jan 13, 2011

Toyota finds cachet hard to regain

After owning several Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles over the past 17 years, Randy Sterling traded in his Tacoma pickup this month for Ford Motor Co.'s F-150 truck. "The recent problems with Toyota caused me to have a closer look at Ford," said Sterling, a contractor in Blenheim, Ontario, referring to record...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / MIXED MATCHES
Jan 11, 2011

Absence makes couple grow fonder

Long-distance relationships are no longer rare in today's global village. But how long can a couple last without actually seeing each other? Fukuoka residents Naoko Yufu, 28, and 26-year-old Xie Guosong from China have been apart for about four of the five years of their relationship.
Reader Mail
Jan 9, 2011

Cycle of anxiety curbing growth

After reading Minoru Matsutani's Jan. 5 article, "20-year slump spawns anticonsumption generation," I began to worry about the Japanese economy, because I think the downturn in consumption will hurt economic growth. I had not heard of the "anticonsumption generation" until now.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 9, 2011

Adoor: India's master storyteller of the silver screen

ADOOR GOPALAKRISHNAN: A Life in Cinema. The Authorized Biography, by Gautaman Bhaskaran. Penguin, 2010, 281 pp. (hardcover) Celebrating the centenary of Akira Kurosawa last year, Donald Richie, the noted writer on Japanese films, observed that Kurosawa believed that he existed only through his films....
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 9, 2011

Serendipity set a course to fish the high seas

In 1969, I was living at Hapuna Beach on the Big Island of Hawaii. I was 25 years old and had recently taken a leave-of-absence from Southern Illinois University, where I'd been a PhD candidate and an instructor in the English department. As I'd spent 20 of my 25 years in schooling by then, it seemed...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 8, 2011

Ex-MP revisits Okinawa's Koza Riot

On a mild December night in the city of Okinawa, Bruce Lieber, a 61-year-old Ohio native, found himself surrounded by a cluster of Japanese journalists. Photographers and TV crew jostled for position while reporters asked him how it felt to be back on the island.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 7, 2011

The Kandinsky narcissistic blues

Anyone who has seen the unrefined figurative works of Mark Rothko can easily understand why he later turned to his abstract Color Field works. Because of examples like this, there is always a suspicion that abstract art is merely the last refuge of the technically inept. Wassily Kandinsky — often seen...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 7, 2011

Buzz overseas spells success at home

For Japanese music acts, success abroad has traditionally been the reserve of noise-rock bands such as Boredoms and Melt-Banana, for whom potential barriers like language or cultural disparities do little to hinder their pursuit of abstraction. More conventional Japanese indie bands have traditionally...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 5, 2011

20-year slump spawns anticonsumption generation

Buying a car is idiotic. It's better instead to have ¥10 million in the bank.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami