Search - works

 
 
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 5, 2014

Sake Confidential: A Beyond-the-Basics Guide to Understanding, Tasting, Selection & Enjoyment

This book is not just for sake lovers; it's a must read for anyone interested in Japanese culture. Exploring sake from a variety of perspectives in short but informative essays, John Gauntner here distills his 25 years of knowledge and experience living and working with this quintessential Japanese beverage....
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jul 5, 2014

Is EU ready to actually change?

After six decades of relentless — if incremental — integration, might the European Union be about to go into reverse?
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 4, 2014

Americans: born in an empire of contention

An historian reminds Americans this Fourth of July weekend that dynamic social and economic change, poisonous politics, bad policies and flawed leaders in an 'empire of contention' were all there two centuries ago.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society / DEALING WITH DEMENTIA
Jul 4, 2014

Assistance for vulnerable elderly on the rise

Last in a three-part series
Japan Times
Places
Jul 3, 2014

A selection of Japan's strangest 'museums'

Seen enough views of Mount Fuji and suits of samurai armor? Here are 13 museums that will take you well off the beaten trail.
JAPAN
Jul 2, 2014

Evacuation plans stir fresh doubts over Japan nuclear restarts

Keen to restart nuclear power plants three years after the Fukushima disaster, authorities may face an additional hurdle in securing approval — coming up with a cogent evacuation plan in the event of new accidents.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 2, 2014

High-energy Ono conducts a rare 'Hoffmann' critique

He is known best for the rapturously hysterical "Infernal Gallop" (aka "The Can-can") from his 1858 operetta "Orpheus in the Underworld," but the German-born, naturalized-French composer Jacques Offenbach (1819-80) is credited with just one full-length, serious opera — "The Tales of Hoffmann" — which...
Reader Mail
Jul 2, 2014

More foul play against Okinawa

Tokyo has agreed with Washington over our heads to set up an always-off-limits water area in Oura Bay adjacent to the projected new base at Henoko. The off-limits water area will extend over almost half of Oura Bay.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 2, 2014

Dancing between cultures in Yokohama

Contemporary dance has always pushed the boundaries of corporal expression by exploring themes that traditional dance genres and their movements have difficulty conveying. As one of the Month of France series of events organized by the Yokohama branch of the Institut Francais du Japon, CrossDance continues...
BUSINESS
Jul 2, 2014

Abe growth-related goals may avoid budgetary curbs

The government, while planning strict budget limitations for the next fiscal year, will give special treatment to upcoming request items that are deemed important for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's growth policy, NHK reported Wednesday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Jul 1, 2014

Gunma's 'Brazil Town' offers a carnival of cuisine

This month A Taste of Home is taking a field trip to Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture. Oizumi, an otherwise ordinary town, is home to roughly 4,000 Brazilians — about one-tenth of the local population. Most of them work in nearby factories (Subaru is a big one). But some of them are working to make life a...
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jul 1, 2014

China's 'shadow banking' challenge

A new financial service operated by China's biggest e-commerce firm Alibaba could crack open the country's economic system as it draws customers from the major state-owned commercial banks by paying higher interest rates to depositors.
BUSINESS
Jul 1, 2014

U.S. sushi prices show New York is on a roll

Sushi restaurants in New York and Greenwich, Connecticut rank among the most expensive locales in the U.S. to buy the Japanese cuisine for the third year in a row.
JAPAN / JAPAN TIMES FORUM ON FEMALE SCIENCE MAJORS
Jun 30, 2014

Majoring in science may expand opportunities for women

Moderator: Let's discuss the challenge of hiring more female science majors and solutions to that issue. Let me first ask you what kind of skills are you seeking in women? I wonder if the marketing skills of female science majors, instead of just their capabilities in research and development, could...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jun 29, 2014

Reclusive cleric takes charge in Iraq crisis

Najaf is far from Baghdad's palaces and the battlefields of northern Iraq. Its mud-brick houses, dirt alleys and concrete office blocks project little in the way of strength or sway. But it is here, where Iraq's most influential clerics work from modest buildings in the shadow of a golden-domed shrine,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 28, 2014

Not ducking tradition in Higashi-Ueno

With its lotus-laden Shinobazu pond, park grounds, and national museums, the Ueno area in Tokyo draws millions of visitors a year. Nearby Higashi-Ueno (Eastern Ueno), however, seems to be another world altogether. When I exit Shin-Okachimachi station, under skies portending summer heat, this low-lying...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jun 28, 2014

Forget the world in a peaceful Okinawan island garden

First came the Ishigaki-teien, a mass of soaring limestone rocks, judiciously placed cycads and two lines of highly concentrated fukugi, the closely-matted leaves of the trees traditionally used in Okinawa as typhoon barriers. Owned by the Ishigaki family, who have lived on the island of the same name...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Jun 27, 2014

BBC news to turn Japanese with translated website

A recent job posting for a digital editor for BBC World Japan sparked interest online, with local Web-watchers noting that the job description called for a Tokyo-based editor with fluent Japanese to head up a team that will publish content from the main BBC News website on "a new, Japanese-language...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 26, 2014

'The East'

Director: Zal Batmanglij
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jun 25, 2014

Is Japan a haven for expats with psychological problems? Readers discuss

Readers clash on the merits of William Bradbury's recent Foreign Agenda article, 'Japan: a haven for the psychologically troubled.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 25, 2014

'Specters, Ghosts and Sorcerers in Ukiyo-e'

Ghouls, monsters, specters, ghosts — all manner of the supernatural have long fascinated and frightened in all cultures, but the Japanese have historically enjoyed a particularly entertaining, and pictorial, relationship with the eerie and uncanny.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 25, 2014

'Presents from Eiji Mitooka: Designs to Make People and Cities Happier'

Through his train designs and station-building plans for Japan Rail's Kyushu Line, industrial designer Eiji Mitooka has won multiple awards for work that harmoniously reflects locals and their lives.
JAPAN
Jun 24, 2014

Cabinet adopts economic plans

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet has adopted a set of reform strategies to boost growth, including attracting more foreign investors to prop up stock prices.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jun 22, 2014

Until some bright spark works it out, we’re just bathing in the dark

We bathed in strobe light for six months until the fateful day arrived: Our bathroom light had entered that great junk pile in the sky.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 22, 2014

Protocol breaches 'led to Anthrax exposure'

The safety breach at a government lab that may have exposed 84 workers to live anthrax centered on a pivotal lapse in procedure: researchers working with the bacteria waited 24 hours to be sure they had killed the pathogens, half the time required by a new scientific protocol.
Japan Times
SOCCER / World cup / SOCCER SCENE
Jun 21, 2014

Drab draw leaves Japan hoping for miracles

"Believe in miracles," ran the headline of one sports newspaper after Japan's 0-0 draw with Greece left its World Cup hopes hanging by a thread, but simply salvaging pride from a bitterly disappointing campaign looks a more realistic ambition.
JAPAN / History
Jun 21, 2014

Matsumoto: Aum's sarin guinea pig

It's been 20 years since mass murderers came to Toshie Koibuchi's tiny street. It was the night of June 27, 1994. She was then 50, a housewife living with her husband and mother in a slightly upmarket residential area of Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jun 20, 2014

Confident LDP plays up victories as Diet session comes to a close

A confident Liberal Democratic Party trumpets its achievements as the 186th Diet session winds down as laying strong foundations for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's security and political goals.

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