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COMMENTARY / World
Jan 9, 2013

India's rapid rise puts women at risk

For two decades, the West has been cheering India's rise. But the nation's economic and political changes have caused new cultural conflicts, a dynamic that has become all too obvious after the brutal, and eventually fatal, rape of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi last month.
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Jan 8, 2013

Seven sumo stories to look out for in the year of the snake

1. Baruto — make or break
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 8, 2013

Leave gay-bashing out of defense of marriage

Social conservatives who oppose gay marriage have suffered a series of losses as voters have embraced gay marriage in state referendums and in public polling.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2013

Christianity vs. secularism

Pope Benedict XVI had a busy holiday season, as you might expect, since it is a sacred time for Catholics and other Christians. He set himself the difficult-to- impossible task of trying to put Christ back into Christmas.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 6, 2013

Japan's farming could be going to seed

"Tis the season for predictions, and last week Hiromasa Yonekura, the chairman of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), told Asahi Shimbun he believed Japan will decide in 2013 to take part in the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks. Yonekura is also chairman of Sumitomo Chemical, which in 2010...
Reader Mail
Jan 6, 2013

Using Twitter to learn English

I'm a university student and have a Twitter account. So do many of my friends. We freely write anything on Twitter — where we are, what we're doing, what we're thinking about, who we're with, whatever we want. I made my account to get firsthand information about my favorite foreign artists from the...
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Jan 6, 2013

Even gangsters live in fear of Japan's gun laws

It's almost impossible to get to a gun in Japan, and selling one or owning one is a serious crime. Fire the gun? Possibly life imprisonment. Gun-control laws are taken so seriously that police will pursue a violator all the way to the grave — and maybe beyond.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 4, 2013

Mac who would be governor says: Smile

Makoto Tonami was born in 1948 in Aichi Prefecture and graduated from the prestigious Kyoto University with a degree in agriculture. Upon graduation he went to work for trading house Itochu Corp., a job that would take him on business trips around the globe.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Jan 4, 2013

NHK spotlights gunslinging daughter of the north in yearlong Sunday drama

How to rebuild when you've lost everything? In the immediate aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, as many thousands of people in northeastern Japan sought to answer that question for themselves, public broadcaster NHK began looking for a historical figure whose story might...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jan 1, 2013

The year for non-Japanese in '12: a top 10

Back by popular demand, here is JBC's roundup of the top 10 human rights events that most affected non-Japanese (NJ) residents of Japan in 2012, in ascending order.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2013

Japan's steely resolve suggests nationalism based on fear

More than half a century ago I had dinner in Paris with Arimasa Mori, the grandson of the Meiji Era education minister Arinori Mori, who had set the prewar pattern for a Westernized but intensely patriotic education. The Mori family hailed from Kagoshima, and the part that Arinori had played in the Meiji...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Jan 1, 2013

Spoon & Tamago

Raised in Japan, the Brooklyn-based artist and writer who goes by the moniker Johnny Strategy has been blogging about Japanese art and design at Spoon & Tamago since 2007. Having studied art education and art and visual technology, he also has a background in pottery and hones the craft when not generating...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Dec 31, 2012

America's largest mass execution now obscure

Settlers had come from miles around. The hotels were full. And some spectators were camped out in tents and wagons. The giant gallows erected between Front Street and the Minnesota River was a marvel: a perfect square, supported by oak timbers, and able to hold 40 nooses — 10 on each side.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 30, 2012

As the new year approaches, Japan still reels from 2011

What a sad, sad country this is. What sad shape it's in, as this Year of the Dragon draws to a close. Economically, politically socially, individually, it is merely scraping by, surviving rather than living.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 29, 2012

Rapid move to e-books surprises experts, roils market

America's obsession with digital tablets is driving a boom in e-book reading, a new survey shows, a trend that is dampening the appeal of printed books and shaking the centuries-old publishing business.
LIFE / Food & Drink / JAPANESE KITCHEN
Dec 28, 2012

Savor the symbolism at New Year's

EDITORIALS
Dec 26, 2012

LDP's vague nuclear energy policy

In their policy agreement, the Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner Komeito have failed to declare that they will aim to eventually end nuclear power generation in Japan. They have agreed only to gradually decrease Japan's reliance on it, without indicating the year in which all of Japan's...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Dec 25, 2012

Benshi Midori Sawato

Midori Sawato is a benshi, a unique kind of performer who provides live narration to silent films at the movie theater. The benshi brings the characters in films alive using different voices and vocal expressions. They sit to the side of the screen, watching the movie with the audience and using their...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / THE YEAR IN BOOKS
Dec 23, 2012

Celebrating the female dragons

"All That I Am" (Harper) by Anna Funder blazes across pre-World War II Europe, illuminating the period when Hitler eliminated all national opposition in his prelude to the rest of the world.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2012

'Les Miserables' / 'Anonymous'

At this time of year, it feels good to unplug the computer, stash your electronic devices away and crack open something heavy and dense. While this could be a mega-size box of chocolate (or bottle of bourbon), it's just possible our senses crave something more demanding, more literary and Old World....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 21, 2012

Hatsune Miku goes highbrow

On her own, Japanese pop superstar Hatsune Miku can't sing. Nor can she rap, dance or DJ. She is drug- and alcohol-free because she can't indulge in either, and she can't have affairs or engage in offstage shenanigans fit for YouTube scandals or tabloid headlines. Now entering her sixth year as a beloved...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 18, 2012

Stop thinking — the test is about to start

COMMENTARY / World
Dec 15, 2012

Egypt's constitutional monster in the making

On Saturday, Egypt's draft constitution is due to be put to a referendum. A year ago, Egyptians were thrilled to know that finally their country's constitution would reflect their democratic hopes and aspirations. Yet the document that they will now vote on is more likely to dash those hopes and dim...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Dec 14, 2012

Working the system: Beware of doctors with private rooms

Doctors have ways of making money outside the insurance system.
JAPAN / ELECTION 2012
Dec 14, 2012

Older voter glut helps politicians avoid long-range problems

Japan faces structural problems that threaten future generations, including snowballing government debt, swelling social security costs, a low birthrate and a rapidly aging population.

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic