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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Apr 8, 2015

Do Western men have it bad in Japan? Readers discuss

A small selection of the large number of comments received in response to Olga Garnova's recent column, 'Spare a thought for Western men trapped in Japan.'
CULTURE / Film
Apr 1, 2015

Exporting ‘Wild Style’: Fab 5 Freddy remembers when Bronx hip-hop invaded Tokyo

Flashback to the Japan of 1983: Childish idol Seiko Matsuda was topping the charts, Japanese guys were trying to dress like Boy George and kids in discos vainly watched themselves dance in floor-to-ceiling mirrors as Frankie told them to "Relax." Believe it or not, this is the exact moment hip-hop hit...
Japan Times
JAPAN / HOTEL SPECIAL 2014
Oct 24, 2014

Respecting other cultures leads to success

ANA, Japan's premiere airline and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) began a joint venture, ANA InterContinental, in 2006, becoming the largest international hotel operator in Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2014

Structure self with propriety, Confucius said

When President Xi Jinping addressed the International Confucian Association to mark the 2,565th anniversary of the birth of Confucius, he did not remind listeners that Mao Zedong had launched a nationwide campaign to flame the philosopher.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Sep 26, 2014

New markets may save Japan's manga exports

The North American manga business took a beating last decade. After peaking around 2005-06, the lethal storm of oversaturated shelves, a collapsing U.S. financial industry and the bankruptcy of major American bookstore chain, Borders, left publishers and distributors in a panic. Downsizing, restructuring...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Aug 25, 2014

Use them or lose them: There's more at stake than language in reviving Ryukyuan tongues

With the last speakers of the Ryukyuan languages dying out, an identity is vanishing too.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Jun 29, 2014

Cartoonist Ernst captured 'fish-out-of-water' gaijin as they floundered

Having often been told by the Japanese that he would 'never understand' their culture because he was not one of them, American cartoonist Tim Ernst decided to embrace this notion and deploy it creatively.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 3, 2013

Nori represents Japan at BC One breakdancing competition

This past weekend's Red Bull BC One breakdancing event in Seoul was something of a battle of titans.
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 23, 2013

Back to the future: Shinto's growing influence in politics

Immaculate and ramrod straight in a crisp, black suit, Japan's education minister, Hakubun Shimomura, speaks like a schoolteacher — slowly and deliberately.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 19, 2013

Japan's juke scene gears up to go foot to foot with Chicago

I am at Battle Train Tokyo, the first official footwork dance tournament in Japan. It's being held at Kata, a gallery in the capital's Ebisu district. Sixteen dancers have signed up in the hope of becoming Japan's footwork champion, which comes with a ¥50,000 cash prize and a small championship belt...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices
Nov 4, 2013

No safe country for foreign women: the debate

Holly Lanasolyluna's article published Oct. 23 attracted an unprecedented number of online comments. More than 5,000 people also answered the accompanying poll about safety in Japan. Here are just some of the mails and comments.
EDITORIALS
Oct 5, 2013

Japanese language diplomacy

An expert panel has proposed increasing the number of Japanese teachers sent abroad to teach the Japanese language as a way of improving relations with Southeast Asian nations.
BUSINESS / Economy / 'SUMMER DAVOS' SPECIAL 2013
Sep 10, 2013

Advising visitors to truly see Japan with their own eyes

Last summer at age 66, Seiichi Kondo climbed Mount Fuji for the first time in his life. Friends warned it wouldn't be an easy expedition, and it wasn't. But conquering Japan's highest mountain was essential for what he was about to do next.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Aug 23, 2013

Pop star or avant-garde artist? Lady Gaga now wants to be the next Warhol

The message is crystal clear: do not buy Lady Gaga's latest album or download tracks because she is "over" and "no longer relevant." Many will be happy to obey, but it's not quite that simple.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Aug 12, 2013

Ainu fight for return of plundered ancestral remains

Shigeru Kayano, one of the most well-known and respected Ainu figures of modern times, writes in his autobiography "Our Land Was a Forest" about the loathing he felt as a young man for the shamo (Japanese) researchers who used to visit his village and family home.
BUSINESS / NOTEBOOK
Jun 19, 2013

'Matcha' on the go

NEW PRODUCTS
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Jun 12, 2013

Preserving a classic Japanese art form: tokusatsu magic

Our monster is scaly, spiky, reptilian — a cross between a dinosaur and an irradiated insect that shrieks like an angry bird. Our hero is lean, faintly muscular in a rubbery skintight suit with inscrutable praying-mantis eyes. They face one another, stomping left to right like sumo wrestlers, posing...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Apr 30, 2013

Dempagumi.inc: Akihabara' kawaii-guru idols

Dempagumi.inc have become the faces of a new generation of Akihabara pop music, as well as a force to be reckoned with in the fashion world.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 14, 2013

Hobsbawm's last words

FRACTURED TIMES: Culture and Society in the 20th Century, by Eric Hobsbawm. Little, Brown, 2013, 336 pp., £25 (hardcover)
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / OUR MAN IN TOKYO
Feb 26, 2013

Romania envoy hopes cultural affinity boosts ties

Romanian Ambassador Radu Serban is a veteran diplomat with a mission to promote economic ties with Japan. But the envoy, 61, has another agenda — promoting cultural and educational exchanges, which ties into his personal love of Japanese literature, especially haiku.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 24, 2013

Japan's vegetarians stay in the closet

Last week, entertainment-related media in the U.S. reported that the American Broadcasting Corporation had rejected an advertisement the animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wanted to air during the Academy Awards ceremony, which takes place early tomorrow morning Tokyo time.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Jan 27, 2013

You read about them here first

Ever since 1897 The Japan Times has reported daily in English on people, places and goings-on in and beyond this country. During those 116 years, our articles have often included information that never made it into the Japanese-language press — as in 1934, when the Society Page carried an interview...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 10, 2013

At last, Russia wins the seal of French approval

President Vladimir Putin has finally done it. Russia has been vying for the West's esteem for centuries, with approval by the French — a sought-after prize since the time of Peter the Great — coveted the most. But, despite the defeat of Napoleon and the World War I alliance, Russia could never get...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jan 8, 2013

Online English studies benefit Japanese, Filipinos

Mohammad Moin tries to realize what he calls "intellectual fair trade" through his operation of an online English conversation school for Japanese — all taught by Filipino teachers.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / OUR MAN IN TOKYO
Nov 20, 2012

Envoy acts as bridge between Japan, Armenia

It didn't come as much of a surprise to Grant Pogosyan when the offer came to him from the Armenian government to become his home country's ambassador to Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage / WEEK 3
Oct 21, 2012

Dramatists explore the essence of language in new play

In a small studio just a seagull's squawk from Tokyo Bay in the Higashi Gotanda district of Shinagawa Ward, a unique play titled "Understandable?" briefly delighted packed houses of baffled Japanese and others recently with its absurd-but-not, "abandoned- in-translation" dialogue devoid of subtitles....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 4, 2012

Looking at art from a local perspective

In these recessionary times, any contribution to the arts is a cause for celebration. Such a state of affairs makes the opening of the Daegu Art Museum (DAM) in May 2011 in Daegu, South Korea, an especially joyous event.
EDITORIALS
Aug 5, 2012

Let them dance!

The police have been cracking down on dance clubs over the past year, arresting operators and shutting clubs by suddenly enforcing a law about dancing and other amusement that goes back to 1948, and related regulations.
Japan Times
JAPAN / 40 YEARS AFTER REVERSION
May 19, 2012

Okinawans push to preserve unique language

Last in a series Byron Fija, 42, has an identity crisis.

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