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Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Mar 17, 2011

Yokobue

Dear Alice, Last November, I went to Kyushu to see the Karatsu Kunchi festival. It was a wonderful spectacle, with huge, flamboyant floats pulled through crowded streets to the rhythmic accompaniment of drums, music and shouts of "Enya! Enya!" I loved it all, but if I had to designate one aspect as my...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 17, 2011

Japan's immense challenge

HONG KONG — Prime Minister Naoto Kan rightly called it the worst disaster to hit Japan since World War II. But the question now for Japan is whether the massive earthquake and tsunami that smashed the country on Friday can prove to be the earthmoving event that wakes up Japan's politicians to set the...
Reader Mail
Mar 13, 2011

Find out why whales wash ashore

The March 6 Kyodo article "22 melon-headed whales rescued" reports that 22 of 50 melon-headed whales were saved after they apparently had beached themselves in Kashima, Ibaraki Prefecture. Roughly two hundred people, including local residents and authorities, tried to keep them hydrated while others...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 12, 2011

Vindication for Toyota man who built up U.S. sales

Toyota's U.S. business has been a lifetime passion for Toshiaki Taguchi from humble beginnings 50 years ago, when barely 100 Toyota cars were being sold a month, to the world's No. 1 automaker today.
BUSINESS
Mar 11, 2011

Toyota gives big voice to Canadian exec

The executive who wrote Toyota Motor Corp.'s "global vision" announced by the president said Thursday that the changes at the automaker can't fix all crises but will speed up response to recalls.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 9, 2011

Entrepreneur: Turbulent times breed innovation

Growing up in California in the 1970s as the child of issei, William H. Saito recalls how his father imported math textbooks from Japan and insisted he study them extra hard to gain an edge over others.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 9, 2011

The Gadhafis: like father, like son

LONDON — "The enemy of yesterday is the friend of today . . . . [I]t was a real war, but those brothers are free men now." Thus spoke Seif al-Islam Gadhafi in March 2010, referring to the leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), an armed organization that had attempted to assassinate his...
COMMENTARY
Mar 9, 2011

Beijing's struggle to achieve energy security

SINGAPORE — Since China's surging demand for oil started to exceed domestic production in the early 1990s, Beijing has been preparing for a range of possible threats to its energy supply — including turmoil in the Middle East.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Mar 8, 2011

Domestic child abuse in spotlight

The Fukuoka District Court in January sentenced a 34-year-old mother to six years in prison for causing bodily injury resulting in her daughter's death, casting the spotlight anew on child abuse.
Reader Mail
Mar 6, 2011

Study materials could be better

I enjoyed the Feb. 26 article "Are schools ready for English?" But by the looks of the photographed open book (presented as an example of the teaching materials to be used), my answer to the question posed by the headline would be NO!
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 6, 2011

'Galapagos' has evolved as an analogy for Japan

English naturalist Charles Darwin put Galapagos on the map, having visited the group of islands, situated in the Pacific Ocean some 970 km west of continental Ecuador, in 1835, during the voyage of the HMS Beagle. His impressions and observations of the islands' unique biosystem contributed to his 1859...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Mar 6, 2011

Tadao Sato: 'Japan's single finest film critic'

Tadao Sato laughed an embarrassed laugh as he recalled that three years ago, in London, he had been referred to as a "legend." Though adding to his discomfort, I had to admit that in my university days I had thought of him in the same way. And I still do.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 4, 2011

Bunraku gets film treatment

Canadian filmmaker Marty Gross had been fascinated with Japan's traditional puppet theater, bunraku, since he saw a production during his first visit to Japan in 1970. But it was only later in that decade, when it was suggested that he make a film of a production, that he took the time to study the art...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 4, 2011

It takes innovation, imagination and perseverence to challenge contemporary theater

Recently, while looking through a handful of upcoming production flyers displayed in a cozy, small-scale theater, I noticed to my surprise that one name kept reappearing: Norihito Nakayashiki.
Reader Mail
Mar 3, 2011

A perishable college education

Regarding Dipak Basu's Feb. 27 letter, "Failure rate climbs in final year": I am glad to hear that Basu is trying to keep high standards in the university classes that he teaches. However, I am sad to see that he seems detached from the reality that surrounds him. His argument that only 5 percent of...
Reader Mail
Feb 27, 2011

Failure rate climbs in final year

Regarding Joergen Jensen's Feb. 20 letter, "Holding students' feet to the fire": Jensen's implicit assumption is that it is very easy to pass examinations at Japanese universities and that Japanese universities only collect tuition fees but don't teach much. These are false assumptions.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 27, 2011

Touched by teen suicide

ORCHARDS, by Holly Thompson. Illustrations by Grady McFerrin. Delacorte Press, 2011, 325 pp., $17.99 (hardcover) Great suffering etches images of itself into human emotions. Holly Thompson uses this psychological reality to frame an arresting and authentic novel in verse. "Orchards" is a collection of...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 26, 2011

Conscripted prisoners of the Russian Army

MOSCOW — Some of the most interesting artifacts of the Soviet Union in Russia are the holidays that continue to be celebrated, almost two decades after the fall of communism. On Feb. 23, Russians celebrated the "Day of the Defender of the Fatherland," a rough equivalent of Father's Day but with a militaristic...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 26, 2011

Committed to 'making it work' as foreign wife

Forty-five years spent living in the Kobe area as the American wife of a Japanese businessman must change a person. Yet Winnie Inui, 68, still welcomes visitors to her suburban home in Ashiya, Hyodo Prefecture, with a blanket of felicitous concern ("Enough tea, dear?") and a flair for storytelling that...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 25, 2011

Craft exhibition thinks pink

Love, work, leisure, study, giving birth and raising kids. These days a lot of responsibilities are heaped on women. It's enough to make even the mightiest of super-women tired.
BUSINESS
Feb 24, 2011

'Morning after pill' approved

The health ministry approved Japan's first emergency contraceptive more than a decade after the so-called morning after drug debuted in Europe.

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