Search - life

 
Menu
Search
 
November 16, 2025
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access
48,134 results
Sort by: Relevance Newest Oldest
After adjusting your search parameters, press Enter on your keyboard or click on the red magnifying glass to run your query again.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2012

The Putin regime's terminal disease

The history of successive authoritarian regimes in Russia reveals a recurring pattern: They do not die from external blows or domestic insurgencies. Instead, they tend to collapse from a strange internal malady — a combination of the elites' encroaching disgust with themselves and a realization that...
Japan Times
JAPAN / CABINET INTERVIEW
Feb 1, 2012

Justice minister feels signing off on hangings just part of job description

Toshio Ogawa is the first justice minister to tacitly support capital punishment since the Democratic Party of Japan came to power in September 2009 and has no intention of engaging in the debate over whether to end the death penalty.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 31, 2012

Facing up to alcoholism in foreign land can help or hinder recovery

A reader has a query about alcoholism in Japan: "How is it generally perceived and what kind of help is available for foreign alcoholics who speak little to no Japanese?"
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 31, 2012

A winter's tale: cold homes, poor lives in wealthy Japan

Question: What am I doing outside my home at 6 a.m. with a gas can, a pump, and stalactites under my nose?
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 30, 2012

Japanese films offer some memorable one-liners

Famous movie lines have a way of insinuating themselves into popular culture and language, until even those who know a film only by hearsay quote from it, if only because everyone else does.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jan 29, 2012

Tsunami lessons for Tohoku from Tamil Nadu

On Dec. 26, 2004, a massive tsunami blasted across the Indian Ocean, cutting a swath of destruction through communities in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India that claimed a staggering 230,000 lives.
EDITORIALS
Jan 29, 2012

Smoking deaths

The health ministry is drawing up a plan to halve the smoking rate in Japan from 23.4 percent in 2009 to 10 percent. Unfortunately, the plan is tucked into a long-range health promotion plan from 2013 to 2022.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 22, 2012

Japan needs a little Cuban-style happiness

A Japanese journalist in Cuba sees decaying buildings and undernourished citizens and wonders, "Why aren't these people depressed? Why, on the contrary, do they seem positively happy?"
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 22, 2012

Turning to Okinawa and its rituals in search of a happier new year

Without a shred of a doubt, 2011 stands out to me — in a way that hopefully will never be surpassed — as the most catastrophic I have ever known.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 20, 2012

'Always San-Chome no Yuhi '64 (Always: Sunset on Third Street 3)'

The "Always" films, unabashedly sentimental, meticulously realized reminiscences on the Tokyo of the Showa 30s (1955-1965), are intended for the domestic audience only. But the first two received high audience poll numbers when they screened at the Udine Far East Film Festival in Italy, which I help...
COMMENTARY
Jan 18, 2012

Loyalty alone is not enough

Japanese have been taught over the centuries that loyalty is the supreme virtue. Loyalty to Japan and to the emperor was inculcated into every child in prewar Japan. The emphasis now seems to be on loyalty to the company employing you, loyalty to your section in the company and loyalty to your immediate...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jan 17, 2012

Tokyo: What website could you not live without?

Eleanor
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 16, 2012

Men can be sexy when talking about themselves

An often misunderstood perception about the Japanese language is that it's long-winded and excessively polite. True, there's an entire lexicon devoted to politeness, called keigo (敬語, the language of reverence) and in Kyoto, there's such a thing as kyūtei kotoba (宮廷言葉, palatial language)...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jan 15, 2012

Danger! Nuclear waste! Keep out — forever!

The earliest known cave paintings date from about 30,000 years ago, and the earliest bone tools found so far predate those paintings by another 40,000 years. Go back 100,000 years, and Homo sapiens — us lot — are only just emerging, though the fossil record suggests our ancestors back then had larger...
BASKETBALL
Jan 14, 2012

Warriors' Tyler making strides in rookie season

Like any NBA rookie, Jeremy Tyler faces a series of huge adjustments in his daily life on and off the court.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 13, 2012

Bearing witness to brutality in 'Devil's Double'

"Should I ask him whether it's true or not?" That's the question I had for my editor regarding my interview with Latif Yahia, the Iraqi exile whose story about being the lookalike body-double for Saddam Hussein's psychotic son Uday has been parlayed into a best-selling book and a movie. "Probably," said...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 12, 2012

Fuyuko Matsui finds vitality in decay

"Japanese culture has become too clean. Our five senses are too blunt," says artist Fuyuko Matsui in a recent interview at the Yokohama Museum of Art. "I think Japan needs some fear to stimulate the sense of pain."
CULTURE / Art
Jan 12, 2012

Fuyuko Matsui finds vitality in decay

"Japanese culture has become too clean. Our five senses are too blunt," says artist Fuyuko Matsui in a recent interview at the Yokohama Museum of Art. "I think Japan needs some fear to stimulate the sense of pain."
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Jan 11, 2012

Cyborg teddy bears, telephonic androids, USB missiles set to stun

Assuming you haven't had your fill of toys already this past holiday season, we have a lineup of three gadgets that look particularly fun.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 10, 2012

International education a triple-A investment in your child's — and Japan's — future

Bicultural families are on the rise in Japan. In 1970, less than 6,000 "international marriages" — where one partner is non-Japanese — were registered, or 0.5 percent of the total. In 2000, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare reported that one in 22, or 4.5 percent, of all marriages that year...
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Jan 9, 2012

The Kanji of the Year for 2011: human ties that bind

Every November, in its Kanji of the Year poll, the Japanese Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation invites the public to vote for the character that best symbolizes the year drawing to a close. It then announces the winner in mid December.
LIFE
Jan 8, 2012

Stories spiked despite journalism's mission to inform

Olympus isn't the only story that has been or is being ignored or squashed by powerful forces in Japan. Here are three more gems from that rich vein.
BUSINESS
Jan 7, 2012

Woodford ends fight to lead Olympus

Former Olympus Corp. President and CEO Michael C. Woodford said Friday in Tokyo he will give up his proxy fight to regain the top job in the medical equipment and camera maker because of lack of support from Japanese shareholders and trauma suffered by his family.
COMMENTARY
Jan 6, 2012

Russia's mental adjustment

Through the centuries, every people — big or small — has been working out its own approaches to various sides of life that, summed up, predestine its mentality and national character.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 6, 2012

'Himizu'

Violence, director Kinji Fukasaku once told me, is "a pillar of filmmaking." But on-screen mayhem regarded as extreme in Fukasaku's 1970s heyday (see his "Jingi Naki Tatakai [Battles Without Honor & Humanity]" series for examples) looks mild in ours.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 6, 2012

'Good'

As far as movies about Nazi Germany go, "Good" belies its title and sits fidgeting on a terrain somewhere between so-so and inoffensive. But 15 years ago a story like "Good" would have been called daring — even revolutionary — for it ventures beyond caricatured depictions of monstrous Nazis and the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / NUCLEAR AWAKENING
Jan 4, 2012

Mothers first to shed food-safety complacency

The disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant and the threat of radioactive fallout changed the lives of many people, including Mizuho Nakayama and other mothers of young children whose primary goal suddenly became that of keeping their kids out of harm's way.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 3, 2012

Japanese must tap their 'inner Israeli'

Aimless, Japan has been struggling to find a suitable vision, or model, for its future. Should it strive to be like Finland, small but prosperous? Should it de-emphasize economic growth and focus on sustainability and lifestyle? Should it look to the go-go '80s for inspiration? Or should it withdraw...
CULTURE / Books
Dec 25, 2011

Bubble-wrap novel far from bubble gum

Winner of the Prix Goncourt, Michel Houellebecq, in his latest novel, "The Map and the Territory," takes us into the world of art and the life of Jed Martin, rival of Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, and fan of a writer called ... Michel Houellebecq.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 24, 2011

Foreign residents and religion

This month, two common questions were heard among many foreign residents here: "What are you doing for Christmas?" and "Are you going home or staying here?"
China warns citizens not to visit Japan as row over Taiwan heats up
Chinese tourists wear kimonos as they visit Sensoji temple in Tokyo's Asakusa district on Saturday.
From France to Mali, a deportee's struggle far from home
Moussa Sacko, a Malian deported from France — where he had lived since he was a young child — stands on a street in Bamako, Mali, in December. Compared with his home in France, Bamako feels like a different planet, Sacko said.
China warns of military response if Japan intervenes in Taiwan contingency
Representatives from the Japan Innovation Party hand over a proposal to designate Xue Jian, the Chinese consul-general in Osaka, as persona no grata, to a staff of the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo on Wednesday.
At Ginza’s newest hotel, luxury is a private treasure
At Fufu Tokyo, each guest room comes with its own private "onsen" (hot spring) — a luxury nearly unheard of in the heart of Tokyo's capital.
Japan may triple departure tax to tackle overtourism
A plane takes off from Haneda Airport.
Japan fully enters sports streaming era as fans face new dilemmas
Sports fan Tadashi Yokoyama streams basketball and fencing on three screens.
Stablecoins: Boring goes big, and now in Japan
Noritaka Okabe, CEO of JPYC, acknowledges a number of potential risks related to stablecoins.
Shohei Ohtani collects fourth MVP Award with 2025 NL honor
The Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani was named National League MVP for the second straight season on Thursday.
As Japan’s female leader rises, can she cross sumo’s sacred line?
Japan Sumo Association Chairman Hakkaku (front center) delivers a speech on the first day of the Kyushu Grand Sumo Tournament at the Fukuoka Kokusai Center on Sunday. Centuries of belief and tradition still underpin the all-male association's stance of excluding women.
Tatsuya Nakadai: A masterful leading man and postwar icon
Tatsuya Nakadai had the look of a leading man in his youth, but his large and searching eyes suggested the pain and loneliness of an old soul.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo
By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons
Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER