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JAPAN
Oct 11, 2013

Medical experts seek to dial back over-prescription for schizophrenia

Doctors in Japan have long prescribed a cocktail of several types of drugs to people with mental illnesses, often leading to various side effects.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 11, 2013

Social polarization dated back to Stone Age

Social polarization wasn't invented yesterday. Ask the scientists studying the bones of prehistoric Europeans. Hundreds of skeletal remains, many from a newly discovered cave in Germany, have produced a startling reminder of the power of social boundaries.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 10, 2013

Past a papal-centric church

Pope Francis is raising eyebrows by criticizing the Catholic Church's obsession with 'small-minded rules' and narrow issues as well as its heretofore Vatican-centric view.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 10, 2013

Japan's 'brand' as good as the people behind it

Japan should engage its citizens in a seven-year path of public diplomacy leading up to the 2020 Olympics — and to a worldbeating show of cultural history and hospitality.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Oct 10, 2013

Fashion Week's side shows give the public a rare seat next to their runways

Next week is Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo but, chances are, you’re not invited. Before that teen trauma of being excluded sets in, don’t panic — there’s a ton of alternative events to get dolled up for.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 10, 2013

TIFF is your chance to catch up with Japanese film

The Tokyo International Film Festival, now in its 26th edition, has had its share of detractors, dissing it for everything from competition lineups of major festival castoffs (no longer true since TIFF stopped insisting on world premieres) to a Special Screening section that is essentially a PR showcase...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 10, 2013

Diplomats bag 'cool' photo prizes

Ciaran Chestnutt, first secretary of the Australian Embassy, on Thursday won the Prince Takamado Memorial Prize while Mayssa Hamada from the Egyptian Embassy received the Grand Prize in this year's photo contest featuring the works of diplomats posted in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 9, 2013

'150 Years of Modern Japanese Music'

After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, as Japan continued to open its ports to trade, the government also introduced Western music to education curriculums as part of its attempt to construct a more modern, globalized nation.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 9, 2013

'Documents from Medieval Japan: Functions and Styles'

This show of important early written documents helps shed light onto the life, politics and culture of medieval Japan. Beyond the messages of the words they convey, the materials used to create these documents, as well as the style of calligraphy, often reveal techniques that are unique to the era and...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 8, 2013

At 77, he flips burgers to earn his old hourly wage in a week

It seems like another life. At the height of his corporate career, Tom Palome was pulling in a salary in the low six-figures and flying first class on business trips to Europe.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Oct 8, 2013

Backlash against Miyazaki is generational

If you haven't lived in Japan, it's hard to appreciate just how beloved are anime maestro Hayao Miyazaki and his creative hub, Studio Ghibli.
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Oct 7, 2013

Fukushima, suicide and nihongo fluency: readers' mails

A grab bag of readers' mail in response to recent Community articles.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Oct 6, 2013

Ginsburg's tough decision: to stay or go?

Who dreamed up this bit of kismet? How did the stars align to make this spot of New Mexico desert the best place in the world on a late summer evening to be Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 5, 2013

King's powerful sequel to 'The Shining'

'Did I approach the book with trepidation?" asks Stephen King in the author's note to "Doctor Sleep." "You better believe it."
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 5, 2013

Is the honeymoon over for young, wedded bliss?

A visitor from another planet (a unisexual planet, let's say) would speedily infer that men and women are mutually hostile creatures. Marriage would puzzle her (the feminine pronoun is purely arbitrary) — all the more so if she stayed long enough to learn the language and hear how ancient and universal...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 5, 2013

Trouble is brewing on tracks up north

Last week the Fuji TV variety show "Real Scope" covered Japanese railroads. Most of the celebrities in the studio were densha otaku (train geeks), so it was one big love-in for railways and the people who operate them. However, the entire two-hour program focused on only two systems: the super express...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 4, 2013

Foreigners to get info on 'sento' etiquette

Tokyo's "sento" public bathhouses are making an effort to become foreigner-friendly by printing multilingual brochures and posters to explain Japan's communal bathing etiquette ahead of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 3, 2013

Ebizo rethinks kabuki's strategy

In the glitzy and gossipy world of Japanese celebrity, hardly a week goes by without revelations being made about — or made by — Ichikawa Ebizo XI.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS
Oct 3, 2013

A modern twist to traditional snacks

Nowhere is the intersection of Japanese food culture and style more obvious than in the genteel, refined world of wagashi. For centuries, Japanese confectioners, especially those associated with Kyoto and the rituals of the tea ceremony, have produced sweets of astounding intricacy and beauty.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 3, 2013

Talent show emphasizes culture

They say that fortune favors the brave and this Saturday, in Fukuoka, brave non-Japanese residents will get the chance to feel like a star.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 2, 2013

The Towada Art Center expands its landscape

Ever since the Towada Art Center opened five years ago, the city in Aomori Prefecture has seen its prospects dramatically alter. Not only by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, but by the subsequent devastation of neighboring areas, all of which compounded the dwindling prosperity of Towada....
BUSINESS / NOTEBOOK
Oct 1, 2013

Major water summit; Two-day ASEAN festival; Anniversary confections

EVENTS
JAPAN
Oct 1, 2013

More Japanese teachers needed in ASEAN, Abe is told

An expert panel to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has proposed bolstering support for Japanese-language education in ASEAN countries by increasing the number of teachers, as more people in the region are learning Japanese.
Japan Times
PRESS / Corporate Trends
Oct 1, 2013

Sayuri Daimon Named Managing Editor of The Japan Times

The Japan Times today announces the appointment of Sayuri Daimon as the new Managing Editor for The Japan Times. Daimon is the first woman to fill this role in the newspaper’s 116-year history.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 30, 2013

Ho set to roll dice on Japan casinos

Lawrence Ho, son of Macau gambling tycoon Stanley Ho, plans to invest more than $5 billion in Japan if Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd. receives permission to build a casino here as he sees constraints on development at home.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Sep 29, 2013

Nontraditional college students juggle work, kids, bills with coursework

When President Barack Obama talks about the cost of higher education, his mentions of "college students" might often evoke images of teenagers who spent their senior years of high school searching for the four-year institution that best matched their personalities, then enrolled and moved into the dorms...
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Sep 29, 2013

Tattoos make inroads with 50 and older crowd

Thirty years ago, a good girl didn't walk into an establishment plastered with images of dragons and flames, hike her shirt up over one shoulder and let her body be injected with ink. Especially not if she was, like Darlene Nash, a 57-year-old grandmother.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan