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BUSINESS / Companies
May 29, 2013

Innkeeper to offer taste of tradition among glitzy players in Otemachi

In Tokyo's Otemachi business district, home to a legion of foreign-owned upscale hotels, a Japanese-style inn will open as early as summer 2016 even as such traditional facilities struggle in the face of globalization, Hoshino Resorts President Yoshiharu Hoshino said Tuesday.
JAPAN
May 27, 2013

NRA ranks radiation leak at lab as Level 1

The Nuclear Regulation Authority on Monday provisionally evaluated the severity of last week's leak of radioactive substances at a Japan Atomic Energy Agency laboratory in the village of Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, as Level 1, within the bottom tier of the 7-scale international gauge.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 27, 2013

Oyaji gyagu, more than just cheesy puns

Stop me if you've heard this one. Two men aged around 50 enter a sushi restaurant. One orders a raincoat, the other a garage. What looks like the beginning of a "Monty Python" sketch is in fact the stuff of a most typical oyaji gyagu (おやじギャグ), or old man's joke/gag. Such jokes normally center...
COMMENTARY / World
May 27, 2013

Hold the false prophets of doom accountable

Apocalyptic prophecies and the raucous festivities accompanying them are indisputably alluring. But imaginary cataclysms have real-world consequences.
Japan Times
WORLD / ANALYSIS
May 26, 2013

U.S. drone program 'tough to dismantle'

The White House is ready to hand U.S. drone operations back to the military from the CIA, but counterterrorism officials are convinced the Pentagon hasn't improved enough yet.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
May 26, 2013

Corporal punishment has long history in Japanese sports

Getting slapped by a a coach has always been, as far as I could see, simply another aspect of sports training in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 26, 2013

Are we close to understanding bipolar disorder?

It may seem perverse to express nostalgia for a category of mental illness, but many sufferers, as well as some psychiatrists, regret the passing of “manic depression.”
EDITORIALS
May 26, 2013

Super global English schools

One recent proposal likely to have a good effect on English education in Japan is allowing certain high schools to teach subjects such as science or math in English.
Reader Mail
May 26, 2013

Expect Hague spirit to be abused

After reading the March 12 editorial, "Preparing for the Hague Convention," and realizing that "domestic violence" is covered as a grave danger to a child, I felt I must comment.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
May 25, 2013

Uganda boxing trainer gives expert advice to aspiring pugilists

If you don't get into the ring once or twice, then you're a coward, Geoffrey Ima says as he describes people's attitudes toward boxing in his hometown in Uganda. Ima has been in the ring hundreds of times and came to love boxing so much, he wanted to earn a living from it — a career choice that led...
Japan Times
WORLD
May 25, 2013

Angelina Jolie: a brave woman and a role model

An article written by Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie provoked headlines around the world when she chose "not to keep my story private" and revealed she had undergone a double mastectomy to lower her risk of breast cancer, which was high due to her genetic inheritance. The impassioned letter, published...
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
May 25, 2013

Moriwaki enjoying challenge playing for Urawa brings

The 27-year-old defender says he was ready for a change of scenery after helping Sanfrecce Hiroshima win theJ. League title last season.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 25, 2013

English education and English sheepdogs

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe aims to globalize Japan's workforce and says that Japan must become more competitive in the English language. This has touched off a debate among native English teachers, Japanese who teach English, Japanese speakers who don't speak English, and English sheepdogs owned by both...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
May 24, 2013

Japanese afternoon tea; Beatles and disco dinner party; eat off Kutani porcelain

Japanese afternoon tea at Peninsula
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / EVERYMAN EATS
May 24, 2013

Chomp your way through spring

It's no surprise that the Japanese get serious about eating and drinking come late spring, as yatai food carts roll out, a bevy of fresh vegetables appear on restaurant menus and the annual festival season begins to heat up. This year is no different, with offerings that include a fried-chicken collaboration,...
COMMENTARY / World
May 23, 2013

'Obama scandals' could actually hurt Republicans

Three current controversies about the Obama administration won't help Republican politicians if they cannot devise a popular agenda on health care and other issues.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 23, 2013

'The Yabuuchi Satoshi Exhibition: Yamatojikara'

While working for the Graduate School of Conservation of the Tokyo University of Arts, Satoshi Yabuuchi, a sculptor from Sakai in Osaka, designed Nara Prefecture's regional mascot Sentokun. He is also the director of Heisei Gikakudan dance troupe, and an active promoter of the preservation of Japanese...
Reader Mail
May 23, 2013

Perfect material for bullying

Regarding Kaori Shoji's May 13 article, "It ain't easy being a bilingual girl": I agree that bilingual Japanese face obstacles today as they did 30 years ago.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
May 22, 2013

A fortunate life among hot springs

Kazuhiro Shiraishi, 66, is a guest-house manager in the Izu-kogen Highlands, a famous resort area on the Izu Peninsula of Shizuoka Prefecture. Looking out onto the Pacific Ocean, and just 90 minutes by train from Tokyo, Izu has a warm climate all year round and a gorgeous coastline dotted with open-air...
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2013

How modern nationalism gave birth to terrorism

If we want to understand what drove the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to terrorism, the answer almost certainly does not lie in Dagestan, where the brothers lived before moving to the United States, or in the two wars fought in Chechnya in the last 20 years. Instead,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues
May 21, 2013

Fear and incarceration, from Kampala to Nagoya

"I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, where two men lay. I couldn't tell if they were dead or alive. They had been...
COMMENTARY / World
May 21, 2013

Turkey's Erdogan undone by Obama and Assad

The car bombs that killed more than 40 people on May 11 in a town in southern Turkey are a reckoning for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
May 20, 2013

Captain Kabaya picks up MVP award

Masayuki Kabaya, the Yokohama B-Corsairs captain, knocked down five 3-pointers — all five attempts — in a mesmerizing 35-point performance that had fans from both teams dropping their jaws in astonishment.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 19, 2013

Family drama is reimagined for today's Japan

"Kazoku Game (The Family Game)," directed by the late Yoshimitsu Morita and released in 1983, remains a movie milestone. A cynical black comedy, it presented to the world a distillation of the less edifying social outcomes of Japan's postwar economic miracle. The Numata family are invaded by a private...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
May 18, 2013

Foreign-born professional strives to reconnect Japanese with koto music

Life in Japan just seems tailor-made for certain foreign residents, who slip into the fabric of this society as smoothly as a hand slides into a glove. American Curtis Patterson, a professional koto player and music teacher, is a case in point.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?