Search - life

 
 
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 6, 2009

Politically incorrect maybe, but also some trenchant home truths

The world used to be one hell of a racist place. All you need do is go back a few decades to find public pronouncements that today would land you a punch on the schnozz, if not a stint in the slammer.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 4, 2009

'Yomigaeri no Chi'

Drugs can finish you off in Japanese show business. One bust for possession spells the end to offers of every kind, from ad deals to drama-series roles to Christmas tree lightings. Theaters pull your latest film, your agency fires you and nobody wants to know you but your dog. In Hollywood, celebrity...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 4, 2009

Under the guise of medical history, the Mori gets radical

Don't be distracted by the big names showing at "Medicine and Art: Imagining a Future for Life and Love" — Da Vinci, Okyo, Damien Hirst — the jewels of the show lie in the obscure — timeworn or contemporary.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 2, 2009

Rudd wrestles with refugee crisis

SYDNEY — Just when links between Indonesia and Australia were looking good, along come Sri Lankans fleeing in leaky boats. Suddenly the Indian Ocean marks a diplomatic and humanitarian standoff of grim proportions.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 27, 2009

Tokyo's urban design role

The Hatoyama government's ambitious carbon reduction goals position Japan for leadership in the postindustrial global economy. Less discussed is Tokyo's remarkable energy efficiency, urban ecology innovations, and its potential for playing a leading role in the next decade's biggest environmental challenge:...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 27, 2009

'Black Gaisha ni Tsutometerundaga mo Ore wa Genkai Kamo Shirenai'

Films about Japanese organization men, from bureaucrats to salarymen, have long broadly divided into two categories — the serious ones, that portray work life as a sort of holy war, fought by loyal, self-sacrificing blue-suited soldiers, and the comic, whose characters range from pompous idiots to...
Reader Mail
Nov 26, 2009

Caring for patients near death

Regarding Peter Singer's Nov. 18 article, "Slippery slope of doctor-assisted euthanasia": Professor Singer says Roman Catholic thinkers would do well to examine the consequences of the Catholic "double effects" doctrine before invoking the "slippery slope" arguments against euthanasia. In fact, Singer...
EDITORIALS
Nov 22, 2009

Saving millions of children

Almost 9 million children die every year before the age of 5 — or nearly one child every three seconds. Just under 4 million of these children die within their first month, nearly 3 million of them die within the first week and nearly 2 million of them die on their first day of life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 20, 2009

What lies behind the eccentric?

The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel wrote that what is "familiarly known" is not "properly known," just for the reason that it is familiar. The familiar historical image of the Edo Period Eccentric painters, one of whom was Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800), is no exception. They are remembered...
COMMENTARY
Nov 19, 2009

Wrong way to halt warming

Here's a surprise. The countries with the best stories to tell at the forthcoming U.N. Copenhagen conference on climate change will probably be the ones that have not signed up to carbon-reducing targets at all, or have only signed up very recently. It could be China, the United States, India and Japan...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Nov 17, 2009

Showbiz means to an end, not goal

Chuck Wilson, 63, is a fitness trainer. But he was — and arguably still is — far more famous as a funny foreigner who speaks in a defiantly casual and blunt manner to TV personality bigwigs.
EDITORIALS
Nov 16, 2009

Teens get funny

Teenagers always think their jokes are funny, but are they? Apparently, at least one is — from a first-year high school student of Hyogo Prefecture, Yugo Sagawa, who won the first-ever comedy contest for high school students. A panel of judges from the Kansai Comic Scriptwriter Association chose Sagawa's...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 15, 2009

Children pay the price when parents put their own feelings first

It is hard enough for a child to be shuffled back and forth for scheduled stays like a puck over the ice that separates divorced parents. Difficulty turns to tragedy when one parent takes it into their head to abduct the child and keep it out of reach of the other.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 15, 2009

Pants-droppingly good rants

THE GREAT FLOOD, by Frank Spignese. Printed Matter Press, 2009, 108 pp., $20 (paperback with CD) Frank Spignese's short book of poetry, "The Great Flood," comes with an audio CD of Frank reading pieces from the collection. I delved into the book first and then listened to the CD. Maybe I should have...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 15, 2009

Shades of Greece on the Inland Sea

The windmill is the first thing I notice, its delicate white blades gleaming against the cloud- flecked sky. Nearby, a semi-circle of polished Doric-style columns occupies prime position overlooking the glassy sea. As a breeze blows gently through olive trees on the shady hillside, it's easy to imagine...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 15, 2009

Children pay the price when parents put their own feelings first

It is hard enough for a child to be shuffled back and forth for scheduled stays like a puck over the ice that separates divorced parents. Difficulty turns to tragedy when one parent takes it into their head to abduct the child and keep it out of reach of the other.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 13, 2009

'A Thousand Years of Good Prayers'

Wayne Wang, often described by U.S. film critics as "our resident Chinese filmmaker," has returned —if not exactly to his roots then a turf where he feels especially comfortable. After drumming up ubiquitous crowd pleasers like "Maid in Manhattan" and "Because of Winn-Dixie," it looks as though Wang...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 12, 2009

Minamata victim seeks meeting with Obama

OSAKA — A 53-year-old Minamata disease victim who appeared in a magazine article that deeply moved a young Barack Obama has written to the U.S. president, requesting a meeting when he visits Tokyo on Friday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2009

Speaking out about domestic violence

Just a year into her marriage, Emi Yoshida realized she might not survive it. Her violent, drug-addict husband had tried to strangle her, then beat her unconscious outside their Tokyo home. When she came to, he was threatening her with a knife.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Nov 7, 2009

Japanese — a language of tall tales

At times, Japan seems to be an alarmist country. Topics like immigration, terrorism, and the latest strain of influenza can be blown out of proportion and reactions can appear over the top. But is it any wonder when you consider the Japanese language?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 6, 2009

'Synecdoche, New York'

Sreenwriter Charlie Kaufman, who spun American cinema on its head with striking scripts for "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," goes for fiendishly obsessional, intellectual acrobatics in his directorial debut.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 6, 2009

England's War of the Roses is being fought in modern-day Tokyo

Back in July, at a New National Theatre Tokyo (NNTT) press conference to herald this autumn's special staging of William Shakespeare's nine-hour-long "Henry VI" trilogy, Hitoshi Uyama, 56, its director, declared his intention to go beneath and beyond the blood, guts and gore of the famous epic set during...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Nov 5, 2009

New faces down on the farm

Whether it's in a country field or on a high-rise rooftop, the self-sufficiency benefits of farming are inspiring more Japanese to till the soil.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 4, 2009

Slow Food founder pushes fair fare

Carlo Petrini, a 60-year-old Italian, is on a mission: He wants cheap, mass produced foods laced chemical fertilizers and artificial flavors to be replaced by safer, high-quality, and higher-priced, fare.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Nov 3, 2009

Demography vs. demagoguery: when politics, science collide

Last June, I attended a symposium sponsored by the German Institute of Japanese Studies. Themed "Imploding Populations: Global and Local Challenges of Demographic Change," I took in presentations about health care, international and domestic migration, and life in a geriatric society.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Nov 3, 2009

Demography vs. demagoguery: when politics, science collide

Last June, I attended a symposium sponsored by the German Institute of Japanese Studies. Themed "Imploding Populations: Global and Local Challenges of Demographic Change," I took in presentations about health care, international and domestic migration, and life in a geriatric society.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Oct 30, 2009

There's nothing like a local brew

Once upon a time, all sake was made with locally grown rice. Then came the rise of a particularly reliable strain called Yamada Nishiki, and the scene changed dramatically. Yamada Nishiki, which accounts for nearly 30 percent of Japan's sake rice, is resilient and easily shipped between prefectures....

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