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Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 24, 2011

Foreign residents take part in Japanese traditional dance contest

With summer just around the corner, the spirit of dancing will radiate in the heart of Tokyo as The 6th Foreigner's Traditional Japanese Dance Exhibition takes place June 25.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 24, 2011

Director Ishii brings style to family drama

Japanese directors with any kind of ambition usually end up making a family drama, which is to Japanese cinema what the Western used to be to Hollywood: the core national genre.
Reader Mail
Jun 23, 2011

Unhealthy promotion of sports

Regarding the June 18 Kyodo article "First sports law since '61 enacted": How will promoting sports cut medical spending? Some of the worst injuries are caused by sports. If there was an incentive to exercise safely, that might help reduce unnecessary spending, but to suggest that pushing sports down...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 21, 2011

Time to give nuke watchdog teeth

A government report about the Fukushima No. 1 power plant crisis released June 7 mentions the need to review the way the nuclear power industry is regulated.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 21, 2011

Media grasp for words to sum up post-3/11 grit

The disaster was "divine retribution (tembatsu)," proclaimed Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara just days after the Tohoku earthquake. "The Japanese have become a selfish (gayoku) people. We need to use the tsunami to wash away this egoism."
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Jun 21, 2011

Is Facebook's 'Check-in Coupon' a good deal in Japan?

Facebook makes a foray into Japan's mobile coupon market with location-based discounts, but will social shopping catch on?
COMMENTARY
Jun 20, 2011

Living with national universities

In fiscal 2004, the state-run national universities in Japan were given the status of "corporations." The initial six-year "medium term" after this shift to "national university corporations" ended in fiscal 2009. The current fiscal year is the second year of the second medium term.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 20, 2011

Objective defense of why some things matter

Can moral judgments be true or false? Or is ethics, at bottom, a purely subjective matter, for individuals to choose, or perhaps relative to the culture of the society in which one lives?
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 19, 2011

Anti-whalers should just stop ...

Nearly a quarter of a century since Japan began its controversial "research whaling" cull off Antarctica, there was a major development this year in the annual contest of wills between whalers and conservationists.
COMMENTARY
Jun 17, 2011

Triple disaster proves need for an industrial revolution

Some three months since the colossal earthquake and tsunami in eastern Japan, stricken areas are getting on track for recovery with local industrial production capacity having been restored to as much as 90 percent of pre-disaster levels.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 16, 2011

Rap artist Rumi stokes nuke fires

If you were in the Tokyo neighborhoods of Koenji on April 10, Shibuya on May 7, or Shinjuku on June 11, you might have seen (or more likely, heard) thousands of demonstrators weaving through the streets, waving signs and chanting slogans in opposition to Japan's atomic energy policies. In the past few...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 15, 2011

The U.S. Federal Reserve is playing with fire

The dollar has had its ups and downs, but the downs have clearly dominated of late. The greenback has lost more than a quarter of its value against other currencies, adjusted for inflation, over the last decade. It is down by nearly 5 percent since the beginning of 2011, matching the lowest level plumbed...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 14, 2011

Tokai Big One still tops in speculation

Seismologists have warned of the likelihood of a Tokai region earthquake for years.
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2011

Kesennuma Filipinos closer-knit than ever

Like many residents of this port city known for its rich bonito, saury and shark fin catches, Marivel Gunji had worked in the fisheries industry, in her case for more than a decade. When the earthquake hit March 11, she was at her factory slicing up fish that seemed to suddenly come back to life.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 11, 2011

Worldly duo took chance on Japan, find beachhead

Ask Alana and Michel Bonzi where they are from and their first answer is they are citizens of the world.
JAPAN
Jun 10, 2011

Unsigned treaties up Japan's nuke suit risk

As a nonsignatory to three international treaties on compensation for nuclear accidents, Japan is exposed to the risk of expensive lawsuits.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 10, 2011

"The Birth Of European Porcelain: Celebrating 300 Years Of Meissen Ware"

In 1710, Germany's Meissen kiln succeeded in making, for the first time in Europe, hard-paste porcelain, a Western equivalent of China-ware from the East. It has been 300 years since the Meissen kiln was established under the patronage of then Elector of Saxony, Augustus the Strong.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 10, 2011

"Symbols of Immortality: The Phoenix And The Lion"

This exhibition traces the symbolic use and transformation of the phoenix and lion in various aspects of Japanese culture. Both the phoenix and the lion are symbols of Chinese origins that are often associated with immortality. Throughout Japanese history, they have been used in many paintings and crafts...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 8, 2011

Thailand Inc. versus Thaksin

Thailand is preparing to go to the polls on July 3 in an election that is supposed to mark the restoration of full democracy to the country, one of the liveliest, best-endowed and most promising countries in Asia. But the way the campaign is going, the chances are that Thailand will face another coup...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 8, 2011

Tsunami-struck museum starts recovering collection

A pile of small display cases lies in the dirt outside the Rikuzentakata City Museum. With their glass tops smashed into a thousand shards that reflect the sunlight through a layer of dried mud, it's difficult to make out the crushed wings of the small butterflies still pinned inside.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jun 7, 2011

'English-speaking diaspora' should unite, not backbite

There has been an ill wind blowing around Japan, and I don't just mean the fallout after Fukushima. I'm talking about the nasty attitude non-Japanese (NJ) residents have towards each other, even in this time of crisis.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 5, 2011

Exquisite designs for better living

TRADITIONAL JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE: An Exploration of Elements and Forms, by Mira Locher. Photography by Ben Simmons. Tuttle Publishing, 2010, 223 pp., $39.95 (hardcover) In Zen Buddhism there is a ceremony called "The Transmission." The ritual, both mystic and arcane, is little known in lay circles....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 4, 2011

Students credit survival to disaster-preparedness drills

March 11 started out as another ordinary Friday at Kamaishi East Junior High School, which stands by the mouth of the Unosumai River that runs through the city into Otsuchi Bay. Classes were over for the day and students were about to start their after-school club activities when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake...
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jun 4, 2011

Intern at Disney, get credits

Nagoya University of Foreign Studies in Nisshin, Aichi Prefecture, has launched an overseas program to give its students the opportunity to study in the U.S. and work at Disney World in Florida.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan