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COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 6, 2011

Japanese families' nutritional values pay dearly for 'progress'

Last year, a gut-wrenching book by Nobuko Iwamura was published by Shinchosha titled "Kazoku no Katte Desho!" ("It's My Kitchen and I'll Do What I Like in It!"). Gut-wrenching because it describes, with the help of 274 highly unpalatable photos, the kinds of breakfasts, lunches and dinners ordinary Japanese...
Reader Mail
Mar 6, 2011

Early training, future benefits

Going to a private school in Norway — where public schools already have a very good English education program — I have learned the benefits of an early introduction to a language. From the first through third grades, most of our English education consisted of songs and fairy tales. This gave us a...
Reader Mail
Mar 3, 2011

A perishable college education

Regarding Dipak Basu's Feb. 27 letter, "Failure rate climbs in final year": I am glad to hear that Basu is trying to keep high standards in the university classes that he teaches. However, I am sad to see that he seems detached from the reality that surrounds him. His argument that only 5 percent of...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 2, 2011

A call for philosophical thinking

HIROSHIMA — It has been long since hope for the future was lost, and a vague sense of anxiety is now prevailing among us. Yet this feeling of uneasiness should be the beginning of our thinking philosophically. We should rather take it as an unexpected blessing.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Feb 27, 2011

Don't give up on Japan's kids

Last March, the president of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust, visited Japan to find out for herself what has become of Japan's once-vibrant contribution to American academia. The numbers of Japanese students enrolling in Harvard have declined steadily over the past decade, and in September 2009...
Reader Mail
Feb 27, 2011

Failure rate climbs in final year

Regarding Joergen Jensen's Feb. 20 letter, "Holding students' feet to the fire": Jensen's implicit assumption is that it is very easy to pass examinations at Japanese universities and that Japanese universities only collect tuition fees but don't teach much. These are false assumptions.
Japan Times
Features
Feb 27, 2011

Nationalism and its discontents

In this wide-ranging feature following a recent visit to Chengdu, China, Jeff Kingston examines Sino-Japanese relations and challenges facing the government in Beijing
CULTURE / Books
Feb 27, 2011

Touched by teen suicide

ORCHARDS, by Holly Thompson. Illustrations by Grady McFerrin. Delacorte Press, 2011, 325 pp., $17.99 (hardcover) Great suffering etches images of itself into human emotions. Holly Thompson uses this psychological reality to frame an arresting and authentic novel in verse. "Orchards" is a collection of...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 27, 2011

Minding the gaps

During the Senkaku/Diaoyu imbroglio following the Sept. 7, 2010 collision between a Chinese trawler and a Japan Coast Guard patrol vessel off disputed islands of those names in the East China Sea, some NHK and Asahi reporters emphasized that the anti-Japanese demonstrations in China were not only or...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 27, 2011

Ditching materialism for the simple life

There's a new notion floating around. Perhaps you've heard of it: Danshari. Its three kanji characters signify, respectively, refusal, disposal and separation. Prosaically it means cleaning or tidying up, but there are psychological and religious dimensions, deriving in part from yoga, which suggest...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Feb 25, 2011

Hill's strategic use of Eaton paying off

For Tokyo Apache coach Bob Hill, the decision to move point guard Byron Eaton to a reserve role may turn out to be the smartest move he'll make this season.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 25, 2011

Jolie acts out a teenage crush in 'The Tourist'

"Of course I always wanted to work with Johnny Depp!" laughs Angelina Jolie. "What actress hasn't? I've thought he was the coolest thing for years. I practically grew up with him and had such a crush on him in 'Edward Scissorhands'!"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 25, 2011

Asian art challenges Western museums' way of thinking

Art from Asia has enjoyed increased global interest in the past few decades, which has brought major changes to the way in which the art scene now views this hitherto neglected region. In a special symposium, "How is the World Engaging with Contemporary Asian Art?," at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo on...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Feb 22, 2011

NPO tax status threatened by Diet split

With the opposition camp trying to veto all budget-related bills in the divided Diet, the fate of legislation proposed by the Democratic Party of Japan-led government to enhance the tax-exempt status of nonprofit organizations is hanging in the air.
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Feb 21, 2011

Music makes bananas fit for the long run

Yes, Tokyo Marathon runners, we have musically enhanced 'sports bananas.'
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Feb 20, 2011

Secret envoy docudrama; flash mob challenge; CM of the Week: Food Action Nippon

After decades of official denials from the Foreign Ministry, last year it was revealed that the Japanese government made a secret pact with the United States to allow the American military to bring nuclear weapons into Okinawa after the islands were returned to Japan in 1972.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 20, 2011

Remember Takuboku: A model to rouse today's thwarted youth

Social change is a volcanic phenomenon. The first rumblings may not be widely seen or heard; then there is an eruption that takes society unawares. All of a sudden — or so it seems — a new generation with new needs and demands is born. Until that happens, society often outwardly appears placid, calm...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Feb 20, 2011

Aspiring animator comes to Japan to chase her dreams

It's fun to walk down the street or get aboard a train with Tracey Seals and watch how Japanese people react. Once they notice the blue-eyed, bespectacled 21-year-old redhead from Mississippi in their midst, some break out in smiles. And others do double-takes, as if they've just seen an anime character...
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Feb 19, 2011

Home of pachinko opens arms to China

A Chinese signboard for a pachinko parlor in Nagoya reads: "Pachinko is a popular form of Japanese entertainment that originated in Nagoya. Only ¥100 will get you 100 balls to enjoy pachinko with."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 18, 2011

Visit Tokyo's 'Frontline' for Japan's contemporary art

Shigeo Goto, director of Tokyo Frontline, a new art fair to start in Tokyo this year, calls himself an "outsider," meaning he considers himself not quite inside Tokyo's commercial "art scene."
Reader Mail
Feb 17, 2011

Breaching of social problems

I would like to respond to the Jan. 30 letters "Cultural generalizations dangerous" by Gregory Hutchinson and "'Gender equality' not universal" by Bryan Hunt.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Feb 17, 2011

Bloomers

Dear Alice,
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 17, 2011

Planned school will offer diversity in the classroom

Lin Kobayashi explains that in the high school that she attended in Canada, in the early 1990s, there were 86 different nationalities represented in her year alone. Needless to say, Japan has no schools that could compete in terms of diversity, even today. But, if the 36-year-old Tokyo native gets her...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 16, 2011

The world needs more elephant mothers

MELBOURNE — Many years ago, my wife and I were driving somewhere with our three young daughters in the back, when one of them suddenly asked: "Would you rather that we were clever or that we were happy?"
EDITORIALS
Feb 16, 2011

End of the Mubarak era

Eighteen days of protest ended 30 years of one-man rule by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. While the demonstrations had been mounting in intensity and reflected deep-seated grievances that had been building over decades, his decision Friday to step down was never certain. As the country enters a new...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 13, 2011

K-pop takes on the world while J-pop stays home

Last week, the Fuji TV newsmagazine "Mr. Sunday" looked at Korean pop's success in Japan from two angles. Taking a street-level perspective, the show's host, Seiji Miyane, hung out in Tokyo's Okubo district, which has become "the new Harajuku" because young Japanese women flock there to rub up against...

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