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Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 3, 2010

Double dose of dancing hits Saitama

A double bill of cutting-edge dance awaits fans at the Saitama Arts Theater this weekend.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 3, 2010

From 'Dawn of the Dead' to the live-and-kicking golden 'oldies'

Shu Matsui's innocent smile is familiar. He's always beaming on TV ads, whether he's plugging a washing softener, playing a gentle new father or promoting mobile phones in the guise of a young doctor. But if you were to see any production by Sample, the theater company Matsui founded in 2007, you'd be...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 3, 2010

'Night-Tokyo-Day (Map of the Sounds of Tokyo)'

Many Tokyoites believe there are two versions of the city: Version A is where the Japanese inhabit — defined by cramped spaces, excessively long working hours and totally functional toilets. Version B is the Tokyo known to non-Japanese, which by all accounts is ambivalent, exotic and infinitely more...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Sep 2, 2010

Power spots: Japan’s latest spiritual craze

Feeling down? Need a recharge? Seek the nearest 'power spot.'
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 29, 2010

Twin tours de force offer insights into Japan not lost in translation

The year 2010 may come to be seen as a landmark in terms of literature written in English that draws on Japan as a setting.
JAPAN / Q&A
Aug 28, 2010

Shedding light on death penalty

Justice Minister Keiko Chiba, who will probably be replaced next month because she lost her Diet seat in the July 11 Upper House election, allowed journalists for the first time Friday to enter the Tokyo Detention House's execution chamber.
JAPAN / LIVING IN LUXURY
Aug 27, 2010

The East meets West at Furukawa Gardens

The well-preserved early 20th century Furukawa Gardens in Kita Ward, Tokyo, boasts a British-style house on a hilltop overlooking a harmonious marriage of Western and Japanese landscaping.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / ART BRIEF
Aug 27, 2010

'Agnosian Fields'

Maison Hermes Le Forum
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 27, 2010

In the absence of information comes greater imagination

The 1990s saw the rise of what at the time seemed an important generation of Japanese female photographers. This included Junko Takahashi, HIROMIX, Rika Noguchi, Mika Ninagawa and Tomoko Sawada. While much of this new wave — most notably the narcissistic soft-porn of HIROMIX and the cosplay outings...
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2010

Obituary: Satoshi Kon

Influential animated film director Satoshi Kon has died of pancreatic cancer, it was learned Wednesday. He was 46.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 26, 2010

Key to happiness has problematic flip side

NEW HAVEN — I admit that it is an unusual way to see the world, but when reading the newspaper, I am constantly struck by the extent of human kindness. The newest bit of good news comes from The Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College, which estimates that Americans will give about $250...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Aug 26, 2010

Objets d'art with a purpose in life

Working across the grain
JAPAN
Aug 25, 2010

Theme restaurants work some magic

A ninja takes you through a dark narrow path, serves you food and drink and performs magic in a restaurant in Tokyo's Akasaka district where the likes of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and famed film director Steven Spielberg have dined.
JAPAN
Aug 24, 2010

Taiji mayor defends dolphin hunt

TAIJI, Wakayama Pref. — As kids in inner tubes bob on the calm waters of this small ocean cove, a 250-kg dolphin zips through the crowd in pursuit of squid tossed out by a trainer.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 22, 2010

Indonesia intrigue, Tokyo high-tech high jinx

While such enduring bad guys as Nazis, KGB agents, Cosa Nostra gangsters, sinister Asiatics and the occasional vampire still receive top billing in U.S. popular fiction and cinema, the events of 9/11 have not surprisingly inspired a stream of works featuring villains of Middle Eastern and/or jihadist...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 21, 2010

It takes a lot of guts in Katakana Land

One struggle in learning Japanese is getting a grip on all the various loan words that have slipped into the vernacular from abroad.
JAPAN / JAPANESE LANGUAGE EDUCATION
Aug 20, 2010

Meager pay keeps ranks of instructors in doldrums

English is a hot topic these days, thanks to the announcement by Rakuten Inc., Japan's biggest Internet shopping mall operator, that it was making English its official company language.
JAPAN / JAPANESE LANGUAGE EDUCATION
Aug 20, 2010

Educators fret fate of nation's language

Last year, more than 10,000 people spoke out against the government's apparent disregard for Japanese-language education when it submitted a bill to effectively abolish the National Institute for Japanese Language.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 20, 2010

Tales of Ueda Akinari and his contemporaries

With the advent of postmodernism in Japan from the 1980s, which fostered eclecticism and diverse stylistic practices, interest in the earlier Edo Period (1603-1868) was revived and it subsequently was embraced as a kindred spirit.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 20, 2010

In search of society's true affluence

"When I was 40, my father died. When he died, he was working on a project for a children's campground on the island of Naoshima. When I returned from Tokyo to Okayama to lead the family company, I inherited the project. As I lived and worked with the locals, my thinking went through a 180-degree reversal....
COMMENTARY
Aug 18, 2010

Sometimes TV dramas can be good for you

TIRANA, Albania — A friend of mine, a prestigious physician who works the longest hours of anybody I know, makes only one exception from her demanding schedule in New York. Once a week, she returns home early to watch a new episode of her favorite television drama. I cannot think of a more unlikely...
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Aug 17, 2010

Himalayan love story peaks in Chiba

"People say it's like a love story in a Bollywood movie," says Paul Rajesh, 34, who was born in Manali, a town in northern India's Himachal Pradesh state.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 15, 2010

Unresolved mystery from the mind of Murakami

In May 2009, Haruki Murakami released "1Q84" to tremendous sales and mostly positive domestic reviews. The novel, released initially in two parts, follows two, 29-year-old Tokyoites as they are pulled into an alternative version of the year 1984.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 14, 2010

Vinyl forever — it really sticks (to your legs)

"Dozo, please take a seat," said the guy at the city hall. "Thank you," I said, not making a move. He rounded up some papers and came back to the table, "Dozo, please take a seat." But I just stood there, while he sat down.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 14, 2010

Detroiter puts golf on his English, boosts students' lie

Detroit-born Bob White has been in love with golf since he picked up one of his father's clubs at the age of 8. There were no kids' size clubs in the late 1950s, he recalls. You just did the best you could with what you had.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 13, 2010

'Secret'

Korean suspense thrillers are a little like Korean soccer games: rough, provocative and erupting with violence. Ultimately though, the scenes — like the soccer plays — are rigorously disciplined and calculated down to the tiniest detail. It goes without saying that both are extremely watchable. ...

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb