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EDITORIALS
Sep 11, 2011

The truly lost decade since 9/11

It has been a decade since 19 Islamic terrorists hijacked airplanes and flew them into U.S. landmarks. That savage attack marked the beginning of a new era in modern history. The decade has been marked by war, and the deepening of cleavages inside and between almost every country on the planet.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 11, 2011

Print ad featuring MacArthur sends muddled message

On Sept. 2, a controversial newspaper advertisement placed by Takarajima-sha, a mid-tier publisher, went viral on Japanese blogs and Web news sites.
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 11, 2011

God's own country

Everywhere around Kerala in southwest India there are signs emblazoned with the state motto: "God's Own Country" — and certainly no supreme deity could have chosen a better place to call home.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 10, 2011

Swiss tries to bring foreign tourists back to Japan, a step at a time

The undulating sea observes the solitary walker. A triangular bamboo farmer's hat shades his face as the infinite horizon stretches ahead, marking out his path.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 9, 2011

Beating the midlife blues

Are you feeling down about middle age? Do you find yourself thinking that time is hurtling and you'll never reach your goals — or, perhaps more distressingly, that they don't even fit who you are anymore?
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 9, 2011

Fukuoka fast becoming Asia film hub

During a speech to mark his receipt of The Japan Foundation Award for Arts and Culture late last year, there was one point that the widely respected film critic Tadao Sato was especially keen to convey to his Tokyo audience.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 9, 2011

Festival/Tokyo rewrites its script after quake

Chiaki Soma, the program director at Festival/Tokyo (F/T), needed to figure out how to proceed with the country's biggest theater festival following the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11. She closed her office for 10 days and asked the staff to carefully consider the meaning of the festival in...
Reader Mail
Sep 8, 2011

Boon for a new tourism drive

Ontarians as well as people from around the world recognized Sept. 1 as Dolphin Day. Unfortunately, Japan became the focus.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 8, 2011

(M)otocompo's theater challenges stale indie scene

Shuffling onto the stage in a flurry of robotic jerks come three men wearing glazed expressions and identical striped tops. In time with the retro-futurist synthesizer chirps and bleeps, they then lurch into a kind of clockwork dance routine, while a fourth man, wearing a construction helmet and mask,...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2011

Is China's economic miracle a mirage?

Doubts are beginning to be heard about how sustainable is China's economic miracle, particularly the relentless emphasis on exports and investment spending by hundreds of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and local governments. Beijing, of course, has its supporters, including banker turned academic Stephen...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Sep 5, 2011

MLB scouts doing due diligence on Fighters' Darvish

The press box at QVC Marine Field isn't exactly state-of-the-art. Upfront are three sections of long desks topped with aging, faded wood looking out onto the field from ground level, behind a net and tinted glass. The rear resembles a school cafeteria, with an old television resting on a filing cabinet...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 4, 2011

Year-round playground Yamanashi

In all of my visits to Yamanashi Prefecture, never before has catching sight of Mount Fuji left my heart beating so fast. Certainly, any view of that lofty symbol of Japan is sure to impart a sense of awe at its scale and natural beauty. But this time, it was the 121-degree freefall right after my fleeting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 2, 2011

"Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of Sakai Hoitsu's Birth: Sakai Hoitsu and the Edo Rimpa School"

Born into the distinguished family of the feudal lord of the Himeji region of Hyogo Prefecture, Sakai Hoitsu (1761-1828) had the luxury of being able to enjoy haiku poetry and calligraphy from a young age. In his 20s, he started to immerse himself in street culture, such as kyōka (satrical poems) and...
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Sep 1, 2011

Artisans who lived by their swords

The samurai sword has long been a symbol of great allure in Japan. It conjures images of virility, tradition, austerity and the mystery of legends. Not only is it said that the Shinto gods possessed swords but, as part of the Imperial regalia, such blades were believed to signify the divinity and divine...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Aug 31, 2011

Discount strategies: Every dog, and man, has his day

The service industry is finally targeting guys.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Aug 30, 2011

Winning: 'The Alien': readers remember life in '90s Japan

The following are a selection of the winning submissions in response to last month's Zeit Gist competition to win copies of "The Very Best of Neil Garscadden's Alien Humor," a collection of many of the pieces Garscadden wrote while editor of the humor section of The Alien magazine.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Aug 28, 2011

Is youth's 'creeping passivity' happening by design?

Last February, I wrote an Our Planet Earth column titled "Don't give up on Japan's kids," noting there that despite all the hand-wringing that goes on about this nation's young people, my own experience with university students gives me cause for considerable optimism.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 27, 2011

Summertime's biggest fans

"The first time I went to see a fan dance . . ."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 27, 2011

Mask maker keeping Shimane tradition alive

Hanging on the walls of Jake Davies' home are around 20 artifacts that seem at odds with the idyllic village in Sakurae, Shimane Prefecture where his rustic abode is set.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 26, 2011

Drunken dance to hit Tokyo

The Koenji district in the west of Tokyo is known for used-clothing stores and record shops — the perfect spot for any music lover to settle down in.
COMMENTARY
Aug 25, 2011

Why Chris Christie isn't running for president

Near the statehouse office of New Jersey's 55th governor sits a sort of shrine to the 34th. Fortunately, Chris Christie is unlike Woodrow Wilson.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 23, 2011

Peace Boat-Rolls Royce talks lay bare ethical minefield

Convinced the recovery in Tohoku will result in the birth of widespread corporate philanthropy in Japan, in the same way the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake prompted the proliferation of volunteerism, Peace Boat director Tatsuya Yoshioka spent a day in June shepherding a busload of businesspeople on a...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 22, 2011

Whose fault is the rise and fall of the Japanese ojisan?

The Japanese ojisan (おじさん, middle-aged and older male) hasn't been too genki (元気, full of cheer) or assertive lately. Just the other day, I witnessed a company nomikai (飲み会, drinking party) at a beer garden where the only persons swilling nama (ナマ, draft beer) by the tankload, pulling...
Reader Mail
Aug 21, 2011

No country for Asian refugees

Regarding the July 6 article "UNHCR exec lauds refugee strides, urges more": In the 1970s, Japanese vessels in the South China Sea rescued a lot of boat people who hoped to live in Japan. After several years, though, most of them left for the United States and other Western countries.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WEEK 3
Aug 21, 2011

Three Mile Island's lessons for Japan

In the early hours of March 28, 1979, human errors and mechanical failures combined to cause a cooling system to stop working at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. One of the station's two nuclear cores overheated, thrusting the plant into a crisis that would...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 21, 2011

Korean television dramas are not the real problem

On July 23, actor Sosuke Takaoka tweeted that he was sick of all the Korean dramas on Fuji TV, a network he "used to be indebted to," and demanded more "traditional" Japanese programming. "If anything related to South Korea is on," he continued, "I just turn it off." The backlash was swift, and the actor...
EDITORIALS
Aug 21, 2011

More money for women athletes

The women's soccer team has won more than a first place victory in the Women's World Cup. They have also won increased financial support for women athletes in Japan. The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry (MEXT) announced recently it would be increasing financial support for...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2011

Gendercide: India's ticking demographic bomb

Ernest Hemingway's collection of stories, "Men without Women," examines tense gender relationships. In a particularly poignant story, a young man convinces his partner to have an abortion, viewing their unborn child as a hindrance to the status quo. Frustrated, the woman gives in.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 19, 2011

Kimono exhibition provides a taste of history

This weekend is the last chance to view a rare collection of antique kimono from the Meiji Era at a traditional merchant house. Hosted at Nishijin Tondaya, a registered national cultural asset built in 1885, the exhibition features kimono that are around 120 years old. Visitors now have the opportunity...

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell