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COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 2, 2006

Fingerprint fears and TELL news

Immigration law Michael asks how the new immigration law for foreign arrivals will affect those with re-entry visas. "Can we still use the Japanese national line, or will we have to go to the foreigners line? Japanese nationals are not being photographed or fingerprinted."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 29, 2006

Nisei bears witness to 'looking like the enemy'

Mary Matsuda Gruenewald was 17 when her life fell to pieces, shattered by the U.S. policy of interning Japanese-Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Apr 29, 2006

Elizabeth Oliver

"In June this year, 10 ARK dogs will go to find new homes through the famous Battersea Dogs Home in London. Although in the past ARK has sent individual dogs abroad for rehousing, this is the first time so many Japanese dogs have been sent from a shelter in Japan to find homes in another country. Why...
JAPAN
Apr 26, 2006

Dad urges harshest sentence for Obara

Timothy Blackman asked the Tokyo District Court on Tuesday to give the maximum penalty to Joji Obara, who is standing trial for the rape and fatal drugging of his daughter, Lucie, as well as another death and the rapes of eight other women.
BUSINESS
Apr 20, 2006

Tokio Marine to buy Asia General of Singapore

Tokio Marine & Nippon Fire Insurance Co. plans to buy a full stake in Asia General Holdings Ltd., a Singapore-based insurance business holding company, in a bid to expand operations in the Southeast Asian market, company sources said Wednesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 20, 2006

Outer turmoil and art as therapy

One of the quickest ways to understand an artist is to look at his self portraits. Van Gogh's reveal his intensity and passion, while Rembrandt's show the calm dignity to which he aspired in his art and his life, and with which he faced aging. But what is to be made of the self portraits of Horst Janssen,...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 16, 2006

Editor on a mission for consumers

Some people sarcastically refer to journalists in Japan as "sarariman reporters." That's because even though the Fourth Estate potentially has enormous power and influence, its members are often timid, risk-averse and happy to cozy up with the politicians, government agencies and corporations they cover....
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 11, 2006

Sick, desperate Japanese turn to booming Chinese organ trade

When Kenichiro Hokamura's kidneys failed, he spent four years on dialysis before going online to check out rumors of organs for sale.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 9, 2006

Bringing the lady-makes-tea debate to the boil

In the early 1990s I interviewed a representative of the vending machine industry who told me that one of the most revolutionary developments in his business was the installation of coffee and tea dispensers in new office buildings. "Think of it," he said excitedly, "women office workers will no longer...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 8, 2006

Clothes as a threat to society from 1950s to now

Told in advance by his publisher that Paul Gorman would be waiting in the reception area of Hotel New Otani, I find him jet-lagged, with a cold, and wearing a 25-year-old T-shirt that in suitably faded fashion screams "SEX PISTOLS" across his chest.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 7, 2006

Girl at the (cutting) edge

"Me and You and Everyone We Know" is an exercise in subdued radicality: writer/director Miranda July delivers some incredible scenes involving sex between minors, self-inflicted violence, an unsupervised 7-year-old assuaging the sexual frustrations of an adult woman online. But the whole thing is delicately...
COMMENTARY
Apr 3, 2006

If 'affluence' fails to please

One measure of "affluence," whose meaning can be ambiguous, is per capita gross domestic product. While GDP growth indicates a quantitative expansion of the economy, its size is by no means a measure of social well-being or people's happiness.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 1, 2006

Poems that speak in essence of time in Tokyo

Aileen Fedullo is a young American poet whose observations of people and life in Tokyo over the past decade ("Plastic seasons scraping against eyes") have been sometimes acerbic, often passionate, always penetrating and more often than not jotted down in coffee shops.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 26, 2006

A new 'hero' for olden times

LIGHTNING IN THE VOID: The Authentic History of Miyamoto Musashi, by John Carroll. Tokyo: Printed Matter Press, 2006, 520 pp., 2,500 yen (paper). Any history calling itself "authentic" posits one that is inauthentic. Here the target is apparent. It is the "Miyamoto Musashi" of Eiji Yoshikawa, published...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 26, 2006

One nation's icon carries a torch of conscience for all

On March 6, the Polish film and theater director Andrzej Wajda celebrated his 80th birthday. In fact, all of Poland celebrated it with him. I was in the country that week, and I have never before seen such total media interest in a cultural figure. Wajda is certainly Poland's "living national treasure."...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 23, 2006

Dueling kabuki in Shibuya

Currently at the Parco Theatre, a short distance across Shibuya from Theatre Cocoon, is further evidence of the vitality of contemporary kabuki. However, unlike Kazuyoshi Kushida's re-imaginings of "Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan (Tokaido Ghost Story)," "Ketto! Takadanobaba (Duel in Takadanobaba)" at Parco is...
LIFE / Language
Mar 21, 2006

Odd use of foreign loan words a sign of the times

Heed this safety warning: "Caution! Don't lean on the gate. The gate would fall down when lean on it. It occurs you trouble." Having eluded the gate, then follow this health instruction: "The Italian word pomodoro means golden fruit. Tomatoes have vitamin, carotene, potash, pectene, and is good for blood...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Mar 18, 2006

Job of England manager becoming tougher by the day

LONDON -- Some time in the next few weeks there will be a puff of white smoke from the Football Association's headquarters in Soho Square and a new England manager will be announced. From that moment the life of Sven-Goran Eriksson's successor will never be the same.
JAPAN
Mar 18, 2006

Absentee counsel chided in triple-jeopardy appeal

The Supreme Court has ordered two defense lawyers to attend an April 18 session on an appeal by prosecutors seeking the death penalty for a man sentenced a man to life for killing a woman and her 11-month-old daughter in 1999, court sources said Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Mar 14, 2006

Minori Kitahara

Minori Kitahara, 35, is the owner of Love Piece Club, Japan's first sex-toy shop owned by a woman and catering exclusively to women. She believes that women deserve their sexual fun and games and she has just the right toys for them.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 13, 2006

Koreans hope semi spot enough for military release

PHOENIX -- Grab a uniform and do it for your country. Whether it is in the army or in the World Baseball Classic, several members of Team Korea will do just that soon enough. Or they will already have done both.
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 12, 2006

Women's voices

This story is part of a package on women in Japan. The introduction is here.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Mar 11, 2006

Akane Okamoto-Kaminski

Marek Kaminski, born in Poland in 1947, graduated from Warsaw University. As an advanced student of ethnic minority groups, he went on to the University of Sweden. In Sweden he met and married his wife, a Korean-Japanese who was traveling there. Akane, their daughter, was born in Goteborg, and their...
COMMENTARY
Mar 8, 2006

Can monarchical systems survive?

LONDON -- Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, has recently claimed that his copyright was infringed by a popular newspaper that printed extracts from his diary about the handover of power in Hong Kong in 1998. The diary revealed the prince' distaste for the Chinese leaders whom he described as...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Mar 5, 2006

TBS's 'Kodai Hakka-tsu Mystery' reveals secrets to an ancient civilization and more

On Monday, March 6 at 9 p.m., TBS will present a two-hour documentary program on the recent discovery of an ancient civilization. "Kodai Hakka-tsu Mystery (Prehistoric Excavation Mystery)" follows an international team of archaeologists, including artist and Rikkyo University professor Katsuhiko Hibino,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Mar 4, 2006

Mong-Lan

Although she was only 5 when, with her family, she was evacuated from Saigon, Mong-Lan thinks the events of war and suffering in her early life traumatized her. Thirty years later, critics find in her poetry "the tectonic force of history, beauty and despair." Poetry, giving release to her emotions,...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 4, 2006

Reshaping the welfare state

LONDON -- A market economy is efficient, but it is not just. Because wages are determined by the law of scarcity, some people cannot earn enough money to live a decent life.

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