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COMMENTARY / World
May 29, 2013

Debunking the myths whirling around tornadoes

There is no trend, either up or down, in the frequency of tornadoes. We will continue to experience them regardless of whether Earth's temperature rises or falls.
WORLD / EU SPECIAL 2013
May 9, 2013

Milestones on the road to a united, integrated Europe 63 years in the making

Europe Day, May 9, which is celebrated as the birthday of the European Union, is the anniversary of the proposal known as the Schuman Declaration.
BUSINESS
Apr 11, 2013

Banks used lending program to exit TARP: report

Banks used billions from a small-business lending program to repay government bailout funds, rather than on its intended purpose — making more loans to mom-and-pop operations, according to a watchdog report released Tuesday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 16, 2013

Fabric artist clothes Tokyo's expat thespians with creativity and magic

Today's younger generation may be more used to getting their entertainment from the Internet or other high-tech sources than from the stage, but nothing can perhaps replace the magic of a live theater performance.
JAPAN / TOHOKU TRAPPED IN TIME
Mar 8, 2013

A quick blow, then lingering death for devastated towns

One of the defining images from the Great East Japan Earthquake is of a tsunami-hit tourist bus stranded on the roof of the two-story community center in the Pacific coastal district of Ogatsu, Miyagi Prefecture.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 2, 2013

Teacher cultivates more bilingual education opportunities for children

As international marriages rose in Japan in recent years, the number of bicultural families increased, and many children of such families are being raised to speak the languages of both parents. American Mary Nobuoka, director of the Bilingual Special Interest Group (B-SIG) and parent of a bicultural son, devotes much of her time and energy to helping other families in their journey of language and discovery.
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Feb 26, 2013

I've seen haras . . . haras that you've seen: when 'harassment' goes wild

In response to the article "Blame it on the hara: harassment vocabulary makes us all victims" (The Foreign Element, Jan. 28), we invited readers to come up with their own ideas for new types of "harassment." As you can see, one JT writer got a bit carried away.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Feb 1, 2013

Six months on, U.K. schools are losing the Olympic legacy

Near the entrance of York High School in northern England, painted in large letters, are the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." It is not a bad motto, particularly for a school that prides itself on its sporting prowess. Along all the corridors and outside...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jan 8, 2013

From Taiji to Okinawa, readers dissect some issues of 2012

In the first of our new Community Chest letters columns, we bring together a selection of mails received in response to some of the final Community stories of 2012.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Nov 23, 2012

89ers lend support to S. Dakota teen battling cancer

The Sendai 89ers are lending a helping hand to a 17-year-old South Dakota student's fight against cancer.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Aug 11, 2012

Import club caters to need for home comfort

The blonde man in shorts and a baseball cap, sporting a lopsided grin and a dangling backpack and parking a rusty bicycle, looked less like a captain of industry than a superannuated college student. Yet American Chuck Grafft, 50, is founder and CEO of Foreign Buyers Club, one of the largest importers...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 6, 2012

Faces of corporate leadership belie the myth that Asian Americans have avoided alienation

The Pew Center's recent report "The Rise of Asian Americans," which shows that Asians, not Latinos, comprise the largest group of immigrant arrivals in the United States, took many people by surprise. The data also show that Asian Americans have the highest education and per capita income.
COMMUNITY / Issues / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jul 31, 2012

Debate rages over value of JET program, assistant language teachers

Some readers' responses to letters published in this column on July 10 ("Readers lament the ever-shrinking eikaiwa salary") regarding Patrick Budmar's July 3 Zeit Gist article, "The curious case of the eroding eikaiwa salary":
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jul 17, 2012

Employees should work toward a life of leisure, not live to work

Some readers' responses to Hifumi Okunuki's June 19 Labor Pains column, "In 'right-to-work' Japan, employees should also have the right to rest":
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jul 10, 2012

Readers lament the ever-shrinking eikaiwa salary

Some readers' responses to "The curious case of the eroding eikaiwa salary" by Patrick Budmar (Zeit Gist, July 3):
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jul 3, 2012

In formulating immigration policy, no seat at the table for non-Japanese

Last month the Japanese government took baby steps toward an official immigration policy. Ten ministries and several specialist "people of awareness" (yūshikisha) held meetings aimed at creating a "coexistence society" (kyōsei shakai) within which non-Japanese (NJ) would be "accepted" (uke ire).
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jun 5, 2012

'It's just because ... foreigners know best': readers' views

Some readers' views on John Spiri's May 1 Zeit Gist column, "It's just because . . . foreigners know best":
JAPAN / Media
May 27, 2012

Nuke documentary experiments with online fundraising

At one point or another, every filmmaker, producer or journalist has dreamed about freeing themselves from the financial restraints of media production. The team behind "We Are All Radioactive" — a documentary about a community of surfers and fishermen in the small tsunami-stricken town of Motoyoshi...
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2012

Turkey tacks new foreign policy course

Turkey has recently been at the forefront of international economic and political debates. On the one hand, despite the economic crisis engulfing neighboring Europe, Turkey remains the world's second-fastest growing economy, after China. On the other hand, there is almost no issue on the global agenda...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2012

Harvard visitors get eye-opener in Tohoku, meet Noda, key officials

Some Japanese are pessimistic about the country's future and its declining presence in the world, but political science students from Harvard University who recently visited the Tohoku region saw strong signs of society regrouping after last March's calamities.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 10, 2012

Cambodia experience facilitated aid effort in the Tohoku region

Cathy Hirano says it was "so painful to feel powerless in the face of such a huge disaster," recalling the day a year ago that the Pacific coast of Tohoku was hit by the huge earthquake and tsunami.
COMMENTARY
Mar 5, 2012

Will American values outlast the social storm?

In 1924, the sociologist couple Robert and Helen Lynd arrived in a small Midwestern city they called Middletown (it was Muncie, Ind.) to study and survey the place.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 11, 2012

Enjoying the quiet life in Kanazawa, in black and white

Coincidence can shape people's lives in many ways. Ask Mark Hammond, and he will certainly agree.
COMMENTARY
Dec 9, 2011

Russia's cooperation options for design of a trade scheme

Nowadays the trend toward trade and investment liberalization is developing under restraints of the opposite — protectionist — tendency strengthened by the shaky and unpredictable world situation, which in turn was created by the global financial and economic crisis.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 20, 2011

All Hands brings all sorts to Iwate to aid local recovery

Since April 11, around 770 volunteers from 30 countries have clocked up 42,000 hours cleaning up and repairing in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, with U.S.-based NGO All Hands. A partnership with Habitat for Humanity Japan has enabled All Hands to keep this seaside hamlet supplied with a steady influx of...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 15, 2011

March 11 disasters a turning point for Japanese civil society

When the earthquake and tsunami hit the coast of Japan on March 11, it was clear the scale of this disaster, compounded by the nuclear crisis in Fukushima, was unprecedented — even for natural disaster-prone Japan, where some 20 percent of the world's earthquakes occur.

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