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May 09, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 25, 2009

'Mao's Last Dancer' inspires with his leaps and honest grounding

I was down in Sydney a few weeks ago and managed to catch the world premiere of Australian director Bruce Beresford's film, "Mao's Last Dancer." It is a beautiful story, beautifully told, in a film that combines the personal and the epic in an era of traumatic change for China.
Reader Mail
Oct 25, 2009

Family register defines reality

I read with consternation William Wetherall's Oct. 11 letter, "Passive influence on family law," which assessed the weight of the family register (koseki) in the Japanese bureaucratic and legal system. From personal experience, the overriding importance given to the family register by Japanese authorities...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Oct 25, 2009

Of simmering frogs and economists leaping to terminal conclusions

They say that if a frog is dropped into boiling water it will jump out, but if it is placed in water that is then heated slowly it will steadily acclimate and boil to death — having missed its chance to escape.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Oct 24, 2009

A little less east of Eden

John Steinbeck's 1952 novel, "East of Eden," is a tale of two families and one city — Salinas, Calif. — with the plot hinging on the sibling rivalry of a pair of brothers. The movie came along in 1955, winning James Dean a posthumous Academy Award nomination in the role of more convoluted brother....
EDITORIALS
Oct 21, 2009

A question of accountability

Any report on alleged war crimes is going to be controversial. An investigation that focuses on the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians will be even more sensitive. Thus the uproar surrounding the Goldstone report, an investigation into the behavior of the Israeli Army and Hamas militants during...
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Oct 21, 2009

Get set for next year's overhaul of official kanji

Kanji aficionados and educators are buzzing over the biggest kanji news in nearly three decades: Next fall, for the first time since 1981, Japan’s government is expected to announce a revision of the joyo (general-use) kanji list. Currently numbering 1,945, these kanji comprise the official list allowed...
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Oct 20, 2009

Chiba's Highland Games offer true flavor of Scotland

Idle dog-walkers and shoppers around JR Makuhari Station were met with an unusual spectacle one sunny Sunday morning earlier this month. A large-framed blond man in a kilt sauntered past the shopping complex; then a group of Japanese women adorned in checked sashes came skipping along the intersection....
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Oct 19, 2009

Twitter swoops into the Japanese market again

Twitter stepping up its operations in Japan with a new mobile site and video capability. Will this be enough to make Japanese users start tweeting?
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Oct 18, 2009

Jeans on the cheap

Discount chain Don Quijote underbids everyone in the 'three-digit jeans price war.' How low will they go?
CULTURE / Books
Oct 18, 2009

The popular consensus: What's not to like?

FOREIGNERS WHO LOVED JAPAN, by Naito Makoto & Naito Ken. Kodansha International, 2009, 255 pp., ¥1,200 (paper) Arguably, Donald Richie's "The Honorable Visitors," a series of profiles of foreigners who lived or put in significant time here, is the standard against which most writings on expatriates...
Reader Mail
Oct 18, 2009

Balancing a foreign mom's roles

I was instantly drawn to Tomoko Otake's Oct. 6 article, " 'Outsider' shares unique take on life, prejudices in the 'real' Japan" — about Suzanne Kamada. I, too, am the blond-haired, blue-eyed wife of a Japanese man. We live in Michigan with our three kids, but visit family in Japan each summer. I lived...
LIFE / Food & Drink / WEEK 3
Oct 18, 2009

Roll up! Roll up!

London, where there are tens of thousands of Japanese people living at any one time, is awash with world cuisine. But most Japanese food available in eateries there would hardly pass muster in its homeland.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Oct 18, 2009

Power for all the people

The all-electric home craze sweeping Japan with its typhoon of talking bathtubs, full-service toilets and flameless kitchens may finally have met its match.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2009

Brouhaha stirs over Belgian brew

Belgian beer, rich in fragrance, flavor and potency, is not like other brews in Japan.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Oct 17, 2009

An encounter of the old timer and the kid

I don't notice much during my hours of commuting across the Kanto Plain and at the same time I notice everything. For it's mostly all the same . . .
CULTURE / Art
Oct 16, 2009

Antony Gormley shrugs off the plinth critics

BEIJING (AP) The sometimes scathing reviews of British artist Antony Gormley's public art installation in London's Trafalgar Square are just proof, he says, that it's been as challenging for audiences as he hoped it would be.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 16, 2009

Akihabara set to celebrate its denizens

Akihabara, Tokyo's main electronics hub, is preparing for a flood of manga and animation enthusiasts ahead of this year's Akihabara Enta-Matsuri.
Reader Mail
Oct 15, 2009

Lousy advice for critical thinkers

With reference to the Oct. 11 letter "Same access as Japanese citizens": I have no comment about the national health insurance issue, since my insurance is basically equivalent as long as it covers a comparable risk. What I find very annoying, however, is the tone used by the anonymous writer and a typical...
LIFE
Oct 11, 2009

Fake names were to the fore in many a rise from humblest to highest

Here's a beguiling irony: Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-98), architect of Tokugawa Japan's rigid class structure and the author, in 1587, of a firm ban (not firmly enforced) on surnames for commoners, was himself born without a surname.
LIFE / Language
Oct 11, 2009

What's in a (Japanese) name?

"How do you do, my name is Saito Ichiro Sama-no-kami Minamoto-no-Ason Tadayoshi."
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 11, 2009

In cross-cultural situations, remember those emoticons

"My first child was born on December 27th, 1839, and I at once commenced to make notes on the first dawn of the various expressions which he exhibited."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 11, 2009

Japan's No. 1 playboy hardly a lady- killer

Talk-show host David Letterman obviously did the right thing when during a recent monologue he confessed to having had sex with some of his female staff. He made the admission to pre-empt news that he had been blackmailed for his indiscretions, but whatever the revelation said about Letterman's lack...
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 11, 2009

The long road to identity

A striking fact regarding modern Japanese surnames is their sheer number. There's no precise count, but the consensus is that there are more than 100,000.
JAPAN / Q&A
Oct 10, 2009

Custody laws force parents to extremes

The high-profile case of Christopher Savoie, a Tennessee man who was arrested in Fukuoka Prefecture for snatching his two children from his Japanese former wife and now faces kidnapping charges, illustrates the extremes a partner in a broken international marriage will resort to for child custody.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 10, 2009

A seaside picture of contentment

Sayonara Kawagoe Kinema. Hello Cinema Amigo.
COMMUNITY
Oct 10, 2009

A seaside picture of contentment

Sayonara Kawagoe Kinema. Hello Cinema Amigo.
Man held after two injured in Tokyo Metro knife attack
Police outside Todaimae Station on the Namboku Line on Wednesday evening after a knife attack at the station 　
U.S. and Japan remain far apart on tariffs
Japan's Economic Revitalization Minister Ryosei Akazawa speaks to the press upon his arrival at Haneda Airport on April 18. He has said that all tariffs need to be reconsidered by the United States.
Japan's 'ice age' employment generation is at risk of poverty during retirement
Those who entered the job market from around 1993 to 2004, when long-term stagnation started, are likely to struggle even more to make ends meet after retirement.
India strikes Pakistan over Kashmir tourist killings
Indian paramilitary personnel stand guard along a road in Srinagar on Wednesday after New Delhi launched missile strikes on archrival Pakistan in a major escalation between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
Japan’s tycoon families seek buyouts to evade investor pressure
Akio Toyoda’s $42 billion plan to buy Toyota Industries is one of the examples in a recent wave of management buyout ambitions in Japan.
SusHi Tech Tokyo 2025 expands to become one of Asia's largest startup events
SusHi Tech Tokyo 2025 was bustling with participants of various nationalities Thursday, and multiple languages could be heard around the room as many engaged in conversations throughout the day.
Celebrating Japan’s defeat at Shimoda’s Black Ships Festival
Tatsumi Onose (right), who plays the part of Commodore Matthew Perry in Shimoda's Black Ship Festival, says the historical episode the event is based on should be remembered for its positives more than its negatives.
'Big picture thinker': Ispace CEO Hakamada on reaching the moon and dreaming of starships
Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of Ispace, says his primary interest in space development is not to abandon Earth, but to protect it.
The drive for luxury: Aston Martin Asia's president explains the desire for more
While for Aston Martin, it’s all about delivering luxury, their regional president for Asia Gregory Adams' start in the auto industry in Japan was far more humble.
Why are rice prices still high in Japan?
Amid shortages, the price of a 5-kilogram bag of rice during the week of April 14 was ¥4,220.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan
By Hanako Lowry

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society
Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society

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