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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 4, 2009

Party offers a third way: happiness

As a historic general election looms on Aug. 30, Japan's long-suffering electorate faces a clear choice: vote for the conservative party that has virtually monopolized power since 1955, or opt for its more liberal but untested rival, which promises long-awaited reform. For those with a taste for the...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 2, 2009

Occult novel dredged from Tokyo's shadowy history

To say the second book in David Peace's "Tokyo trilogy" is haunting would be to start this review with a cliche of which "Occupied City" is devoid. Yet the book stays with you, hunkers down in your memory like some needling parasite.
JAPAN / PARTY POWERS
Aug 1, 2009

Hatoyama disses LDP but is otherwise vague

With the pivotal Aug. 30 election looming, Democratic Party of Japan President Yukio Hatoyama said Friday the upcoming Lower House battle will offer the public an opportunity to hand down its judgment on the past four years of Liberal Democratic Party rule.
COMMENTARY
Aug 1, 2009

Tough times for politicians

Democratic governments everywhere are in trouble. In Britain, the Labour government is tottering. In Japan, defeat looms for Prime Minister Taro Aso's Liberal Democratic Party. In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is clinging on amid a sea of scandal. In France, hyperactive President Nicolas Sarkozy...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 1, 2009

Baseball expert lines up new book on mobsters in Japan

Robert Whiting is best known as an expert on baseball. But he's much more than that. He's also an expert on mobsters in Japan and the sound a radar site makes when it is "spotted" by a U2 spy plane.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jul 31, 2009

Sake returns to its organic roots

The sake world is looking greener as an increasing number of producers invest more time and resources in developing organic lines. In 2004, Niigata-based giant Kikusui attracted attention for opening the Sake Culture Institute, an immaculate facility dedicated to organic sake research, and small producers...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 31, 2009

Mimi Gates brings Seattle Art Museum's Asian collection back home

When Mimi Gates moved to Seattle in 1994 to be director of the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), it was the museum's superb Asian collection that had lured her away from the Yale University Art Gallery after 19 years working there, 12 as curator and seven as director). At Yale, she had championed Oriental art...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Jul 30, 2009

Summertime designs run hot and cool

Recovered crests
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 29, 2009

Web-based flash cards will dazzle language learners

Remember the days when it took markers, index cards and three hours to assemble a set of 100 flash cards? Remember all that time wasted that could have been better spent studying? It's amazing how much has changed in a few short years thanks to computers and the Internet.
EDITORIALS
Jul 29, 2009

DPJ's election promises

The Democratic Party of Japan has announced its manifesto for the Aug. 30 Lower House election. It has two pillars: scheduled measures to directly help households and steps to end bureaucracy-led politics.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 28, 2009

New law: no dues, no visa

In your wallet or somewhere at home, do you have a blue or pink card showing that you are enrolled in one of Japan's national health and pension programs? If not, and if you are thinking of extending your stay here, you may want to think about a recent revision to visa requirements for foreign residents....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jul 28, 2009

Ability to bridge the gap a banker's boon

For Sanjeev Gupta, senior managing executive officer and head of the Individual Group at Shinsei Bank, his 25-year career in Japan started out with a resume he dropped off at an accounting firm in Tokyo while visiting Japan on a tourist visa.
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Jul 28, 2009

English speakers gather for human rights

Amnesty International Tokyo English Network offers English speakers, both native and otherwise, an opportunity to participate in the activities of the worldwide human rights organization Amnesty International while in Japan.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 26, 2009

A peaceful challenge against globalization

London's famous Ritz Hotel boarded its windows, construction sites were cleared of rubble and bankers were warned to stay home. The event was the April 2009 meeting of the Group of 20, and no effort was spared to protect the visiting dignitaries — and financial district — from demonstrations by anti-...
JAPAN / History
Jul 26, 2009

Soldier who stayed on tells filmmaker how 'We had to kill, kill, kill'

The most astounding moment in "Flowers and Troops," a documentary film by Yojyu Matsubayashi, is when the young director leans close to one of his subjects — an 87-year-old former corporal in the Imperial Japanese Army — and says, "I've heard that some Japanese soldiers ate human flesh."
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 26, 2009

Words of War

In among the familiar roll call of memorial services, television specials, peace ceremonies and other events in Japan planned to coincide with next month's 64th anniversary of the end of World War II, one stands out for its unlikely involvement of youth.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Jul 25, 2009

Belgian no waffler on love, life in Japan

Pascal Latui, 28, first fell for Yumiko, 36, on a backpacking trip in Japan in June 2006. She was a receptionist at the Tokyo youth hostel where he was staying.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 24, 2009

Japan gets a taste of bracing 'in-yer-face theater'

The auditorium at Setagaya Public Theatre in Tokyo's Sangengaya district was filled with the mostly female fans of actor Masaaki Uchino, patiently waiting for the play "Blackbird" by David Harrower to begin. The taunt and provocative drama that subsequently unfolded no doubt caught some of them by surprise....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / LIQUID CULTURE
Jul 24, 2009

A bar crawl up Center Gai

Shibuya, I once wrote, is the heart of Young Japan, and the street named Center Gai is its throbbing artery. Some people pay handsomely for cliches like that.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 22, 2009

The world's best one-stop shop for Nihongo

"The number of people learning Japanese has increased and is currently estimated to be more than 3 million worldwide," says Nobuyuki Suzuki, deputy manager of a very special store in Tokyo.
EDITORIALS
Jul 20, 2009

Gubernatorial influence

In the past, an important job of prefectural governors was lodging petitions with the central government to get funds and projects for their prefectures. But the nation's 47 governors seem to have become aware of the political potential they can exert if they act in concert. People like Gov. Toru Hashimoto...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 19, 2009

We all live in a 'yellow peril' submarine

This 454-page thriller, written in the time frame between the outbreak of SARS and swine influenza, puts a new twist on biological warfare. Indeed, what if an insidious crime syndicate were to infiltrate medical research and then, seeking huge profits, practice extortion on a worldwide scale?
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jul 19, 2009

Bowling 'em over

The game of lawn bowls may appear straightforward — players in whites repeatedly roll 1.5-kg rounded plastic "bowls" over finely cut grass — but Japan's male and female singles champions are taking decidedly different approaches to the World Singles Champion of Champions, set to begin in Ayr, Scotland,...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jul 19, 2009

Bowling 'em over

The game of lawn bowls may appear straightforward — players in whites repeatedly roll 1.5-kg rounded plastic "bowls" over finely cut grass — but Japan's male and female singles champions are taking decidedly different approaches to the World Singles Champion of Champions, set to begin in Ayr, Scotland,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 18, 2009

Kunisawa is handed suspended sentence

A former president of Nishimatsu Construction Co. was handed a suspended 16-month prison sentence Friday for his part in making illegal donations to Diet members and bringing slush funds into Japan without reporting the money to customs.
JAPAN
Jul 17, 2009

DPJ would trim 'wasteful' Aso stimulus projects if it wins poll

The Democratic Party of Japan, favored in polls to win next month's election, plans to trim Prime Minister Taro Aso's ¥15.4 trillion stimulus by eliminating "wasteful" projects such as a museum dedicated to pop culture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 17, 2009

'Miracle at St. Anna'

Spike Lee has made so many didactic movies in his career that it wouldn't have surprised me if his latest — "Miracle at St. Anna," which looks at a squad of black G.I.s fighting the Nazis in World War II — was yet another. What did surprise me, though, was that this time around Spike decided to mix...

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?