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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 21, 2007

What's your Hokey Pokey biography?

So, where are you from? How old are you? What are your hobbies? What do you like sports? How long stay Japan? Tired of answering questions? Really?
BUSINESS
Jul 21, 2007

Resona to sell shares to Dai-ichi Life

Resona Holdings Inc., Japan's fourth-largest banking group, said Friday that it will sell preferred shares to Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co. and use the proceeds to repay funds received in a government bailout.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 21, 2007

Automakers say quake won't disrupt exports

Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co., Japan's three largest carmakers, said Friday that production halts at Japanese plants caused by earthquake damage at a parts supplier won't disrupt exports.
JAPAN
Jul 20, 2007

Murakami took to stocks early, a genuine 'activist'

Yoshiaki Murakami, the self-proclaimed "professional of all professional players in the stock market," began investing while still a child.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 20, 2007

Futuristic film screens as part of youth conference

Game over. Those words would erase the smile off the face of any video-game fanatic. But in Oshii Mamoru's 2001 film "Avalon," those could be the very last words you ever hear. This futuristic sci-fi film about a perilously addictive virtual-reality game — where a "death" can result in you meeting...
CULTURE / Film
Jul 20, 2007

Tokyo hosts world's top refugee film fest

The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) counts about 33 million refugees in the world today. There is an even larger multitude saddled with the chillingly bureaucratic title "internally displaced persons."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 20, 2007

Serving up some piping-hot salsa

Calling Oscar D'Leon a salsa superstar doesn't do justice to his stature in the world of Latin music. Over the course of his 36-year-career, the bassist and singer has acquired more nicknames than the late James Brown.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 20, 2007

'Tennen Kokkeko'

Nobuhiro Yamashita scored an international hit in 2005 with "Linda, Linda, Linda," a comic drama about a schoolgirl band whose lead singer drops out just before a big school festival. When it was screened at the Udine Far East Film Festival last year, the audience whooped with laughter at its deadpan...
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2007

Obituary: Sen Nishiyama

Translator, author, historian and pioneer in the field of simultaneous interpretation Sen Nishiyama died at a Tokyo rest home on July 2. He was 95.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 17, 2007

Hinomaru, 'Kimigayo' express conflicts both past and future

To some they are symbols of national pride, to others icons of a militaristic past. "Kimigayo," the national anthem, and the Hinomaru, the national flag, have been perpetual sources of controversy because of their contentious historical backgrounds. Following are some basic questions and answers about...
EDITORIALS
Jul 16, 2007

Unsettling yen trend

The Bank for International Settlements has issued a warning against the current trend of yen undervaluation. Its annual report states, "There is clearly something anomalous in the ongoing decline in the external rate of the yen." This is a warning against complacency prevalent among some company executives...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jul 16, 2007

Companies must fight for balance between greenmailers, growth

The biggest feature of this year's crop of annual shareholders' meetings — which came on the heels of May's removal of the ban on triangular mergers — was the move to install defensive measures against so-called greenmailers, the corporate interlopers who chase after short-term profits.
Reader Mail
Jul 15, 2007

Scant concern for the citizenry

The July 8 letters of Shaun O'Dwyer and Andrew Murphy praising former Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma's remarks reported in the July 1 article "A-bombings 'couldn't be helped' " miss the point. It is plausible for U.S. politicians to claim that dropping the A-bombs "could not be helped" and was necessary...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jul 15, 2007

Baseball oddity: a pitcher winning and losing the same game

How can one player be the winning and losing pitcher in the same game?
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 15, 2007

Place for the dead in our living world

THE BUDDHIST DEAD: Practices, Discourses, Representations, edited by Bryan J. Cuevas and Jacqueline I. Stone. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007, 492 pp., with illustrations, $65 (cloth) Buddhism has, at least in the public mind, monopolized death. In Japan, birth and marriage are usually Shinto...
EDITORIALS
Jul 15, 2007

The wonder of wonders

The votes, 100 million of them, are all in. The most wondrous human constructions in the history of the world have been determined by an elaborate and multilingual online voting system. The results for these new Seven Wonders of the World, splashed across newspaper headlines worldwide, reveal a great...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 14, 2007

Barbara Abbate

"Our latest trip, a return to Japan after 23 years, to see old friends and old places is especially exciting. We feel at home. The essential politeness, cleanliness, naivete, kindness and curiosity of the people have not changed. It is very comforting, and we are so glad to have come back," said Barbara...
Japan Times
JAPAN / UPPER HOUSE SHOWDOWN
Jul 13, 2007

Novice candidates have issues

Political newcomers, including wartime Prime Minister Gen. Hideki Tojo's granddaughter, a former TV Asahi newscaster and a hemophiliac with HIV, hit the Tokyo campaign trail Thursday, vying to represent voters in the House of Councilors.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 13, 2007

Asobi Seksu

In a country with no shortage of sexual fetishes, any group whose name translates into "playful sex" in English is bound to go over well in Japan. While Asobi Seksu's vocalist/ keyboardist Yuki Chikudate and her male cohorts are likely no strangers to praise from lustful showgoers longing to gain carnal...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 12, 2007

From a whim to pottery passion

Masayuki Inoue's repertoire includes sky-high monoliths and massive sculptures that span several meters. Many of these monumental works are held together by metal bolts and industrial adhesive, which in itself is not particularly unusual in the world of contemporary art. But here's the twist: Inoue is...
BUSINESS
Jul 12, 2007

Wholesale inflation surges on oil, materials costs

Wholesale inflation accelerated in June as oil and other commodity prices rose, prompting food and packaging companies to pass on costs to clients, the Bank of Japan said Wednesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 12, 2007

Speaking up for the 'divine' but undiscussed

Summer is the time of year when the Japanese remember the dead, most notably during the Bon festival, and the end of World War II, though the collective memory of the latter fades with each passing year. The Japanese are probably better at forgetting than other people in the world (indeed, the culture...

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past