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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Oct 31, 2009

For your amusement — Ferris wheels everywhere, but why not?

Japan can be a confusing place for tourists, so I would like to take this opportunity to explain some things about Japan that no one has ever attempted to explain before, such as "Why are there so many Ferris wheels in Japan?"
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 18, 2009

Obama exclusive: Soda-pop war looms in Americans' best interests

A couple of days ago I decided to bite the bullet and get in touch with U.S. President Barack Obama. It wasn't him being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that gave me the audacity of hope to speak with him. It was an article in the Oct. 8 edition of the International Herald Tribune.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Oct 6, 2009

What's your favorite place to go for some fast food?

Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 27, 2009

Cyclists unite in calling for new road-sharing infrastructure

Staff writer Edan Corkill rolled up with his camera to last weekend's 40-km "Tokyo City Cycling 2009" event to celebrate the joys — and utility — of urban bicycling, and asked participants how often they ride, where they like to ride and how they think bike-riding in Japan could be made safer.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 9, 2009

Channel surf

As the 64th anniversary of Japan's surrender approaches, the special memorial programs about World War II come faster and thicker. This week's big event is a docudrama called "Saigo no Akagami Haitatsunin" (The Last Red Letter Deliveryman; TBS, Mon., 9 p.m.). "Red letter" refers to the draft notices...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 25, 2009

Lifetime of travels at root of keen insights into Japan

One person you want to meet for a coffee in Tokyo: Stephen Mansfield. The British author and photojournalist has written 10 books (14, including collaborative work) and produced over 2,000 published articles for newspapers, magazines and journals since 1992.
Reader Mail
Jun 18, 2009

Dark side of buying a Mumbai flat

Regarding Caroline Boin's June 14 article "Neither charity nor bulldozers prevent slums": The root cause of corruption in Mumbai is land and housing. Titles to land are often not clear, and builders sell flats to hardworking middle-class people who have dreamed of owning one in the city. Later, when...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 18, 2009

Ghost of appeasement still haunting EU ties

PRAGUE — One of the fundamental pillars of Europe's political architecture is a strong and enduring belief in the universal validity of equal, universal, and inalienable human rights.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Jun 10, 2009

Just Hungry, Just Bento

The kitchen has long been used as a portal to distant places and times, and Just Hungry and Just Bento are two blogs by Makiko Itoh that put all the wonders of Japanese cuisine within a cutting-board's reach. For Makiko, cooking has been a way to re-create comfort foods from Japan while living abroad...
COMMENTARY
May 19, 2009

Parliament under attack

LONDON — The Mother of Parliaments at Westminster is in deep trouble. Housed in its venerable Thames-side palace — an instantly recognized icon of democracy around the world — it is today filled with anxious legislators who feel a mixture of anger, apprehension and bewilderment.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 9, 2009

It's the season of karaoke sailing

Spring on Shiraishi Island means yachts. All kinds of yachts stop by our island — from 6.5-meter day sailers to 15-meter cruisers that can sleep eight people.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 9, 2009

Educator wants credit given where credit is due

Dr. Kazuyuki Matsuo has a dream. He dreams of a different kind of education in Japan, where students receive credit for real-life experience, be it helping Indonesians rebuild primary schools, or digging wells in Tanzania. Matsuo dreams of a system where students are allowed to find their own places,...
Reader Mail
Apr 19, 2009

Still a smoker's paradise

While it is gratifying to learn that smoking has been banned at JR stations in Tokyo, the fact remains that most public places in Japan are organized to maximize the convenience of smokers ("Breathing easier at JR stations," April 12). In Osaka, many train stations place smoking sections in central...
COMMENTARY
Apr 17, 2009

Taxing times for the rich

The agreements reached at the Group of 20 summit in London to try to close down tax havens and clamp down on tax avoidance have been welcomed by all except those who have benefited from such activities. But it would be foolish to think that the agreements will lead to speedy changes in the way in which...
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Apr 13, 2009

I Rub Your Brog

While many first-time visitors to Tokyo probably have a fuzzy idea of what to expect, they would do themselves a favor to first check out I Rub Your Brog, a Web blog that randomly documents "life, music and general weirdness in central Tokyo." This is where they'll find slices of technicolor life not...
EDITORIALS
Apr 12, 2009

Breathing easier at JR stations

Tokyo became just a little less smoky from April 1 this year. As new students and employees began their first days of school or work, East Japan Railway began its first day of a smoking ban at all JR stations within a 50 km radius from Tokyo station. The ban is a welcome one for non-smokers, a hassle...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 10, 2009

Mark Wahlberg:'You are what you are'

Before the telephone interview, I am advised by an assistant to the star not to mention the name Marky Mark, by which Boston-born Mark Wahlberg became famous as a rapper after achieving notoriety as a male underwear model for Calvin Klein. These days, I am informed, Wahlberg is trying to consolidate...
Reader Mail
Apr 9, 2009

An admirable Japanese export

Regarding the March 25 article "Japanese give Paris tidiness lesson": It is nice to learn that the Japanese are trying to spread their culture of cleanliness to other places. Every time I returned to my country after spending a year in Japan, I used to get a shock when I saw the difference. Some people...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 5, 2009

Dead ends, about turns abound in the politics of roads

About a year ago, the government was all in a lather about extending the gasoline tax. Local governments and the ruling coalition, not to mention interested bureaucracies, wanted to continue the tax because they said the revenues were necessary to build more roads. Opposition parties were against the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Mar 27, 2009

Guitar Wolf return to silence the lambs

"We've come back and we're going to attack your planet with humongous love," says Seiji (that's Mr. Guitar Wolf himself) as he downs vegetable juice at a Jonathan's family restuarant near Yoga Station in western Tokyo.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2009

Activist views homeless in realistic light

Social activist Makoto Yuasa caused a stir by bringing poverty out into the open when he teamed up with unions and nonprofit organizations to open a tent village for jobless people in Tokyo's Hibiya Park over the yearend holidays.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 22, 2009

Volatile and barren, yet beautiful and alluring

The Great Gobi Desert is one of the most inhospitable of all places. It covers 13 million square kilometers of Central Asia and is the land furthest removed from any sea or ocean. This results in a volatile climate, fierce winds and massive sandstorms. The few inhabitants of the place say that you can...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Feb 17, 2009

Kanagawa Prefecture can be Japan's clean-air trailblazer

Dear Kanagawa Gov. Shigefumi Matsuzawa,
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 13, 2009

Towa Tei wallows in optimism for art's sake

"In Tokyo, there is too much information," says famed Japanese producer and DJ Towa Tei. "Even if you don't want to listen to music, you are raped into listening to something you don't like at the convenience store. So I try to go somewhere quiet and listen whenever I want to!"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 23, 2009

Crossing borderlines of consciousness

Most of us have experienced waking up in a strange room, perhaps in a hotel or a friend's house, and, for a split second, not knowing where we are — that fuzzy, vague feeling in the twilight zone between waking and dreaming. Imagine having those same feelings when waking up in your own, usually familiar,...

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami