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Reader Mail
Jul 27, 2008

Japanese beauty on world's stage

Regarding the July 16 article "Miss Universe lesson: Japanese women find beauty inside and out": As the world becomes globalized, the concept of beauty is also globalizing. In 2003 Miyako Miyazaki won fifth place in the Miss Universe competition. In 2006 Kurara Chibana was first runnerup, and following...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Jul 25, 2008

Spice up your summer menu

Spice up your summer menu The Hotel New Grand in Yokohama is holding a Summer Curry Fair at the casual eatery The Cafe, facing Yokohama's famous Yamashita Park sightseeing spot.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / LIQUID CULTURE
Jul 25, 2008

Cooling it down with Tokyo's best

"Go around the beaches and let's have a list of the best seaside bars," said my editor. In this heat? Not a chance. But here's something better: five refreshing cocktail recipes from a quintet of great bartenders. Each of these invigorating drinks was designed to zap your summer indolence and clear the...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2008

Osama bin Laden: the Islamic bard of terror

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY — In Riyadh last March, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia decorated U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney with the Kingdom's Order of Merit. This gesture elicited hundreds of Internet postings from Arabs condemning the award as treachery and lamenting the pitiful state of leadership in...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2008

Scorched-manager policy

MONTREAL — Signs of the American economy's perilous condition are everywhere — from yawning fiscal and current-account deficits to plummeting home prices and a feeble dollar.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 22, 2008

Whaling: the meat of the matter

Whales are magnificent creatures I have always dreamt of seeing in the flesh. However, tucking into a slab of whale steak at a restaurant in Tokyo was not what I had in mind. Nevertheless, this was a close encounter with one of the world's largest mammals that I felt I could not duck out of: If I was...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2008

Euroskeptics, come out and have your say

BRUSSELS — The European Union has no coherent strategy on many issues. It has only sketchy economic policies toward Russia; ambitions, but no game plan, to become a player in the Middle East; and, despite its original leadership on the Kyoto Protocol, no successor program on climate change.
EDITORIALS
Jul 21, 2008

Toning down the convenience

In an attempt to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions, some local governments are planning to ask convenience stores to rethink their round-the-clock operations. If fully implemented, fewer business hours would have a great impact on people's lifestyles. As a first step, though, it would be necessary...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jul 20, 2008

Writer takes memorable trip to Victor Starfin Stadium in Asahikawa

ASAHIKAWA, Hokkaido — Last week I had the pleasure of attending a regular-season baseball game in the central Hokkaido city of Asahikawa, as the Yomiuri Giants played the Chunichi Dragons at the 25,000-seat Victor Starfin Stadium. It was the first appearance by the Giants in 16 years at the ballpark...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jul 20, 2008

Fly fanboys in the living room

Parents the world over would surely prefer their children not to throw things about. It's just plain bad manners, among other things. But Atsushi Kikuchi, a serious-looking father of two boys, positively encourages it. And, he evenmaintains, his sons' ballistic behavior has produced considerable benefits...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 18, 2008

India's pioneering DJ Pearl goes global

Since the worldwide dance-music explosion hit its peak in the late 1990s, the market for clubbing has been saturated. From Tokyo to New York to Ibiza, the "superclubs" are established, the fan base for the music is pretty much stagnant and everyone is looking for the next place that will experience a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 18, 2008

Pop Levi goes slightly wrong

"It was a very obsessive thing," says Jonathan Pop Levi about the recording of his new album of warped pop music, "Never Never Love." "It took six days a week for 12 hours a day for four months to get it to sound that way. Especially in the vocals; if a computer could do a perfect impression of a human,...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 16, 2008

Lives and a death

CHUKOTKA, Russia — This month, instead of writing this column as usual at my desk in Hokkaido, I am writing from a desk on board the Clipper Odyssey as we cross the Gulf of Anadyr in Russia's far northeastern Chukotka region. Our voyage began at Otaru, Hokkaido, and we have taken in southern Sakhalin,...
Reader Mail
Jul 13, 2008

Ready to leave and let be

Debito Arudou's July 8 Zeit Gist article, "Beware the foreigner as guinea pig," is a subjective and all too-real view of Japan today. I moved here from Canada with my Japanese wife two years ago with the intention of living our lives out here. For the longest time I chalked up any reason I might come...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 13, 2008

Self-praise abounds in the pages of wheeler-dealers' own obituaries

Japanese politicians are known for their perseverance and ingenuity, and the Diet may well be the last place in the country still offering lifetime employment.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 13, 2008

Tips from Japan that really work

URAWAZA: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks From Japan, by Lisa Katayama, with illustrations by Joel Holland. Chronicle Books, 2008, $14.95 (paper) Ever want to cure a stuffy nose, but nothing works? Try stuffing scallions up your nostrils. Your bedmate won't stop snoring? Tape a tennis ball to her back....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 12, 2008

Relationship coaching over the phone

It is easy to spot Jack Ito and his wife Toshie. They're walking hand in hand around the lobby of the Prince Hotel in Shinagawa, looking as much culture-shocked as in love.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 11, 2008

'Horton Hears A Who'

I'm sorry, but when it comes to Dr. Seuss, I'm definitely a purist. It couldn't be any other way having grown up with so many great childhood memories of reading his books — or having them read to me — over and over.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 10, 2008

Confucianism makes a comeback in China

BEIJING (Daniel A. Bell is professor of political theory at Tsinghua University (Beijing). His latest book is "China's New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society."
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 8, 2008

How green are Japan's urbanites?

The Group of Eight summit began Monday at the Windsor Hotel Toya, an exquisite, maximum- security resort in Hokkaido. There, the world's top leaders are holed up in conference rooms, trying to strike last-minute deals on various global issues, the most disputed of all being climate change.
COMMENTARY
Jul 7, 2008

Work traditions worth keeping

When I had a chance to meet with a group of students, I asked them for what purpose each would do the job that he or she got in the near future. A majority replied "something that makes work worth doing and life worth living," although some did say "for money."
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 6, 2008

Was the Japanese language influenced by Tamil? The war goes on

For years I have been watching from the sidelines as the opponents battle it out. For the players this fight will go on and on, and the theater of war is right here.
JAPAN
Jul 6, 2008

Glimpses into Japan's frontier

Hokkaido is seen as a prefecture apart, where the vastnesses are vaster, the wilds wilder and the splendor more splendid than anywhere else in Japan. The Group of Eight summit attendees and other summer visitors will have a chance to see for themselves at the 11 national or quasi-national parks in Hokkaido,...

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