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JAPAN
Jul 6, 2008

Creation of low-carbon societies demands wholesale changes on national, global level

"In pursuit of Japan as a low-carbon society" was the theme of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's speech at the Japan Press Club on June 9. The following is an abridged excerpt from a translation of his remarks.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 3, 2008

'Speed Racer': drawing on an anime legend

Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 1, 2008

Society's role in Kato's crime

'The clicking sound of my cell phone echoes emptily in my room. . . . If only I had a girlfriend, I wouldn't have to live so miserably.'
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jul 1, 2008

Do you think that it's easy to make close friends in Japan?

Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 29, 2008

Christine Flint Sato: Inking her own mark

For Christine Flint Sato, the key to understanding her adopted homeland has been through the world of sumi-e, a Chinese style of water-ink painting adopted in Japan in the 14th century.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 29, 2008

Akihabara killer followed plot mapped by the media

After serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki was hanged on June 17, some death-penalty opponents wondered out loud if Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama had signed the execution order as a response to the indiscriminate murders of seven people on the streets of Akihabara nine days earlier. Of course, Hatoyama didn't...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 29, 2008

Getting high and then horizontal in Langkawi

Ask any question you want in Langkawi and you will get a friendly response. But you may not get an answer. Take the following exchange I had with a musician who was leaving the Beach Garden restaurant as I was strolling in there in search of a late supper on my first night in the hot spot of Pantai Cenang:...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 29, 2008

286 reasons to reflect on a Japan long gone, but worthy of reflection

I recently gave a talk on Japanese culture to a group of foreign students at Tokyo Institute of Technology. They hailed from a variety of places, including Scandinavia, the United States and Asian countries. I began by asking them to give me a keyword or two that they thought characterized Japanese life...
COMMENTARY
Jun 29, 2008

Japanese keeping score on a weighty matter

LOS ANGELES — The overweight citizen has been taking a pounding of late. But it may be that the issue is being blown out of all proportion. For starters, both Japan and the United States have been in the news on the issue of citizens who are pulling too much of their own weight around town.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 29, 2008

Sayuki: Aussie geisha speaks out

What a titillating sound bite it is: Japan's first gaijin (foreigner) geisha!
Japan Times
Rugby
Jun 28, 2008

Revamped Japan meets New Zealand Maori in Pacific Nations Cup

NAPIER, New Zealand — A freshened-up Japanese national rugby team will face the New Zealand Maori on Saturday at McLean Park in Napier, as the fourth round of the Pacific Nations Cup begins.
JAPAN
Jun 28, 2008

Third-grade English may get test run in fiscal 2009

The education ministry wants to start teaching English to third-graders on a trial basis at several hundred elementary schools nationwide in fiscal 2009, a ministry official said this week.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 27, 2008

A very green afternoon cuppa

Whenever I travel to Tokyo I make it a point to spend at least a good part of one day on a visit to Shibamata in Katsushika Ward. This lovely neighborhood tucked away in the remote northeastern corner of the city on the banks of the Edogawa River still retains some of the flavor of the Edo Period (1603-1867)....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 27, 2008

'One California Day'

All over California people move encased in metal and chrome, going from house to office in their cars. It's a contradiction of California living that, despite the beautiful weather and spacious streets, no one is outside.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jun 25, 2008

Japanese Facebook takes Model T approach

Late last month, as part of a rare work-vacation trip to Asia, Mark Zuckerberg made a quick stop in Tokyo to announce the launch of Facebook Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 24, 2008

Not everyone is celebrating the Ogasawara Islands' anniversary

It is one of Asia's earliest and oddest ethnic melting pots, with citizens boasting names like Savory, Webb, Gonzales and Chaplin. The first piece of Far East territory to fall under U.S. control, local landmarks include the Yankeetown, the Charlie Brown and the Church of St. George, and old-timers speak...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jun 23, 2008

The savings exodus and Japan's pursuit of higher financial IQ

On May 20, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry and the Financial Services Agency jointly submitted a request letter asking the heads of national and private universities across Japan to improve the quality of financial education.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jun 22, 2008

Countryside games offer charming change of pace

FUKUSHIMA — I am writing this column on June 17 at the Yomiuri Giants-Orix Buffaloes interleague game at Azuma Stadium in Fukushima Prefecture, north of Tokyo. It is one of seven regular-season games the Giants will have played this year at countryside ballparks, and have you ever wondered why they...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 22, 2008

Fortune-teller detective mystery, manga drama of the business world, Ethiopia trivia special

Misuzu Maruyama (Kumiko Okae) is one of Ginza's most popular street fortunetellers, but she's also an amateur detective. In the two-hour mystery special "Uranaishi Misuzu Jiken wa Unmei no Kanata ni (Fortune Teller Misuzu's Incidents Are Beyond Fate)" (TBS, Monday, 9 p.m.), Misuzu plies her trade in...
Japan Times
JAPAN / RETRACING ROUTES
Jun 20, 2008

Immigrants weave tale of triumph

When the Kasato Maru arrived in Brazil with the first Japanese immigrants at Santos port near Sao Paulo on June 18, 1908, a shipload of Okinawans and other Japanese disembarked and headed out to find work on the coffee plantations, seeking a better life.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 20, 2008

Sake and sculptures in an Aoyama backstreet

Tokyo's backstreets can be dank or swank, but on the whole, they're safe. The biggest risk lies in the lure of diversion. Wander off the beaten path on your way to buy eggs or mail a letter, and you'll get sucked in by bizarre Lilliputian entrepreneurships, copper-clad fronts of prewar wooden shacks,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 19, 2008

Olodum at Earth Celebration

After last year's all-star lineup for Earth Celebration's 20th birthday, this year taiko drumming troupe Kodo mark the 100th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Brazil by inviting Olodum from the Brazilian state of Bahia to headline. An Afro-Brazilian culture group, Olodum started out in 1979 as a...
Reader Mail
Jun 19, 2008

Strengthening the role of women

I am an American woman with a mixed European background, but I've always been interested in Japanese culture. In a lot of ways, I feel that I prefer it to my own, but I read two articles on your Web site that made me a little sad.
JAPAN
Jun 19, 2008

Radical immigration plan under discussion

Foreigners will have a much better opportunity to move to, or continue to live in, Japan under a new immigration plan drafted by Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers to accept 10 million immigrants in the next 50 years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 19, 2008

Egberto Gismonti at Tokyo Summer Festival

The theme of the 24th annual Tokyo Summer Festival, which runs from July 3 to 31 at venues throughout the city, is Forest Echoes/Desert Voices. Representing the former is pianist and guitarist Egberto Gismonti, who studied classical music in Paris only to return to his native Brazil to live in the forest...

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