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Reader Mail
Dec 2, 2007

Tradition continues amid apathy

Janet Kenny's Nov. 22 letter, "The sadness in knowing their fate," made it clear why the whaling issue hasn't seen much progress in recent years. There is a fundamental difference in perception. The Japanese don't revere whales as "beautiful giants"; whales are viewed traditionally as another seafood....
Reader Mail
Dec 2, 2007

Homegrown emissions say a lot

Regarding the Nov. 22 article "Fukuda, Singh eye FTA deal by mid-'08": I believe that global warming and recent natural calamities worldwide have sensitized people to natural-gas emissions and pollution. Japan has been preaching to the rest of the world about natural-gas emissions, but it forgets itself:...
Reader Mail
Dec 2, 2007

Whale hunt reinforces stereotype

I've always believed that each nationality has the same capacity for good and bad. Previous generations of English and Americans have portrayed the Japanese as coldhearted people with little concern for the suffering of others. In my family this was partly a result of experiences in Japanese prisoner-of-war...
EDITORIALS
Dec 2, 2007

Internationalizing high schools

While the government stumbles around with new educational policies, a quiet revolution in high schools has already happened. The number of foreign students enrolled in Japanese high schools has hit an all-time high of nearly 2,000, with a new peak of over 100 schools nationwide now instructing children...
COMMENTARY
Dec 2, 2007

Stateside view of Australia's landslide

LOS ANGELES — In a parliamentary system of government, there are no guarantees. You can be in one day and out the next.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Dec 2, 2007

Dalai Lama: Ocean of wit and wisdoms

Lhamo Thondup was born on July 6, 1935 in Taktster, a small village in the Amdo region of northeast Tibet. But neither his parents — farmers who grew barley, buckwheat and potatoes — nor his three elder brothers and one elder sister (a younger sister and brother came later) were to discover his true...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 1, 2007

Stigma from arrest will linger for Redknapp in near future

LONDON — The problem with being arrested for anything is that the person is immediately seen as guilty by association by many.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Dec 1, 2007

Bond forged in Nepal still going strong

Praveen Lama and Kazuko Tanikawa have lived in a bustling shopping street in Tokyo's Kita Ward since July 2003, when the Nepalese married his Japanese wife after a long-distance love affair that lasted several years through e-mails and phone calls.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 30, 2007

In touch with his inner Tommy Lee

"It wasn't so much the style of music as the attitude toward performing and doing shows. That's what we wanted to bring back from America to Japan," says Yasuaki Sakai, reminiscing about his immersion in America's Pacific Northwest music scene that began nearly a decade ago as the singer/guitarist of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 30, 2007

'Beowulf'

'Beowulf" is the epic poem dating from the 8th or 9th century that every high-school English Literature student has learned to dread. With good reason too — try getting your head 'round lines like "I ween with good he will well requite offspring of ours, when all he minds that for him we did in his...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 29, 2007

Translator of the universal and the local

In his 1987 book "Ireland Kiko (Travels in Ireland)," the renowned historical novelist and essayist Ryotaro Shiba (1923-96) observed that "the typical Irish character could easily be dramatized," and that "Ireland is one of the richest countries for the literary arts, with people whose daily lives are...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 29, 2007

Defect-finding autoworker blows whistle on new 'Toyota way'

The California autoworker who is suing Toyota and others in a whistle-blower lawsuit said Tuesday she was merely carrying out the quality-conscious "Toyota way" in spotting defects when managers cracked down on her efforts and demoted her.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 28, 2007

Globalization blurs North-South divide

NEW YORK — The notion of a divide between the rich north and the poor and developing south has long been a central concept among economists and policymakers. From 1950 to 1980, the north accounted for almost 80 percent of global GDP but only 22 percent of its population, and the south accounted for...
COMMENTARY
Nov 28, 2007

Hello to the euro, goodbye to the dollar

LONDON — It's just straws in the wind so far. India's Ministry of Culture announces that foreign tourists can no longer pay in dollars when visiting the Taj Mahal and other heritage sites; they have to pay in good, hard rupees. Iran and Venezuela call for a joint OPEC statement on the weak dollar,...
COMMENTARY
Nov 28, 2007

Labor wins by a Rudd-slide

WATERLOO, Ontario — Poor John Howard. Reckless on climate change, clueless in Iraq, fickle on civil liberties, mean to migrants and minorities, ruthless toward the workers — and now jobless. He also was set to lose the Parliament seat he has represented since 1974, the first sitting prime minister...
Reader Mail
Nov 27, 2007

Don't stop with pro-whale protests

I share everyone's sadness over the needless killing of whales but feel that, for many, the concern is rather selective. I wonder how many of the people complaining are meat-eaters. The production of beef is one of the most devastating activities for the Earth's environment -- far more so than the culling...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Nov 27, 2007

Feeling designs

'Design is not just about making something, it is about designing the feelings of the person who uses it," says Tokujin Yoshioka, sitting in his Daikanyama studio among magazine-laden shelves and prototypes in various stages of development.
LIFE / Language
Nov 27, 2007

New translation vividly depicts postwar Tokyo

Shishi Bunroku (the pen name of Iwata Toyoo) is a writer who deserves to be better known. His novel "Jiyu Gakko (School of Freedom)" was a best seller when it first appeared in 1951, and gives as vivid a picture as we're likely to get today of what daily life was like in postwar Tokyo.
COMMENTARY
Nov 26, 2007

Upbeat band of moderates keep the faith

BALI, Indonesia — A bad idea can sometimes illuminate the darkest landscape of truth with brilliant flair in a way that mere fact cannot. Consider, for example, the idea that Islam is incompatible with democracy. It's a really bad idea, but it can serve a very good purpose.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 25, 2007

Tales of Meiji love, lust and drinking tea

Mistress Oriku: Stories from a Tokyo Teahouse by Matsutaro Kawaguchi. Tuttle Publishing, 280 pp., 2007, ¥1,785 (paper) During the middle to late years of the Meiji Era, factories, cement works and commercial shipyards began to spring up like noxious mushrooms along the embankments of Tokyo's Sumida...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Nov 25, 2007

An insider detects desperation

Tokyo Motor Show is one of the world's most important biennial automotive exhibitions, and I get to see them all. It attracts everyone who's anyone in the motoring industry, drawing phenomenal crowds — 1,4525,800 people over 17 days from Oct. 26 to Nov. 11. And more than any other car show in the world,...
JAPAN
Nov 25, 2007

Taiwan's Ma winning converts in Nagata-cho

front-runner and "multiple Japanese government officials" Thursday. The meeting ranks as a first, a source in Ma's entourage said. That Tokyo would risk a row with China by allowing Cabinet officials to meet a Taiwanese presidential candidate speaks volumes about Japan's attitude toward Ma.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Nov 23, 2007

Kyoto vegetables at Grand Prince; Niki Club opens new guest house

Kyoto's rich vegetable cuisine "Kyo-yasai Meister" Yoshimasa Takagaki will come to Tokyo on Dec. 3 and 4 to introduce the charm of Kyo-yasai, literally "Kyoto vegetables," at the French de Kyo-yasai fair in the Blue Gardenia restaurant on the 40th floor of the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka.
LIFE / Digital
Nov 21, 2007

iPod DJs gear up and face off at music event in Tokyo

Everyone knows the iconic image of the DJ — the permanently worn headphones, satchel full of vinyl, twin Technics 1200 turntables — but that could all be about to change with iPod Battle Tokyo: The Clash this Friday, where nine DJ teams will fight it out using nothing but a pair of slimline, portable...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 20, 2007

World's suicide capital — tough image to shake

Japan has attained a reputation as the suicide capital of the world. A 2007 international comparison of suicide rates (per 100,000 people) by the World Health Organization ranked Japan sixth for females, at 12.8, behind Sri Lanka, South Korea and Lithuania, and 11th for males, at 35.6, well below Lithuania,...

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