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Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 8, 2017

Freeing Japanese from English trauma

Recently, I have seen two trends going on regarding English communication skills in Japan. One is the heightened interest in developing English skills among young children. The other is the high expectation for auto-translation, particularly for English-Japanese.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?
Oct 7, 2017

Monk Kaishun Nishigaya's voyage from Japan to Seattle, Alaska and Saipan

Nishigaya was offered a resident ministry at Seattle Nichiren Buddhist Church and, undeterred by the 14-day journey by ship to reach the United States, snapped it up.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 7, 2017

Hate speech thrives on social media platforms

On Sept. 8, the anti-hate speech group Tokyo No Hate demonstrated in front of the Tokyo offices of Twitter. The group wants the social networking service to police its users more diligently with regard to racist and other discriminatory tweets.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 7, 2017

'Kotan Chronicles: Selected Poems 1928-1943': Translating poetry about the Ainu and frontier life in Hokkaido

Poetry can be a vital record of the past. Anarchist and poet Genzo Sarashina (1904-1985) was the son of first-generation Japanese settlers in Hokkaido. Later he became an expert on Ainu culture, working tirelessly to conserve the language, fables and songs of Japan's indigenous peoples and publishing...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 7, 2017

Unending ruthless air raids

There are many sources to learn the facts behind the world's unceasing aerial bombardment.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 5, 2017

Bangladesh destroys boats ferrying Rohingya from Myanmar, claims they carried drugs

Bangladeshi authorities have destroyed about 20 boats that ferried Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in Myanmar, accusing smugglers of using the huge exodus to bring methamphetamine into the country.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Oct 4, 2017

Drifting: Japan-born street sport roars onto global stage

The first thing you notice at a drifting competition is the noise — a crazed shriek of engines punctuated by the sudden firecracker pop of an exhaust pipe under extreme duress.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Oct 4, 2017

Kyoto Seika's next dean, Oussouby Sacko, was schooled in the violent tumult of '80s China

Malian architect lived through protests by Chinese students targeting Africans just months before the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Japan Times
TENNIS
Oct 4, 2017

Tech company aiming to fill fans' downtime with private snapshots at sporting events

Competitions, smartphones and social networks. With those three things combined, arenas and stadiums can become more than just a place to enjoy watching sports.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2017

No Phillips head, no problem, says IKEA

Ikea's acquisition of a 'gig economy' firm is an admission that it can no longer take its customers' manual skills for granted.
MORE SPORTS
Oct 1, 2017

Former ekiden star Kashiwabara brings new fans to football

Ryuji Kashiwabara used to be called "God of the Mountain" when he starred in Tokyo-Hakone collegiate ekiden from 2009 to 2012.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 1, 2017

Tea and Tiananmen: Inside China's new censorship machine

In a glass tower in a trendy part of China's eastern city of Tianjin, hundreds of young men and women sit in front of computer screens, scouring the internet for videos and messages that run counter to Communist Party doctrine.
EDITORIALS
Sep 30, 2017

Damages for the nuclear disaster

The courts are sending mixed signals to Tepco and the government about responsibility for the safety of nuclear plants.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 30, 2017

Autonomous vehicles hold promise of brighter future

Naoki Suganuma, the head of Kanazawa University's Autonomous Vehicle Research Unit, gave a lecture in Tokyo on Sept. 15.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 29, 2017

1,021 to run in Japan's Lower House election on Oct. 22: poll

A total of 1,021 people were planning to run in the Oct. 22 general election as of Thursday, according to a Jiji Press survey taken after the dissolution of the House of Representatives the same day.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 28, 2017

Minamata disease victims' voices dim with age but still cry for recognition

Shinobu Sakamoto was just 15 when she left home in the Kumamoto Prefecture fishing village of Minamata to go to Stockholm and tell the world of the horrors of mercury poisoning.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 27, 2017

The crafted sensuality of director Tran Anh Hung

When Tran Anh Hung enters the room for an interview with The Japan Times, a hush falls among the people gathered there. The staff speak in low, gentle tones and their gestures seem restrained.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 27, 2017

Twitter to let some break 140-character limit in test

Twitter Inc., struggling to attract new users, will lift its 140-character limit on tweets in an experiment with a small group that may expand to the entire social media platform.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / ANALYSIS
Sep 27, 2017

China's biggest North Korea taboo: Discussing life after Kim

In discussions between the U.S. and China about reining in North Korea, one topic remains taboo: What would happen if Kim Jong Un's regime collapses?
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 27, 2017

Kin of missing in Mexico quake grow angry as search for survivors winds down

Rescuers are unlikely to find any more survivors of Mexico's earthquake still buried in the ruins, the emergency services chief said, with anger rising about a lack of information among relatives of an estimated 40 people still buried under rubble.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Sep 27, 2017

Senate GOP bill to kill Obamacare dies quick death, prompts Trump to slam 'so-called Republicans'

A Republican attempt to dismantle Obamacare fell apart in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday for the second time in two months in a serious defeat for President Donald Trump's domestic agenda.
BUSINESS
Sep 26, 2017

Abe trots out tax hike issue again before snap election to boost LDP chances

The controversy over increasing the consumption tax won't be unfamiliar to those who follow modern Japanese politics, as earlier proposals have proven unpopular with voters throughout the postwar years and have even doomed previous administrations.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Society / FOCUS
Sep 26, 2017

China's Communist Party uses rap to tap youth culture, hook millennials

In his baseball cap and baggy yellow T-shirt, the rap star Li Yijie — better known by his stage name "Pissy" — is an unlikely face of China's strait-laced ruling Communist Party.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 25, 2017

Alex Kerr recalls 1970s Japan and David Kidd, the mentor whose influence never fades

Author and Japan hand Alex Kerr remembers the 'larger than life, outrageous, tall, skinny, blond' David Kidd and the 'golden age.'
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 25, 2017

Russia, Syria intensify bombings of rebel-held Idlib, even targeting signatories to truce: witnesses

Russian and Syrian jets escalated strikes on rebel-held Idlib and Hama provinces, several days after jihadi rebels opened an offensive against government-held parts of northwestern Syria, rebels and witnesses said on Sunday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?
Sep 23, 2017

Conductor Tonio Shiga: Overcoming communication struggles with a baton

As a conductor for the City Theater of Bremerhaven in the north of Germany, Tonio Shiga is used to being at the center of the action whenever he leads a musical performance with his orchestra. He is equally at home, however, sitting behind a piano and accompanying the theater's performers for a rehearsal...
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 23, 2017

Doomsday sale: U.S. survivalists stock up as disasters roil the planet

Two earthquakes, three monstrous hurricanes and the North Korean missile crisis have U.S. survivalists convinced that the end of the world is nigh. And they are clearing store shelves to stock bunkers in anticipation of Earth's final chapter.

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person