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Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 24, 2010

Don't expect an assertive Toyoda

Americans are likely in for a surprise if they expect Toyota President Akio Toyoda to put on a show of authoritative "the-buck-stops-here" clout at Wednesday's congressional hearing on the automaker's massive recalls.
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2010

Airport wars roil Kansai region

OSAKA — Two years into his term, Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto continues to enjoy high popularity among voters, with some local media polls showing his approval rating at almost 70 percent, due largely to his personality and cost-cutting steps.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 18, 2009

How Japan can regain its vitality

Last November, two months after the inauguration of the Cabinet of Prime Minister Taro Aso, I predicted, in an opinion piece for the American magazine Science, that a sweeping change in Japanese government was imminent.
Japan Times
Reference / Special Presentations
Sep 5, 2009

Washington U. let nisei avoid internment

ST. LOUIS — Yoshio Matsumoto was among the 110,000 Japanese-Americans seemingly bound for an internment camp soon after the United States entered World War II when a university he knew nothing about from a far off part of the country agreed to take him in.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Aug 11, 2009

Todai still beckons nation's best, brightest but goals diversifying

For more than 130 years, the University of Tokyo has been unrivaled as the gateway to elite careers for thousands of hopeful candidates who pass the exam to get in.
LIFE / Digital
Jul 22, 2009

Google Books leaves Japan in legal limbo

For a long time, the Japanese publishing industry was in the dark about the Google Book Search Library project, the ambitious endeavor by the Mountain View, Calif.-based Internet giant to create a vast online library by scanning millions of books. Google announced the start of the project in 2004, but...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 12, 2009

Crimes happen, but are the criminals 'one of us' or 'one of them'?

Crime may not pay like it used to, but the way it is described in the media has not changed much throughout the millennia.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 12, 2009

Crimes happen, but are the criminals 'one of us' or 'one of them'?

Crime may not pay like it used to, but the way it is described in the media has not changed much throughout the millennia.
Reader Mail
Jun 4, 2009

It's hard to please everyone

Cynthia Seton writes in her May 28 letter, "Different take on universities," that Japanese national universities are often notorious for treating non-Japanese quite differently. I agree to a large extent. I worked as a low-paid post-doctorate fellow at a prefectural — not national — university for...
EDITORIALS
May 24, 2009

Rescinded job offers

A record number of graduates had their job offers canceled this spring, a recent survey by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare reported. More than 2,000 offers in total were withdrawn, double the number of the second worst year — 1998 — when several brokerage firms collapsed.
Reader Mail
Feb 12, 2009

Stumbling block for bright students

As former chair of the Secondary Schools Committee for the Harvard Club of Japan from 1990 until 1999, and a member of the International Admissions Committee in the Harvard Admissions Office before that, I am in a unique position to support the observations of Robert Dujarric and Yuki Allyson Honjo in...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Jan 27, 2009

'Marathon' ritual must change

Recently, my son ran an 800-meter "marathon" at his local elementary school. He received a congratulatory "certificate of achievement" noting his participation and the fact he placed 79th. He has come to dread this annual ritual. It is damaging his fragile self-esteem and emerging identity by blatantly...
EDITORIALS
Jan 25, 2009

The cold of exams

This coldest time of the year brings the most difficult time of the year for students and parents — entrance exam season. The two-day unified college entrance exams for national and municipal universities ended on Jan. 18. Over a half a million young people took the unified exams, with even more taking...
COMMENTARY
Jan 15, 2009

Antiforeigner discrimination is a right for Japanese people

"Japan girai" — dislike of Japan — is an allergy that seems to afflict many Westerners here. If someone handing out Japanese-language flyers assumes they cannot read Japanese and ignores them, they cry racial discrimination. If they are left sitting alone in a train, they assume that is because the...
EDITORIALS
Dec 11, 2008

Education loan accountability

The Japan Students Services Organization (JASSO), a student loan provider under the wing of the education ministry, is suffering from a high delinquency rate on loan payments. Starting in fiscal 2010, it will tell all new borrowers that it will report long-term delinquent borrowers to an organization...
EDITORIALS
Nov 23, 2008

Tough lessons in drug use

Until recently, Japan has not needed much of a drug policy, but recent headlines about "university pot busts" indicate one is overdue. Outside of Japan, marijuana arrests no longer even get space in newspapers, since access and use of marijuana is an everyday reality, unhealthy and questionable as it...
Reader Mail
Aug 31, 2008

Imagination trumps knowledge

Is being able to solve formulas in academic math, or write fabulous essays without a single grammatical mistake, the most important thing in life? Some students my age trying to get into Harvard University might say, "Of course, it is."
Reader Mail
Aug 17, 2008

Education doesn't meet all needs

The number of people not in education, employment or training (often called NEETs) reached 640,000 in 2004. Sadly, they are often described as people who are unwilling to work hard and end up relying on their parents for support. Some are actually eager to work and pursue their interests, but somehow...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 8, 2008

Beware the foreigner as guinea pig

Anywhere in the world, noncitizens have fewer legal rights than citizens. Japan's Supreme Court would agree: On June 2, in a landmark case granting citizenship to Japanese children of unmarried Philippines mothers, judges ruled that Japanese citizenship is necessary "for the protection of basic human...
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.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past