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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

Resentments sustain a moribund meat trade

Many environmentalists around the world hope that the whaling issue in Japan will simply fade with the now moribund industry. In Japan, though, the political prowhaling lobby has never been stronger.
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

From the inside looking out . . .

'There are a number of factors, both biological and economic, which led the industry to destroy one whale species after another, even though the industry was dependent on their survival. Thus, the commercial whaling ban should be kept and not mixed up with the idea of preserving tradition and/or culture....
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

Deadlock is dominant in whaling's 'petty parlor game'

In light of the entrenched positions involved, the whaling issue appears hopelessly deadlocked as the prowhaling nations led by Japan, Iceland and Norway demand the right to return to commercial whaling from countries equally determined to resist them.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 10, 2007

Tim Hornyak

Freelance writer Tim Hornyak is the author of 'Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots.' He anticipates that the family robot will become a reality in Japan
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 10, 2007

Time custom-designed for that unique experience

It takes Charlie Spreckley no time at all to leave his apartment in Ebisu and meet at the station. He is tall, smiling, and very droll. Nicole Fall, his business partner, falls in not far behind, looking brisk and wearing wrist weights. "I've no time to go the gym these days. These help keep my upper...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 4, 2007

Super temp worker who saves day is a nonconformist heroine

Prior to the start of the current Diet session, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that the ruling coalition would not submit previously announced bills to revise the Labor Standards Law. The move was seen as being cautionary, since there will be an Upper House election in July and the bills would have contained...
COMMUNITY
Feb 3, 2007

Aikido fuels life of selfless service

Meet Kenkichi Futami, in many ways the archetypal Japanese salaryman of the postwar period whose sacrifice helped position Japan so productively in the world today.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 1, 2007

Chamber doors that shimmer with gold

Uuntil the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Kyoto's Gosho Palace, a rectangular compound of approximately 110,000 sq. meters, housed Japan's Imperial Family for more than 1,000 years. The buildings have been destroyed by fire on a number of occasions, but were rebuilt each time exactly in the original ancient...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2007

Tokyo's dark side

Welshman John Williams first came to Japan in 1988, intending to stay two years, write a script and return to Britain to make a movie. He ended up making eight shorts, a documentary and finally a feature film -- the drama "Firefly Dreams" -- all in Japan and with Japanese casts and crews. Released in...
SOCCER
Jan 27, 2007

Wanchope looks to lift FC Tokyo

Paulo Wanchope can't help but be labeled with the "veteran journeyman" tag, even though the striker is keen to point out he is still only 30 years old.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2007

SpongeBob soaks up young fans in Japan

Square and loud, SpongeBob wasn't supposed to have much chance for success in Japan, a nation famous for its love of more cuddly characters like Hello Kitty and Pikachu.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 25, 2007

A great space waiting to be filled

Wow. It's huge.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 25, 2007

Dairakudakan dancers play with Josef Nadj

Speaking in Tokyo a year ago, Josef Nadj, one of the most respected choreographers in the contemporary dance world, said that for his next project in Japan he wanted to create something playful for the audiences in collaboration with Japanese dancers and Japanese culture. The 49-year-old Yugoslav-born...
BUSINESS / Q&A
Jan 24, 2007

Election puts overtime-pay exclusion on hold

Wary of an upcoming election, the ruling bloc is backing off on a highly contentious bill that would exclude certain white-collar workers from overtime pay.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 21, 2007

An old way for modern business

Japan's Business Renaissance: How the World's Greatest Economy Revived, Renewed, and Reinvented Itself, by John C. Beck and Mark B. Fuller. McGraw-Hill, 2006, 226 pp., $27.95 (cloth) There was a time when you couldn't walk past a bookstore without seeing scores of books preaching Japanese business knowhow....
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 21, 2007

Sex in the Forbidden City

Rene Leys, by Victor Segalen, translated and with an introduction by J.A. Underwood, preface by Ian Buruma. New York: New York Review of Books, 2003, 210 pp. $14 (paper) "Who is this lad, this Belgian youth, who forbids Manchu princes possession of their future concubines? . . . . Who . . . has attained...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 21, 2007

Ah, those good old bad old '80s days

W hen did Japan begin to change and enter its present phase of burgeoning nationalism? (I hesitate to call it "new" nationalism, because it's actually just a rehashing of old myths for 21st-century consumption.)
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jan 20, 2007

The child in me, the child in you

Mirrors don't lie, but they can mislead. Mine, for example, will sometimes offer unkind reflections upon my age. Especially in the morning.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jan 19, 2007

Lots of good records

"We don't play any cr*p records," say Bobby Gildea and Richard Colburn of indie-pop group Belle & Sebastian when asked to define their DJ music policy via e-mail from their Glasgow base. The two musicians will take a break from the day job to play an exclusive DJ set at Shibuya Game on Jan. 19.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 19, 2007

Isis and Boris

In the age of digital downloading, it's still possible to get people to buy CDs and records. You've just got to be smart about it.
Reader Mail
Jan 17, 2007

Town opts for isolation policy

As the new year begins, we are approaching the "awards" season: the Academy Awards, Grammies and my favorite, the Darwin awards (given to people who improve the human-gene pool as part of the natural-selection process by accidentally killing or sterilizing themselves during a foolish or careless mistake)....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jan 16, 2007

Hiroo Onoda

Hiroo Onoda, 84, is a former member of an Imperial Japanese Army intelligence unit, an elite commando during World War II who was sent to Lubang Island in the Philippines in 1944 to conduct guerrilla warfare and gather military intelligence. Trained in clandestine operations, his mission was to sneak...
Reader Mail
Jan 14, 2007

Shades of emperor worship

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hakubun Shimomura is a perfect example of the sort of people that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stacked his Cabinet with: ultra-nationalists who would like to take Japan back to the kind of country it was during World War II.
EDITORIALS
Jan 14, 2007

ETA's fatal miscalculations

When is a ceasefire not a ceasefire? When it is punctuated by bombings. Yet, even after taking responsibility for a blast that killed two people, the Basque separatist group ETA claims that it is adhering to a permanent ceasefire declared in March.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 14, 2007

Once in keeping with some of the best company

In the Company of Men: Representations of Male-Male Sexuality in Meiji Literature, by Jim Reichert. Stanford University Press, 2006, 282 pp., illustrations XI, $60.00 (cloth). The search for modernity in the Meiji Era (1868-1912) involved not only the discovery of some new subject matter but also the...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jan 12, 2007

Folk spirit, dub groove

Like many aspects of Ainu culture, the music of Hokkaido's indigenous people is distinct from that of the rest of Japan.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji