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LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 27, 2011

Time to change the way we live

Reeling off our names and nationalities between East Halls 1 and 2 of convention center Tokyo Big Sight, our group introduces itself: "I'm from Thailand," "Vietnam, hi," "We're Taiwanese", "Singapore", "Korea".
Reader Mail
Dec 25, 2011

Ridiculous antinuclear claims

What Japanese actor Taro Yamamoto — the subject of the Dec. 22 Kyodo article, "Actor uses lessons learned overseas to fight nuclear energy" — ignores is that, in Germany, children are indoctrinated to hate nuclear energy. German children don't become interested in politics at a young age; they are...
JAPAN
Dec 25, 2011

Fiscal health deteriorates despite Noda's pledges

On paper, the draft of the fiscal 2012 budget appears to indicate Japan has found a way to trim about ¥2 trillion in spending compared with the current year, but in reality the national debt is snowballing as bond issuance will exceed tax revenues for the third year in a row.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 23, 2011

Sapporo battles for Vietnam 'guzzlers' as China beer market slows

Japanese brewers are looking past China's $57 billion beer market to a country with less than one-tenth the population: Vietnam.
Reader Mail
Dec 22, 2011

Settle 'comfort women' claims

Regarding the Dec. 15 Kyodo article "Statue of 'comfort woman' erected outside Japanese Embassy in Seoul": Japan did compensate South Korea with a lump-sum payment in 1965. At that time, comfort women were not on the political agenda. Now they are and the issue is for Japan to do the right thing and...
Reader Mail
Dec 22, 2011

What motivates illogical writing?

Regarding Takamitsu Sawa's Dec. 19 article, "Motivation for college study": Did Shiga University President Sawa originally write this piece in Japanese, and then something subsequently got lost in translation, or did a lot of it get cut in order to meet the word count? Or does he just not know how to...
JAPAN
Dec 22, 2011

Exiting South African envoy says economic ties can grow deeper

Departing South African Ambassador Gert Johannes Grobler said Wednesday that economic ties between his country and Japan have grown rapidly in recent years but can expand more.
Japan Times
JAPAN / READERS' FUND
Dec 22, 2011

NPOs give needy hope for future

Many women and children in developing countries still have very few opportunities to receive an education and training, but Japanese nonprofit groups are working in nations such as Afghanistan and Cambodia to give them hope for the future.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Dec 20, 2011

Replacing your alien card; blasts from the past

Anita recently lost her alien registration card and is planning to leave on New Year's Day for an overseas trip, so she needs a replacement right away:
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 20, 2011

Four years after 'Nova shock,' eikaiwa is down but not out

Ask any ordinary person what significance Oct. 26 holds and you might find them struggling for an answer, but for many involved in Japan's beleaguered English teaching industry, it was the day the nation's premier operator fell into administration and took much of the rest of the industry with it.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Dec 20, 2011

Festive lights prevail, with restraint

Every winter places set themselves aglow with illuminations as part of the festive mood for Christmas and New Year's.
COMMENTARY
Dec 19, 2011

Motivation for college study

These days we often hear that there are two signs that the Japanese people, especially youths, have become inward-looking: The number of Japanese students going overseas for study has declined sharply, and far fewer employees in the public and private sectors are willing to take up posts outside the...
Reader Mail
Dec 18, 2011

Shame on the whale killers

Regarding David McNeill's Dec. 11 article, "Tohoku ¥ for whales?": I was in tears for the Japanese tsunami victims, and I donated a large amount of money that I could not really afford because their suffering was unbearable.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 18, 2011

Their spirit seems willing but young Japanese are hesitant to get hitched

Back in the days of "there's gold in them thar hills," one of the prospectors' doleful refrains boasted the title "My Girlfriend's a Mule and a Mine." Across the Pacific and some 150 years on, I wouldn't be surprised if an echo of that plaintive air were not about to catch on among young Japanese males...
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Dec 18, 2011

Revolution in China, anti-communist campaign, a different brew of bīru, Takeshi Gundan under arrest

100 YEARS AGOTuesday, Dec. 12, 1911
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 18, 2011

The times may change, but the hits keep coming

The 46th year of Showa, 1971, is remembered as the year of the "Nixon Shock," when the U.S. president took unilateral action to raise the Japanese yen's value against the dollar — from ¥360 to $1, to around ¥308 to $1. Nixon sought to reduce the swelling trade deficit by action aimed at forcing up...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Dec 18, 2011

There's more to Christmas colors than meets the eye

The rotenburo (outdoor hot spring) that I most regularly frequent creates an excellent illusion of there always being a full moon bathing in its glow those soaking beneath.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 18, 2011

Comic books of compassion

Two new and welcome comic anthologies join the wide range of work that has sprung in response to the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 18, 2011

Cultures mingle amid Atami's hot springs

She was on a train from Tokyo to Atami in the summer of 1959 when the English travel writer Ethel Mannin "saw what I had read about and been told about but felt unable to accept until I had seen it for myself."
JAPAN
Dec 16, 2011

Futenma base relocation has little hope left

The political games being played in Washington and Tokyo regarding whether the U.S. will fund the transfer of Okinawa-based U.S. Marines to Guam are of no consequence, experts say, because the 2006 plan to relocate the Futenma airbase to Henoko in northern Okinawa Island, which the Guam transfer depends...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 16, 2011

Business confidence battered by strong yen, Europe's crisis

Business sentiment among large manufacturers deteriorated in December, according to the Bank of Japan's quarterly "tankan" index released Thursday, underscoring the growing concern over Europe's sovereign credit risk and the persistent rise of the yen.
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Dec 15, 2011

Having a laugh at the witch doctors of art

It's one of the most enigmatic questions of all time: What is art? Any gallery that holds an exhibition using that as its theme is either taking things very seriously indeed, or it's having a laugh.
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Dec 15, 2011

Painting a picture of Yumeji Takehisa

A persistent and lingering myth is that Yumeji Takehisa (1884-1934), who forwent conventional art training at a sanctioned institution and earned widespread popular appeal for all the things the arts were supposedly not, was unimportant to the fine arts.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Dec 13, 2011

Readers back father's fight to reunite with children

The following are readers' responses to the Nov. 8 Zeit Gist column headlined "My children are my everything — the reason I'm alive" by Simon Scott. The story followed Canadian Bruce Gherbetti on a surprise visit to his estranged wife's home in Fukushima in the hope of visiting his children, whom he...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Dec 13, 2011

Readers back father's fight to reunite with children

The following are readers' responses to the Nov. 8 Zeit Gist column headlined "My children are my everything — the reason I'm alive" by Simon Scott. The story followed Canadian Bruce Gherbetti on a surprise visit to his estranged wife's home in Fukushima in the hope of visiting his children, whom he...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 13, 2011

TSE, OSE woo foreign investors

Japan's top two stock exchanges are starting campaigns to lure overseas investors after agreeing last month to merge amid falling trading volumes.
Reader Mail
Dec 11, 2011

Bhutan just trying to protect itself

I am ashamed that a paper like The Japan Times would run an article like the one Nov. 30, "Bhutan royals trip masks rights issues."

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes