Search - question

 
 
OLYMPICS / 2008 BEIJING OLYMPICS: BASEBALL
Aug 17, 2008

China wins first game

In preliminary-round action, Taiwan's batters scored four runs in the top of the 12th inning to break a 3-3 tie. However, host nation and newcomer China erupted for five runs in the bottom frame to upset Taiwan 8-7 and claim the country's first-ever Olympic win in baseball.
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Aug 17, 2008

1908 Olympics, Tokyo drunks and a hot summer

100 YEARS AGO
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 16, 2008

Geeks I have known

The meeting itself is not unusual. I have had students seek my consul before — on all kinds of topics.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 16, 2008

Yoga helps bring balanced stance

Every morning, Linda Gould opens the doors and windows of Riverside Yoga studio in Hadano, Kanagawa Prefecture, and feels her body relax, spirit quicken and mind lighten.
EDITORIALS
Aug 16, 2008

Cloudy economic outlook

The Cabinet Office has announced that Japan's gross domestic product in the April-June quarter shrank 0.6 percent, or an annualized 2.4 percent, from the previous quarter in real terms — the first drop in four quarters and the largest drop since the July-September quarter of 2001 when the economy shrank...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 15, 2008

Google photos raise privacy issue in Japan

Without ever setting foot in a neighborhood, Google Inc.'s Street View service allows anyone to take a tour by computer.
Reader Mail
Aug 14, 2008

English program may disappoint

I have been reading about the program to bring 300,000 foreign students to Japan, and to increase the number of offerings in English. But I would have to question why anyone would want to study in an English program here.
Reader Mail
Aug 14, 2008

No-name arrests don't seem right

Regarding Robert McKinney's opinion ("No advantage in a media circus," Aug. 7 letter) of my July 31 letter ("A HREF="http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20080731a4.html">Mind boggles at police reports"): Perhaps the female slasher who attacked six at Hiratsuka Station is "mentally impaired" —...
SPORTS / ODDS AND EVENS
Aug 14, 2008

'Underdog' Gay ready to face his date with destiny

BEIJING — I spent an hour listening to one of the three fastest men living on the planet speak in slow, articulate sentences earlier this week.
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 14, 2008

Staffing decisions at the NNTT cause a stir in theater world

The Japanese theater world is currently in crisis over the question of to whom public theaters belong, since the decision by the New National Theatre Tokyo (NNTT) to appoint new artistic directors for each of its three divisions. The disquiet has been caused by revelations following a June 30 announcement...
OLYMPICS
Aug 13, 2008

Phelps in esteemed company at top of Mount Olympus

BEIJING — Here's the answer to an obscure trivia question: Michael Phelps' middle name is Fred.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 12, 2008

Custody battles: an unfair fight

"Sport at its best obliterates divisions between peoples, such as ostentatious flag-waving and exaggerated national sentiment." New York Times senior writer Howard W. French — who has covered China for the past five years, was Tokyo bureau chief from 1999 to 2003, and has lived overseas for all but...
BUSINESS / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Aug 11, 2008

Beijing squeezed by Olympic ideals, populist distortions

When the Olympic games were awarded to Beijing in 2001, more than a few questions were raised about the host country. It was clear from the start that China was not just making a bid to host a sporting event — it was claiming a place in the developed world.
OLYMPICS
Aug 10, 2008

Important message not quite lost in translation

BEIJING — Olympic blunder No. 1: For any writer making his first trip to the Olympics, the individual will make his/her share of silly mistakes: getting from Point A to Point B in time, misreading the event schedules, etc.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 10, 2008

Celebrity rules as the Olympics strays far from its ideal

The big story this year in competitive swimming is the LZR Racer swimsuit, which was developed by the British sportswear manufacturer Speedo. At least six world records have been set by swimmers wearing the suit. Studies have shown that its drag-diminishing properties lower racing times by 1.9 to 2.2...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 10, 2008

Engineering a historical oblivion for soldiers of the wrong wars

My dad was a lucky man. Born in 1903, he was just too young for service in World War I and a bit too old for the same in World War II. Not that he couldn't have volunteered for the latter. He certainly could have, but decided not to.
JAPAN
Aug 9, 2008

For DPJ, it's solidarity vs. debate

Whatever other motivations may have been in play, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's recent reshuffle of his Cabinet was surely intended to raise the low support rate for his Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling coalition in anticipation of the next general election.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 9, 2008

'Hyakunin' translations capture commission prize

In the same way that few British people have read all of Shakespeare's sonnets but many can quote at least a few lines of the lyric tradition, any adult who has gone through the Japanese school system is familiar with the Ogura "Hyakunin Isshu."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 8, 2008

'The Dark Knight'

Like a plague of locusts, the superhero movies descend on us this summer. August brings us "Hancock," with Will Smith as an alcoholic, irresponsible and quite unfunny superhero; "The Incredible Hulk," which is practically a remake of 2003's "Hulk (presumably Ang Lee's version wasn't stupid enough); and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 8, 2008

Batman hits Tokyo

"Welcome to a world without rules" is the tag-line for "The Dark Knight," but, as usual these days, the press conference for the movie held at Roppongi Hills sure had a few. Rule No. 1, of course, was: Do not ask the stars questions about anything except the movie.
Reader Mail
Aug 7, 2008

No advantage in a media circus

Regarding David Chester's July 31 letter, "Mind boggles at police reports": What business is it of his how police conduct their investigations? Often in the United States, once a suspect's name is in the media, there's a circus on the airwaves and the gossip magazines do a hatchet job on the suspect....
SPORTS / ODDS AND EVENS
Aug 7, 2008

Beijing putting best foot forward as opening ceremony draws near

BEIJING — The Olympic hosts want to make a good first impression. That's no big surprise. The world is watching, and it's why you are greeted by one set of smiling volunteers when you walk off the airplane at Beijing Capital International Airport.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Aug 6, 2008

City gone wild

In June this year I took a group of Japanese friends and members of our Afan Woodland Trust up here in the Nagano hills on a trip to Britain. We went on an All Nippon Airways tour designed for people with an interest in ecology and nature restoration, and we visited our "twin" forest, the Afan Argoed...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / JAPAN NATIONAL BASEBALL TEAM
Aug 5, 2008

'Hoshino Japan' shakes off injury concerns as preparations heat up

The Olympics haven't started yet, but "Hoshino Japan" has already dodged a bullet.
JAPAN
Aug 3, 2008

Ibuki tells LDP to draft tax hike scenarios

Finance Minister Bunmei Ibuki said Saturday the ruling Liberal Democratic Party needs to propose a scenario on how and when to ask for a tax hike before it starts campaigning for the next general election.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 3, 2008

The new language of translated films

CINEMA BABEL: Translating Global Cinema, by Abe Mark Nornes. Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2008, 304 pp.,$22.50 (paper) Though foreign film is now seen by all, we are still dependent on translation to discover what is going on up on the big screen or on the little tube. This translation of dialogue can be...
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2008

High-rise concrete pour hits man

A man was seriously injured Friday afternoon after a continuous stream of wet concrete splattered him from eight stories above at a building under construction in Minato Ward, Tokyo, police said.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 2, 2008

Martial and marital arts

"So. . . Do you, like, do karate? Or what?"

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight