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Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 19, 2010

Japanese bureaucracy can be incredibly frustrating, but it also makes great entertainment

In the early summer of 2008, Japan's theater world was agog as details emerged of a decision by senior board members of the New National Theatre Tokyo (NNTT) to replace Hitoshi Uyama, its acclaimed artistic director, barely a year into the job, with the mainstream director Keiko Miyata from September...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / INSIDE ART
Mar 19, 2010

Curator Shihoko Iida reveals lessons learned from stint at foreign museum

Japan's art world is occasionally compared to the Galapagos Islands — and not just because it is inhabited by some curious creatures; sorry, I mean artists.
JAPAN
Mar 17, 2010

Autopsy report: too few deaths examined

If the police had had their way, the sudden death of a young sumo wrestler three years ago would have been simply a tragic event quickly swept under the rug, dismissed, as it initially was, as heart failure from unknown causes.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Mar 16, 2010

Political hopeful eyes tax law changes

Citizens of the United States living overseas of working age are required to file a U.S. Internal Revenue Service tax form every year, and if they have incomes, may have to pay U.S. income taxes, on top of any levies they also face in their place of residence.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mar 14, 2010

Pens and pools: prisons for cetaceans

The death in February of a killer-whale trainer at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida, made headlines all over the world. As has been widely reported, Dawn Brancheau, an experienced orca trainer, was dragged by her hair into the whale's pool, where she died of traumatic injuries and drowning.
JAPAN
Mar 13, 2010

Sea Shepherd activist arrested

The Japan Coast Guard on Friday arrested a member of U.S.-based antiwhaling group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for trespassing in connection with his boarding of a whaling fleet vessel in the Antarctic Ocean last month.
JAPAN
Mar 12, 2010

Prada accused of maltreatment

A senior manager at Prada Japan has filed a legal complaint against the Italian fashion label, accusing the company of harassment and discrimination based on appearance and alleging it maltreated other employees in the past.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 12, 2010

Israeli confronts past by mastering Wagner

Rising Israeli conductor Dan Ettinger will complete, in Tokyo in March, his first series of performances of "The Ring of the Nibelung," a cycle of four linked operas by 19th-century composer Richard Wagner.
COMMENTARY
Mar 11, 2010

U.S. base problem drags on

The loud dispute over the future of the U.S. Marine Air Station at Futenma, Okinawa, is puzzling. Even U.S. officialdom agrees that this base causes enormous inconvenience to the residents of Ginowan city who are forced to live alongside. Plans to have it moved have been around for years. But to where?...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / STYLE WISE
Mar 11, 2010

Revamps, re-openings, relocations and the return of Fashion Week

MISHA JANETTE Get ready for Fashion Week
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Mar 10, 2010

Admitting worst-kept secrets all about timing?

The Democratic Party of Japan-led government effectively dragged the skeletons in the closet of postwar Tokyo-Washington diplomacy out into the light Tuesday, in the process exposing the hollowness of its predecessor administrations' long denials.
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2010

Kids at pro-North high schools fret tuition waiver snub

For Om Kwan Ja, excluding "chosen gakko" pro-Pyongyang schools from the government's tuition-waiver program would mean more than just having to shell out extra cash for her kids' education. It's a problem that touches on her family's identity, especially for her son, who is studying at Tokyo Korean Junior...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 9, 2010

Detainees allege abuse at Kansai holding center

The only way to see or speak to Moses Ssentamu is through a Plexiglas window at the West Japan Immigration Center in Ibaraki City, so there is no independent way to verify his claims of physical and psychological abuse. But if true, they raise serious concerns about Japan's treatment of visa overstayers...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 7, 2010

Emotionalized debate blurs valuable functions of Futenma

CAMP BUTLER, Okinawa Pref. — In recent months, the issue of the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Futenma has gotten a great deal of attention in the news — so much so that it has almost overshadowed the significance of this year being the 50th anniversary of the revision of the U.S.-Japan...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 7, 2010

DPJ needs schooling on equality

When the Democratic Party of Japan swept to power last year, many people expected Japanese politics to become more rational. The Liberal Democratic Party had maintained a status quo that stifled meaningful change, and the DPJ supposedly won by promising to move forward.
JAPAN
Mar 4, 2010

Battle lines drawn across Nagoya land

OSAKA — Home to a biologically diverse "satoyama" ecosystem, a Nagoya land tract is at the center of a struggle between the owners who want to develop it and local citizens who want it preserved to demonstrate environmental responsibility.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 2, 2010

Whose GDP is No. 2 misses point

HONG KONG — News headlines this month proclaimed that Japan is still the world's second-biggest economy, ahead of its neighbor China. Gross domestic product figures for 2009 showed Japan with $5.085 trillion against China's $4.91 trillion.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Mar 2, 2010

Openness is key, bookseller says

Alastair Lamond, a 47-year-old Briton, is like many English-speaking foreigners. He began working in Japan as a teacher of his native tongue.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 2, 2010

Attorney glut may hit foreign firms

COLIN P. A. JONES One of the interesting things about being part of Japan's new law school system and its role in greatly increasing the number of Japanese attorneys is this: Nobody seems to have bothered asking the Japanese people if they actually need more attorneys. The original target of increasing...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 28, 2010

Gold against the soul: The media and the Olympics

When Japan Newsweek editor Keigo Takeda said that it was all over during the live broadcast of Fuji TV's Sunday night newsmagazine "Journal" on the second day of the Vancouver Winter Olympics, he was talking about Japanese news coverage of the games.
JAPAN
Feb 24, 2010

Shinjuku gay enclave in decline but not on the surface

Nothing outside Tokyo's 24-Kaikan hotel hints at what goes on behind its gray concrete walls.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan