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Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Sep 23, 2007

Cellphone bards hit bestseller lists

Like many other young Japanese, Rin, 21, punches her mobile phone keys very quickly. Holding her phone with two hands, and moving her thumbs deftly and smoothly, she quickly generates sentences on the small screen.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 14, 2007

Role of EU a year after war in Lebanon

LONDON — It has been almost one year since the European Union committed to stabilize Lebanon following last summer's war. With its decision to send thousands of soldiers to Lebanon to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, the EU took its boldest step yet in creating a common foreign and...
COMMENTARY
Sep 8, 2007

ASEAN at 40: coming of age?

KUALA LUMPUR — The Association of Southeast Asian Nations turned 40 this summer. Is it facing a mid-life crisis? Or is it on the verge of maturing into a more cohesive, more relevant organization capable of promoting peace and stability not only in Southeast Asia but beyond, given its self-proclaimed...
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 6, 2007

The magic of noh by firelight

At this time of year — and also in April and May, when it is neither too hot nor too cold for performers or audiences — takigi (firelight) noh is performed throughout Japan. Preferred venues are outdoor noh stages in the precincts of shrines, but as these are rare, special ones are often built in...
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Aug 14, 2007

Close the door on the way out Asashoryu

Every sport has its ups and downs. Every sport has its bad boys. Sumo, in as far as it is classified as a sport, is no different.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Aug 1, 2007

A tale of morels

I have a Canadian friend, Nedd Kenney, a brilliant scholar, musician and fieldworker who now lives on Baffin Island off the northeast coast of Canada. It was Nedd who got me my first bhodran (Irish drum), and came to my house in Kurohime, in the Nagano Prefecture hills, to give me some tips on playing...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Aug 1, 2007

E-cash silencing the jingle of change

Since major electronic money services emerged in 2001, it has become common in Tokyo for people to go through ticket gates by just touching a smart card to electronic readers at train stations and to make small purchases without pulling out their wallets at convenience stores. Japan's cash-based tradition...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 29, 2007

Not all nonsense is silly

Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times, by Miriam Silverberg. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007, 370 pp., with many illustrations $49.95 (cloth) From the late 1920s on, the impact of the modern on traditional Japan had become so noticeable that some new terminology...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 26, 2007

Prison reforms seen as too little, and way too late

In May 2006, the government revised the prison law in the first attempt at broad reform since 1908. The Law Concerning Penal Institutions and the Treatment of Sentenced Inmates, as the legislation is formally known, went into effect June 7.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 1, 2007

'Shaberedomo, Shaberedomo'

Japanese are often stereotyped (and tend to stereotype themselves) as bad communicators — or just plain silent. Men, especially, are praised for being miserly with words, though their wives may long for something more than the furo, meshi, neru (bath, food and sleep) that is said to be the sum total...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 24, 2007

Marilyn Manson

Feared in America as the Satan-worshipper who inspired the Columbine massacre, but widely regarded elsewhere as a camp standard-bearer for goth culture, Marilyn Manson talks about marriage breakups, murder and makeup
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
May 20, 2007

Citizen journalists aim to serve all

For Kenichiro Masuyama, who lives in Matsumoto City in central Japan's scenic Nagano Prefecture, news that more foreign visitors than ever before are now coming to savor the region's delights is hardly a surprise.
COMMENTARY
May 14, 2007

Cherry-picking an identity

LONDON — Political leaders nowadays are fond of talking about national identity and culture, but do we know what they mean by either identity or culture, and do they know themselves what they mean?
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 12, 2007

The freshman wears Prada

"Because I want to make a statement," says the girl. "And my statement is that I am unique, which my choice of fashion demonstrates."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 19, 2007

Works beyond Osaka's sun

If your knowledge of Taro Okamoto's work begins and ends with the sculpture "Tower of the Sun" that he created for the 1970 Osaka Expo, a visit to "Taro Okamoto and His Contemporaries in the Post-War Era," now at the Setagaya Art Museum, is in order.
EDITORIALS
Apr 18, 2007

Medical care for the terminal stage

The health ministry has formulated a guideline on terminal care stipulating that respect for patients' wishes is "the most important principle" when carrying out medical treatment for those in the terminal stage. The guideline, aimed at preventing single-handed decisions by doctors, is the first government...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Apr 6, 2007

Where mod confronts odd

Several decades ago, commuters riding the Mekama Line into Meguro Station were tagged country bumpkins. Today, developers pack the ward with suburban homes as fast as they can pour cement. Old dwellings with gardens give way to duplexes with flowerpots, and chic furniture stores now clog Meguro Avenue...
EDITORIALS
Mar 25, 2007

Ambassadors manga and anime

Walk into any bookstore around the world and you will find a new, large section for one of Japan's best-known representatives -- manga. Likewise, in DVD stores, drama, comedy and action have been pushed aside for Japanese anime. All around the world, people of all ages are pouring over translations of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 22, 2007

Meeting his muse -- Tamasaburo Bando

'Iwrote this play with Tamasaburo Bando in mind for the role of Chujohime," says Haruo Moriyama. "I have been his fan ever since I saw him enacting Shiranuihime in Yukio Mishima's 'Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki (Adventures of Minamoto no Tametomo)' at the National Theater in 1969."
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 24, 2006

Ongoing Vietnam tragedy revives ghosts of a Christmas past

Christmas brings to mind many wonderful memories for most of us. But history has bequeathed to some of us a most awful little two-word phrase blackening those memories like a stain. That phrase is "Christmas bombing."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 14, 2006

Camping it up: The pride of pop's history

Scissor Sisters have been described as a band who play "camp pop." The camp bit is arguably a redundant designation since it derives from the French "camper," which means to pose in an exaggerated fashion. All pop music is a pose -- a good deal of it an exaggerated one. A narrower definition of camp...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 3, 2006

Women on top -- where they belong

BAD GIRLS OF JAPAN, edited by Laura Miller and Jan Bardsley. New York: Palmgrave/Macmillan, 2005, 222 pp., photos XI, $26.95 (paper) What makes a "bad girl" bad? -- that is the question posed in this book. "The answer is that badness is attributed to such females by a sexist and male-dominated society...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 16, 2006

An ambassador of enlightenment

When I was a teenager living in New York some 20 years ago, I bought a tiny introduction to Zen Buddhism from a bookstore in midtown Manhattan. A $1 clearance-sale copy, it was so small that I could slip it into my back pocket.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 14, 2006

Beneath the surface

A converted bean storehouse in a Kyoto back-street is the unusual venue for an innovative introduction to traditional Japanese culture. During just one busy day, participants in the Origin Arts Program can try their hand at the ancient martial art of "Waraku," tea ceremony, calligraphy and Noh theater....
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Nov 14, 2006

Van Cleef & Arpels' 'Treasures,' Kate Moss in Tokyo, Oakley on Cat Street . . .

Sleeping beauties When Estelle Arpels and Alfred Van Cleef opened their first boutique on Paris' hallowed Place Vendome in 1906, one of France's most revered jewelry maisons was born.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 1, 2006

Dolphin kill dogged by mercury, activists

Nearly every day since the first week in September, fishermen have been driving pods of dolphins into quiet coves near the village of Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, to kill them for their meat, whatever the mercury content, or sell them to marine parks.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 27, 2006

Dub pioneer Lee Perry talks God, ganja and Japanese gadgets

Musical resumes don't get much more impressive than Lee "Scratch" Perry's, the Jamaican maverick credited with inventing both dub and reggae.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 6, 2006

Beat is back

Spawned by the energy of punk, a new crowd of British bands known collectively as the ska revival, or the two-tone movement, emerged in the late 1970s around the Midlands area. Unlike the mainly white punk groups, bands such as The Specials, The Selecter and The Beat were comprised of both black and...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 1, 2006

May the least undesirable candidate win

WARSAW -- The late British Prime Minister Harold Wilson used to quip that "a week is a long time in politics." In the 30 or so weeks between now and the next French presidential election, any prediction made today could be reversed, and reversed again, before the vote.
SOCCER / J. League
Sep 21, 2006

Osim gets taste of victory after Abe fires late winner

CHIBA --Home, sweet home. Finally.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami