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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 4, 2009

Nature's way of perceiving things

Born in Denmark to Icelandic parents, Olafur Eliasson is best known for large-scale works that, in recreating natural phenomena, ask viewers to reconsider how they perceive their daily environments. In the "Weather Project" (2003), Eliasson installed a blinding sun — made of hundreds of mono-frequency...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Dec 1, 2009

Local vote for foreign residents: time ripe?

Permanent foreign residents of Japan may finally face a realistic chance of being granted local-level suffrage under the administration led by the Democratic Party of Japan, which has signaled a willingness to pursue such rights.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2009

Don't be like U.S.: Michael Moore

American movie director Michael Moore came to Japan for the first time Monday to plug his new movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" and to urge the country not to follow the path taken by the United States, where he says the gap between rich and poor is extreme.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Dec 1, 2009

Entrepreneur taps his foreign nature

Harry Hill, president of TV shopping channel operator Oak Lawn Marketing Inc., received a lot of discouraging comments from Japanese when he thought about selling the "Billy's Boot Camp" exercise DVDs.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Nov 30, 2009

When real is nominal and nominal real: the world of falling prices

A newspaper headline tells me 'Pace of growth picks up in Japan." The actual figures bear out the statement. Japan's real GDP registered a quarter-on-quarter increase of 1.2 percent in the July-September quarter. The Japanese economy is expanding.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Nov 28, 2009

Even pawnshops got it rough

You'd think that pawn shops would be one of the business capitalizing on the recession, but that's not exactly the case.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Nov 28, 2009

Five is a beehive in this country

"Two's company, three's a crowd and four is a party."
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2009

'Politically binding' budget screening over

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's waste-cutting panel finished its nine-day review of allocations Friday for 447 public works projects in the government's record-high ¥95 trillion budget for fiscal 2010.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2009

Entrepreneurs lack serious support

Entrepreneurship must be encouraged more if Japan is to play a key role on the global stage, and foreign entrepreneurs are in a great position to lead the way, experts said at a recent conference in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 27, 2009

Tokyo's urban design role

The Hatoyama government's ambitious carbon reduction goals position Japan for leadership in the postindustrial global economy. Less discussed is Tokyo's remarkable energy efficiency, urban ecology innovations, and its potential for playing a leading role in the next decade's biggest environmental challenge:...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 26, 2009

The long journey from Kafka to Gorbachev

NEW YORK — On Aug. 2, 1914, Franz Kafka wrote in his diary: "Germany has declared war against Russia. In the afternoon, swimming." Kafka, the reclusive and visionary Central European writer, gave his name to the 20th century. Seventy-five years had to pass before Kafka's swim before Central and Eastern...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Nov 26, 2009

Cable guy Yasushi Sano

Yasushi Sano, 30, is a "cable guy" living and working in Tokyo. By his estimates, over the past six years, he has installed cable TV into about fives homes a day, averaging 25 hook-ups a week, 100 a month and 1,200 a year, bringing quality entertainment into a total of 7,200 households. Sano's passion...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 26, 2009

Super Mario endures as games come and go

NEW YORK — You might call him the Mickey Mouse of video games. He's reminiscent of a doughnut, round and sweet and comforting. He's also a vessel, devoid of a real personality so you can live vicariously through him.
EDITORIALS
Nov 25, 2009

The shame of growing hunger

According to the United Nations, more than 1 billion people — one of every six persons on this planet — go hungry each day. In a world of unprecedented prosperity, that statistic is shameful. More appalling still, the number of undernourished individuals is growing despite rising levels of affluence...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Nov 25, 2009

U.S. online strategy holds clues for Tokyo

Imagine befriending Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Facebook. Or getting "tweets" from Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada on Twitter. It could happen if Tokyo follows Washington's lead.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 24, 2009

Emperor — poise under public spotlight

This year marks Emperor Akihito's 20th year on the Chrysanthemum Throne.
EDITORIALS
Nov 23, 2009

Overhaul the privacy law

The intentions behind the Personal Information Protection Law, which went into effect in April 2005, are good, but it has contributed to a tendency for organizations to withhold benign information that has significantly useful social value. Ms. Mizuho Fukushima, state minister in charge of consumer affairs,...
COMMENTARY
Nov 23, 2009

Two smart guys trying to figure it all out

LOS ANGELES — The two looked over the precipice and gasped at the steepness of the drop. They looked down at a desert of dashed hopes and old skeletons, scraping the bottom of the canyon.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 22, 2009

Ozawa's sermon hardly befitted the spirit of the mount he chose

On Nov. 10, Ichiro Ozawa, secretary general of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, dropped a bombshell in a speech he made atop one of Japan's most sacred mountains, Mount Koya, in Wakayama Prefecture.
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2009

Couple's love story started in Africa

good faith. What language do you use to communicate with each other and your children?
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 20, 2009

The difference is in the will to destroy a wall

PARIS — Walls designed to keep people in or out — whether they are in Berlin, Nicosia, Israel or Korea — are always the product of fear: East German leaders' fear of a mass exodus by their citizens seeking freedom and dignity; Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders' fear of continued war; Israelis'...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Nov 19, 2009

Cold cash for hot stoves

You would think that dangerous, outdated kerosene heaters would not still be considered 'modern appliances' in Japan.
COMMENTARY
Nov 19, 2009

Wrong way to halt warming

Here's a surprise. The countries with the best stories to tell at the forthcoming U.N. Copenhagen conference on climate change will probably be the ones that have not signed up to carbon-reducing targets at all, or have only signed up very recently. It could be China, the United States, India and Japan...

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past