Search - people

 
 
COMMUNITY
Sep 12, 2009

College head finds magic where he can

The Rev. Frank Howell, president of Sophia Junior College, Catholic priest, educator and debate team coach, finds serenity in an unexpected location amid the bustle of his busy life. He hops a train and heads to another land — Tokyo Disneyland.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2009

Less work, more play to lift economy: DPJ

Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan swept to power last month with the promise to revive the nation's moribund economy. One way to do so may be to stop people from working so hard.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BY THE GLASS
Sep 11, 2009

It's as good as it says on the bottle

Wine shops bear more than a passing resemblance to libraries. The hushed respectful tone of the staff, the way the wines are displayed on floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves with the rarest bottles set high up and only accessible by ladder. And like the covers of books, wine labels are seductive things:...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 8, 2009

Global solidarity to denuclearize

If nuclear weapons epitomize the forces that would divide and destroy the world, they can only be overcome by the solidarity of ordinary citizens. This solidarity has the power to make hope an irresistible force transforming history.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 8, 2009

Consumer Affairs boss underscores new, yet tenuous, role

The Consumer Affairs Agency must play the vital role of being the only government organ tasked with serving consumers, but in the process it might help bureaucrats improve their public image, the director general of the new body said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Sep 8, 2009

Parisian brings a touch of France to re-emerging Japanese traditions

Staff writer English-teaching? No. Military? No. Corporate transfer? No. None of the usual templates comes close to describing how Maia Maniglier ended up in Japan. Audacious bubble-era corporate recruiting experiment? That might do it.
Reader Mail
Sep 6, 2009

Show same courtesy to foreigners

I think the "gaijin clown" article is bang on. I was one of those people who laughs off many of the daily insults encountered as a foreigner in Japanese society, although I don't think all Japanese people have such narrow-minded views. I do think that such thinking is not discouraged in Japanese society,...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 6, 2009

Nosaka's 'Dugout' captures war trauma through a child's eyes

No postwar work of Japanese literature expresses the pity and misery of war for children quite like Akiyuki Nosaka's story of a brother and sister left orphaned and homeless, "Hotaru no Haka" ("Grave of the Fireflies"). Published first in 1967, this novella, which won the prestigious Naoki Prize, was...
COMMENTARY
Sep 4, 2009

Less water for more food as Asia urbanizes

SINGAPORE — Industrialization and urbanization across Asia have encouraged the misconception that they are the main gluttons of water. But the dominant force in Asian water consumption is agriculture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 4, 2009

Wonder Stuff give fans an encore

Anyone who knows anything about the U.K. pop scene understands how important the music weeklies are to the success of young artists, and while the Internet has undermined that influence they can still make or break a band. Miles Hunt should know. He and his group, The Wonder Stuff, were darlings of the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Sep 1, 2009

Meet Mr. James, gaijin clown

If you want to sell stuff, it helps to have a recognizable mascot representing your company. Disney has Mickey Mouse, Sanrio Hello Kitty, Studio Ghibli Totoro. These imaginary characters grace many a product and ad campaign.
Reader Mail
Aug 30, 2009

Aso's all-time greatest blooper

Regarding the Aug. 25 article "Poor men too lowly to wed: Aso": Prime Minister Taro Aso's comments that people with little money would be better off not getting married and that it is difficult for him to understand how someone without pay can be seen as worthy of a partner's respect are, to say the...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Aug 29, 2009

Goodbye Work

With unemployment rates at an all-time high, it's easy to see an incoming wave of newly homeless.
JAPAN / ELECTION 2009
Aug 28, 2009

LDP heavyweight Koga running for his life

OMUTA, Fukuoka Pref. — For decades, voters in the Fukuoka No. 7 district, which encompasses the southern part of the prefecture, have always said, "Makoto ni arigato gozaimasu" come election time.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 28, 2009

Dipping into modern art at Naoshima's bathhouse

At 2 p.m. on July 26, operations commenced at the first public bathhouse on the island of Naoshima in the Seto Inland Sea between the mainland of Honshu and Shikoku. Titled Naoshima Bathhouse "I Love Yu" (the "Love" represented by a heart symbol and "Yu" in kanji form) and designed by artist Shinro Ohtake...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 28, 2009

ASEAN rights panel offers scant defense of victims

PENANG, Malaysia — Last month the Term of Reference (TOR) for the establishment of a regional human rights body received the approval of the ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting in Phuket, Thailand.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 28, 2009

Bathing in timeless memories

Artist Shinro Ohtake discusses with The Japan Times "inside-out" buildings, private memories, public meanings and other inspirations underlying the "I Love Yu" bathhouse at Naoshima.
COMMENTARY
Aug 26, 2009

Drawing key lessons from the failure of Obamacare

"What worries me: time and time again," writes Brendan Skwire in the Philadelphia Weekly about the circuses that are currently passing for Democrats' town hall meetings on health care, "[is that] the needs of the stupid and disingenuous are not only treated as valid concerns, but as the greatest concerns."...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2009

Opening a regulated market for kidney sales

PRINCETON, N.J. — The arrest in New York last month of Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum, a Brooklyn businessman whom police allege tried to broker a deal to buy a kidney for $160,000, coincided with the passage of a law in Singapore that some say will open the way for organ trading there.
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Aug 25, 2009

Socializing on the volleyball court in Roppongi

Roppongi on Saturday morning tends to be quiet and empty, and pretty much all you see moving there apart from cars and trucks are a few sleep-deprived, hung-over remnants of the Friday night party crowd hobbling toward the station.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Aug 25, 2009

What would you do if you were prime minister of Japan?

EDITORIALS
Aug 23, 2009

Safety during torrential rain

Recent torrential rains took the lives of 17 people in Yamaguchi Prefecture and 22 others in Hyogo, Okayama and Tokushima prefectures. This highlights the importance of municipal actions in securing the safety of local residents during heavy rain.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 23, 2009

Sling some mud and have some election fun

Nothing I've read exemplifies the misdirection of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's campaign for the Aug. 19 Lower House elections better than a letter that appeared in last Tuesday's Asahi Shimbun from a reader who said he had to look up sekinin-ryoku after seeing it used in various LDP ads.

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