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COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2008

In memory of dreamer Bronislaw Geremek

WARSAW — When a friend dies unexpectedly, we recall his face, his smile, the conversations forever unfinished.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2008

Believe it or not, Mugabe still has supporters

HIROSAKI, Aomori Pref. — The world can't understand how Robert Mugabe has support left in Zimbabwe. After violence and intimidation against his opponents he was able to steal a victory, but at great cost. Why do his people put up with it and why did he gain over 40 percent of the vote in the first...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 27, 2008

Was the 'Japanese Renaissance' lost at sea?

Last week, Japan celebrated Umi no Hi (Marine Day). First observed as a national holiday in 1996, Marine Day marks the anniversary of the return of Emperor Meiji from a boat trip to Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido on July 20, 1876.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 27, 2008

Hail and farewell to the world's greatest 'Good Gringo' U.S. president

On April 1, the widely read History News Network (HNN) Web site announced the results of a survey it conducted among historians.
EDITORIALS
Apr 24, 2008

Warming up Tokyo-Seoul ties

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak's visit to Japan this week heralds the start of a new relationship between South Korea and Japan. It is the first visit to Japan by a South Korean president since December 2004, when Mr. Roh Moo Hyun met with then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Prime Minister Yasuo...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 13, 2008

Landmark case spotlights 'Japanese-style nationalism'

"The most critical thing for us Japanese in the 21st century is to free ourselves from Japanese-style nationalism, both politically and culturally." So said author Kenzaburo Oe to me in the autumn of 1995, a year after he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
COMMENTARY
Mar 26, 2008

Why this foreigner supports Obama

WATERLOO, Canada — Barack Obama's speech on race and politics on March 18 came from and spoke to the heart. It was brutally, searingly honest. Nothing he said or could have said will appease the detractors and the naysayers. But their sniping and carping will diminish them and betray their smallness...
BUSINESS / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Feb 4, 2008

For Russia and Japan, bad blood not as thick as it seems

The great industrialist Henry Ford once proclaimed "history is bunk." But when it comes to international business, this wisdom does not always prevail.
COMMENTARY
Jan 6, 2008

Embodiment of Pakistan's paradoxes

LOS ANGELES — A gift given to me years ago from Benazir Bhutto, an elegantly decorated wood jewelry box slathered in glossy lacquer, still adorns a sideboard in our home.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 23, 2007

'Grbavica'/'Children of Glory'

When the civil war broke out in Bosnia Herzegovina, Jasmila Zbanic was 17 years old.
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2007

Okinawans lobby in Tokyo for textbook changes

A group of 167 political leaders and activists from Okinawa urged the central government Tuesday to retract the education ministry's instruction to publishers to remove references to the military's role in forcing civilians to commit mass suicide during the Battle of Okinawa.
COMMENTARY
Sep 1, 2007

Sarkozy offends in Africa

LONDON — The time was bound to come when France and the rest of the world would miss that old crook, Jacques Chirac, but who could have guessed that it would arrive so fast?
CULTURE / Books
Jul 8, 2007

Japan, just a puppet of America?

Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, by Gavan McCormack. New York: Verso Press, 2007, 246 pp., $29.95 (paper) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi are usually portrayed as assertive nationalists, but come off here as dutiful and submissive gophers carrying out the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 14, 2007

In focus: 150 years of Japanese photography

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the oldest-known photograph taken by a Japanese person. Yet it is only in recent years that Japanese have started to take a serious interest in the history of early photography in this country, according to Terry Bennett, a London-based photo-historian.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 22, 2007

Seeing from the Korean side

In February this year over 300 people attended the performing arts festival at a junior high school in Okayama. It was much the same as any other arts festival at any other junior high school in Japan; the students sang, danced, played music and performed skits for an audience made up of family and friends....
CULTURE / Books
Apr 29, 2007

The problem with Pan Asianism

PAN-ASIANISM IN MODERN JAPANESE HISTORY: Colonialism, Regionalism and Borders, edited by Sven Saaler and J Victor Koschmann. London: Routledge, 2007, 288 pp., £21.99 (paper) Pan Asianism, the notion of creating a fraternity of Asians, provides insights on how transnational perceptions and policies...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 13, 2007

Not afraid to mention the war

Filmmaker Roland Suso Richter grew up in Berlin at a time when the Wall and all its connotations had full impact on its citizens. "Being a child in Berlin meant growing up entrenched in war and history. There was no escape from it, it was a part of life," Richter says.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 29, 2007

Abe needlessly fans the flames

WASHINGTON -- Barely half a year into his premiership, Shinzo Abe is provoking anger across Asia and mixed feelings in his country's key ally, the United States. But will the Bush administration use its influence to nudge Abe away from inflammatory behavior?
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 11, 2007

J. League's Onitake optimistic about future

The Japan Times recently visited J. League chairman Kenji Onitake at his office to find out about his vision for the future of the league and soccer in Japan.
COMMENTARY
Feb 27, 2007

The legacy of failing to learn

LONDON -- Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he will resign later this year. U.S. President George W. Bush's second term ends at the end of next year. These two may not have more vanity than other politicians, but in their final months they seem to be giving more thought than usual to their historical...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 6, 2007

Gary and Alaete Fish

A dozen years ago when Gary and Alaete Fish retired from Japan, they left an indelible mark here. Light-hearted and laughter-loving, for 30 years Gary taught history and Latin at The American School in Japan. He was also an actor and theater director.
EDITORIALS
Dec 29, 2006

Narrowing the great divide

Japanese and Chinese scholars held their first meeting this week in Beijing on a joint project to study both countries' ancient and modern history. Launch of the project had been agreed to in October by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Hu Jintao during their summit in Beijing.
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 24, 2006

Find out why a fountain pen 'personalizes' your prose

Kumiko Kumazawa of Pilot Corporation placed four fountain pens in front of me.
EDITORIALS
Nov 1, 2006

Entrance exam blow-back

Some 290 high schools across Japan, most of them publicly run, were found to have not taught all compulsory subjects to students. More than 47,000 students have been affected. Third-year students who will take university entrance exams early next year will especially be in a tight spot. To be able to...
COMMENTARY
Oct 26, 2006

Revisionists damaging Japan

LONDON -- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has the reputation of being a tough nationalist. So far, however, he has shown himself to be a pragmatist in foreign-policy issues. His early visits to China and South Korea demonstrated that he wants to improve bilateral relations, which have soured in recent years....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 12, 2006

Telling another side of the story

James Bradley wrote the book "Flags of Our Fathers," on which one of Clint Eastwood's new films is based. "Flags" tells the true story of what is arguably the most famous photo in warfare, taken as his father and five other marines raised the Stars and Stripes on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima in 1945.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 24, 2006

Japan needs a Willy Brandt

BERLIN -- Junichiro Koizumi will resign as the Japanese prime minister at the end of this month and be replaced by Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe. Koizumi became prime minister in April 2001. After more than five years as prime minister, Koizumi's political record is checkered: He achieved big successes...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 27, 2006

Picturing North Korean propaganda

Japan's comic craze was first documented for the West with the publication of Frederick Schodt's "Manga Manga, The World of Japanese Comics" (1983). Since then, the production and consumption of manga and anime -- its moving picture equivalent -- have spread to China and the Republic of Korea. More recently,...

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic