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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 22, 2007

Preparing for . . . the Christmas that never comes

You think Christmas celebrations start too early in your country? So that when Christmas finally comes, you've already had enough of it? Where do you think "Season's Greetings" comes from?
Reader Mail
Dec 20, 2007

Remember the monks of Myanmar

I am disappointedly surprised at the comments of Nyunt Shwe in his Dec. 16 letter, "Monk deserves punishment." His arguments in support of the Tokyo High Court's judgment against a Buddhist monk who had been prosecuted for passing out Japanese Communist Party fliers' in a Tokyo Katsushika Ward condominium...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 20, 2007

Japan carmakers find an opening in U.S. market on the skids

LOS ANGELES — High oil prices may be driving down U.S. car sales, but Japanese automakers that depend on the U.S. market for the largest portion of their profits say the adverse conditions could present them with a business opportunity.
EDITORIALS
Dec 19, 2007

Stemming a worsening debacle

The debacle of 50.95 million hard-to-identify pension premium payment records has worsened. The Social Insurance Agency is expected to be able to somehow identify about 11 million records. But it has now been disclosed that it will be extremely difficult to identify some 19.75 million records — about...
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Dec 18, 2007

Mistletoe

Dear Alice,
Reader Mail
Dec 16, 2007

Okinawans know their own history

During World War II, Okinawa was a battlefield. Scars of the war still remain there. The people of Okinawa were not to be captured, they were afraid of American soldiers, so many committed mass suicide. Now the topic is a textbook controversy.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 16, 2007

Monks rap, strut in effort to re-energize Buddhism

Japanese monks and nuns held a fashion show — replete with rap music and a catwalk — at a major temple in Tokyo on Saturday to promote Buddhism.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Dec 16, 2007

A drama of our own making

One recent sunny afternoon, I set off for a performance of "Tokyo/Olympic" by the city's Port B theater company.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Dec 16, 2007

Tokyo's real floating world

One interesting phenomenon this year has been the growing popularity of tours to such unlikely places as factories and old bridges, where grimy stone walls, rusting mazes of pipes and crumbling concrete constructions have become a lure for worshippers at the altar of brutalism. In many ways, these tours...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2007

Bringing books, schools to the world's children

Immediately after meeting John Wood and hearing the story of his Room to Read program, I was reminded of one of my favorite childhood books. Though he isn't prone to wearing green leotards or stealing from the rich, this modern-day Robin Hood acquires donations from the world's largest companies and...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 15, 2007

Becoming one with the chair

I am a chair. I am a big, soft comfortable chair, fluffy and overstuffed like the ones that when you sit down in, they swallow you whole. And it did swallow me, which is how I became one with this chair.
JAPAN
Dec 15, 2007

Pair share eco-friendly role model goals

they don't have any prejudice toward foreigners. Satoko: When I quarreled with him (before marriage), my parents told me I am the closest person to Peo and have to support him.
Japan Times
JAPAN / READERS' FUND
Dec 14, 2007

Readers' contributions aiding struggling refugees in Japan

Third in a series
JAPAN
Dec 11, 2007

Hawker's friends try new appeal

hands out leaflets Sunday in Tokyo's Harajuku district, urging people to come forward with any information that could lead to the arrest of Tatsuya Ichihashi, who is wanted in the March slaying of Lindsay Ann Hawker. YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTO
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 6, 2007

Look back in anger

One way to learn what happened in one of history's most noxious but disputed episodes is to ask Satoru Mizushima. After what he calls "exhaustive research" on the seizure of the then Chinese capital Nanjing by Japanese troops in 1937, estimated to have cost anywhere from 20,000 to 300,000 lives, Mizushima...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2007

Hepatitis disaster another warning ignored

Ikuko Kuno gave birth to her first son at a maternity hospital in Ise, Mie Prefecture, in May 1988. The only thing different from when she gave birth to her daughter in 1986 was that the obstetrician gave her a blood-clotting agent to stop her hemorrhaging.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Dec 4, 2007

Digital terrestrial TV coming but work remains

More than half a century has passed since commercial television debuted in Japan, and now TVs are a main component of the mass culture.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 4, 2007

Taking liberties? Readers respond

The Community Page received an unprecedented number of responses to the "Taking Liberties" series that ran in this section last month. Following are some examples.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 2, 2007

Japanese media reaches for the stars in restaurant coverage

The first Michelin Guide to Tokyo's best restaurants has sold extremely well since going on sale Nov. 22, which isn't surprising given the huge amount of press it has received. The media love it when a foreign entity pays close attention to Japanese culture, and in this case it's culture you can eat,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Dec 1, 2007

Bond forged in Nepal still going strong

Praveen Lama and Kazuko Tanikawa have lived in a bustling shopping street in Tokyo's Kita Ward since July 2003, when the Nepalese married his Japanese wife after a long-distance love affair that lasted several years through e-mails and phone calls.
LIFE / Language
Nov 27, 2007

New translation vividly depicts postwar Tokyo

Shishi Bunroku (the pen name of Iwata Toyoo) is a writer who deserves to be better known. His novel "Jiyu Gakko (School of Freedom)" was a best seller when it first appeared in 1951, and gives as vivid a picture as we're likely to get today of what daily life was like in postwar Tokyo.
COMMUNITY
Nov 24, 2007

Textiles — whispering soul of India

Walking into the main exhibition hall on the second floor of the Nihon Mingeikan (Japan Folkcrafts Museum) in Tokyo's Komaba, re-creates the startling impression Hiroko Iwatate received when she first went to India 37 years ago.

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