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Reader Mail
Aug 15, 2007

Research needed on dolphin meat

Regarding the Aug. 1 article "Taiji Officials: dolphin meat 'toxic waste,'" Taiji town (Wakayama Prefecture) has a long history of engagement in dolphin fisheries, and many people have been enjoying dolphin meat for a long time. Boys and girls customarily have eaten the boiled internal organs of dolphins...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 14, 2007

Manga frenzy proves that we're all kids at heart

That whole deal about growing up and behaving like an adult? Scrap it, you don't have to — at least not in the Japan of recent years. Adult responsibilities, adult worries, adult concerns — while we all know such things exist, it's become possible to dodge them well into your 30s and 40s, in a kind...
EDITORIALS
Aug 12, 2007

Summer recuperation

The famous psychologist William James once said, "We learn to swim in winter and skate in summer." What he meant was that relaxing downtime is essential for unconsciously processing the lessons from busier times. James never experienced the heat and humidity of a Japanese summer, but if he had, he might...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 11, 2007

Critic awaits callers in Imperial Hotel suite

The Imperial Hotel in central Tokyo's Hibiya district is a surprising place. Yes, of course the rich and famous stay there. But how many realize that this famed institution also rents out private office suites. On the fifth floor, for example, is where TV commentator and author Kenichi Takemura hangs...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 10, 2007

Self-manufactured and proud

Ayear after the U.K. release of their debut album "We Are The Pipettes," the band are finally bringing their 1960s-styled pop to Japan. Their live show is not to be missed: Rosay, RiotBecki and Gwenno (who each go by one name) are ably backed by The Cassettes, their all-boy band, deploying dancetastic...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 10, 2007

A playground by the sea

Naughty Atami is the Shizuoka resort with the beachfront soaplands and other salacious establishments. It's got the fraying Hihokan (literally: House of Secret Treasures), likely the world's least scholarly sex museum, with its holographic strippers and a Marilyn Monroe mannequin that exposes itself...
COMMENTARY
Aug 9, 2007

Odds in democracy's favor

LONDON — "There's going to be a civil war." You heard it all the time in the old Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s. People fretted about it constantly in South Africa in 1994. They have been worrying about it in Lebanon for the past year. Now they're predicting it for Pakistan — but nine times...
EDITORIALS
Aug 7, 2007

Summer break in Baghdad

The most important question for Iraq is: Does the presence of foreign military forces prevent its descent into civil war, or do they permit the Baghdad government to avoid taking responsibility for the nation's future? The decision by the Iraqi Parliament to take a summer recess despite failing to take...
Reader Mail
Aug 5, 2007

An apology from one American

Regarding Kiroku Hanai's July 23 article, "U.S. owes A-bomb apology": I find the article sincere and having merit after living in Japan and learning for myself more of what was behind World War II and the colonization of Asia by Britain, France, the United States and other countries.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 5, 2007

Keeping the horror of Hiroshima alive

Masako's Story: Surviving the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, by Kikuko Otake, edited by Dr. Jesse Glass. Tokyo/Toronto: Ahadada Books, 2007, 94 pp. with photos and maps, $15 (paper) The cenotaph for the Hiroshima victims reads "Let all the souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil," but...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 5, 2007

Tojo and Bush: Trumpeting delusion on their way to defeat

Writing in the New York Times on July 17, the newspaper's well-known columnist David Brooks reported on a White House press conference he attended on July 13. "[Pres.] Bush was assertive and good-humored," Brooks noted.
EDITORIALS
Aug 4, 2007

Good intentions held hostage

The act of taking innocent people hostage and killing them to press demands is unpardonable. The Taliban should stop this atrocious behavior immediately. We extend our condolences to the souls and families of South Korean volunteers who have been killed since their group was kidnapped July 19 in Afghanistan....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 3, 2007

Fans-eye view from Naeba

Yo Okado, 41, accountant
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...
Reader Mail / The Argument: radioactive water
Jul 29, 2007

Sumo fans deserved mention

Like most sumo fans, I followed the Nagoya Tournament with particular attention this year and was thrilled that it developed into such a close contest. Naturally the participation of two yokozuna for the first time in a while was a factor, but in particular, it was the phenomenal success of Kotomitsuki....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 28, 2007

All-women NPO acknowledges the small kindness

Bustling with resilience and enthusiasm, Yukiko Yamahashi sets the tone for one of the few Japanese NPOs (nonprofit organizations) that still retains any degree of independence from government control. This means, of course, that it is regarded as troublesome, and a price has been paid.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 27, 2007

Ready for the muddy mountain

Through her three solo albums and work with Peaches, Broken Social Scene and Chilly Gonzales, Leslie Feist (who releases records under her last name) has established herself as the soulful queen of Canadian indie rock. Her new album, "The Reminder," released this month in Japan, is a collection of bruising,...
COMMENTARY
Jul 26, 2007

Turkish democracy shines

LONDON — The best thing about the outcome of the Turkish election on Sunday is that now the army can't stage a coup. It may still want to: It was certainly making menacing noises about it recently. But after almost half the voters (47 percent) backed the incumbent Justice and Development Party (AKP)...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / TAKING A CHANCE
Jul 24, 2007

'Silver workers' a gold mine for temp agency entrepreneur

When Shigeo Hirano set up Mystar60 Corp., a staffing agency specializing in finding jobs for people age 60 and over, he was a man on a mission.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jul 23, 2007

10 years on, currency earthquake is waiting to rattle Asia once more

It is 10 years since the Asian currency crisis. Currency crises are like earthquakes. I hesitate to use this analogy when lives have been lost and people continue to suffer as a result of the quake last week in the Chuetsu area of Niigata Prefecture. Yet the parallel is a valid one.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 20, 2007

Tokyo hosts world's top refugee film fest

The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) counts about 33 million refugees in the world today. There is an even larger multitude saddled with the chillingly bureaucratic title "internally displaced persons."
SPORTS / MULLY'S MISSIVES
Jul 19, 2007

"Footballoos" descend upon Hanoi to face Japan

HANOI — The "Footballoos" have landed.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 19, 2007

Music busts myth of monocultural Japan

On the 30-odd subtropical isles of the Ogasawara Island chain that lie sparkling in the South Pacific, some 1,000 km south of Tokyo, there exists a unique music and dance form classified as an Intangible Cultural Property of the capital. Historians have traced the evolution of this performing art to...
EDITORIALS
Jul 17, 2007

Restoration of human bonds

This year's government white paper on people's lives, the 50th such report since 1956, focuses on the importance (or rather the weakening) of human bonds in Japanese society at home, in local communities and in the workplace. It points out that long working hours, children's attendance at cram schools,...

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