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Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Aug 3, 2012

Hawaiian food at JAL, Okura hotels

Through August, Okura Hotels and Resorts and its group company JAL Hotels Co. are collaborating to hold a summer Hawaiian gourmet fair, featuring special menus from member hotels Kahala Hotel and Resort in Honolulu and Makena Beach and Golf Resort in Maui.
COMMENTARY
Aug 3, 2012

Pushing Seoul-Tokyo forward

There is an old Russian proverb that applies to current Japan-South Korea (ROK) relations: "Forget the past and lose an eye; dwell on the past and lose both eyes!"
EDITORIALS
Aug 3, 2012

Promoting entrepreneurship

A fiscal 2012 white book on the economy and state finances endorsed by the Cabinet on July 27 stressed the importance of entrepreneurship to accelerate innovation, an important factor for economic growth as Japan faces a declining birthrate and the graying of the population.
Reader Mail
Aug 2, 2012

Group responsibility drawback

Regarding Tyas Huybrechts' July 29 letter, "The will to take on bullying": The Japanese education system is based on bullying. From elementary school on, students are placed in han with four or five of their classmates. While euphemistically translated as "lunch groups," han are about a lot more than...
COMMENTARY
Aug 2, 2012

The Olympic extravaganza

London has Olympics mania. The newspapers are devoting more than half their pages to the games while the airwaves are dominated at all hours by coverage of Olympic events. Even cynical oldies can't avoid catching some of the fever.
OLYMPICS
Aug 2, 2012

Table tennis back home in Britain

It's commonly known that the British gave the world rugby and cricket and soccer (though football is the precise term used by the proud English and most of the civilized world).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 2, 2012

Christian Boltanski's mesmeric "No Man's Land" draws visitors to the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2012's new Satoyama Museum of Contemporary Art

Christian Boltanski's "No Man's Land" is both daunting and mesmerizing. It's difficult to take your eyes off the 20-ton mound of clothing, which at 9 meters tall dwarfs an accompanying crane that tosses on more T-shirts, trousers and dresses with a giant claw.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2012

Avoid buying foreign currency bonds, BOJ told

The Bank of Japan should reject calls for it to buy foreign currency bonds to weaken the yen because such a move would hurt its independence, said Makoto Utsumi, a former top currency official.
COMMENTARY
Jul 31, 2012

Smell of untaxed trillions

One of the best tax-avoidance tactics in the late Roman Empire was to sell yourself into slavery. You didn't really have to work as somebody's slave, of course — it was more like rock star Hotblack Desiato being "dead for a year for tax reasons" in Douglas Adams' wondrous confection "The Hitch-Hiker's...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 30, 2012

When horrific death leaps off the movie screen

We go to the movies to dream.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Jul 30, 2012

Tokyo bid committee unveils plan

Less than 24 hours after London's blockbuster Opening Ceremony at Olympic Stadium, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Bid Committee revealed its plan for its own main stadium, one that would be trend-setting.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jul 29, 2012

Gasol leads by example for club and country

Fact: Kobe Bryant is one of the five most famous athletes on the planet.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 29, 2012

The Taisho Era: When modernity ruled Japan's masses

"Democracy is so popular these days!" — "The Democracy Song," 1919
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 29, 2012

'Taisho Democracy' pays the ultimate price

Party politics seems as natural to many of us today as government itself, but imagine how it looked to the uninitiated 150 years ago.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 29, 2012

In our time of global aggression we could learn from the 'Land of Sorry'

Back in 1991, I was offered a tenured position at a university in Kyoto. Needless to say, this was a big step for me and my family, who were all looking forward to settling into Kyoto life.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 25, 2012

Wired with technology to fight fear in Mexico

A couple of months ago we visited Juarez, Mexico, a city right across our border — yet so far away.
COMMENTARY
Jul 25, 2012

China, Russia and Syria: the ghost of Gadhafi at the U.N.

China and Russia have cast three vetoes so far on draft U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolutions aimed at tougher international responses to the Syrian's government's brutal crackdown on protestors and rebels.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2012

Dreams of isolation imperil island populations

The Japanese and the British may seem very different, but a closer look reveals something akin to a parallel destiny for these two island peoples.
EDITORIALS
Jul 23, 2012

Aid with strings for Afghanistan

The international community has agreed to continue its support for Afghanistan, committing at a conference on July 8 in Tokyo to provide $16 billion in aid to the embattled government. But donors have adopted a new mindset, demanding that the money be well spent and promising the government in Kabul...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 22, 2012

Spies and their watchers in a tense war of nerves

What in the world is China going to do with 5,000 tsubo — about four acres — of land in Niigata City? Build a new consulate general, it says. But that seems like an awful lot for a consulate in a regional city whose main activity since it initially opened has been issuance of commercial visas.
EDITORIALS
Jul 21, 2012

Divisions serve to weaken ASEAN

The foreign ministers of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations held an extraordinary meeting on July 13 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Earlier there they had expressed concern over territorial disputes over islands and reefs in the resource-rich South China Sea between certain ASEAN members...
BUSINESS
Jul 21, 2012

Insider trading to be crime: DPJ

The ruling Democratic Party of Japan is seeking changes to insider-trading rules that will allow criminal charges and fines for brokerages and bankers who leak stock listing information, according to a draft document.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jul 20, 2012

Boomer boom: Businesses tapping consumption where they can find it

Retired people are already single-handedly propping up consumption.

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