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CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 16, 2006

For Fumiko Hayashi, not every cloud has a silver lining

FLOATING CLOUDS by Fumiko Hayashi, translated by Lane Dunlop. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006, 328 pp., $27.50 (cloth). Toward the end of her life Fumiko Hayashi (1903-1951) said that she did not think her work would outlive her. Happily, she was quite wrong: She remains one of Japan's most...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 15, 2006

Zidane -- a bit of the old cow

Many people have been left perplexed by the performance of French soccer player Zinedine Zidane in the 110th minute of the World Cup final. Provoked by Italian Marco Materazzi, Zidane turned around and head butted the Italian so hard, he knocked him down.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 14, 2006

A confluence of buzzes

Artistic restlessness is not a quality normally associated with rookie rock bands. It applies more to established groups who've outgrown their signature sound. TV on the Radio, a Brooklyn quintet whose second album, "Return to Cookie Mountain," was already being touted by tastemakers as the year's best...
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2006

Student loan defaults hit 142,000 in '05

A record 142,000 people have failed to repay their student loans even a year after the deadline, a survey by the government-affiliated Japan Student Services Organization showed Wednesday.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 9, 2006

Japan fashions a menswear coup d'etat

For a week in July, Paris becomes an outpost of Tokyo as Japanese designers and buyers throng the catwalks, parties and cafes where business is done at the biannual men's clothing collections
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 9, 2006

There's a price to pay for flaunting wealth in Japan

For its annual World Wealth Report, finance firm Merrill Lynch circles the globe and counts the number of millionaires. Though a million dollars -- 114 million yen, as defined by the survey -- ain't what it used to be, it's still a distant dream for the vast majority.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 8, 2006

On the train, the English teacher is 'out'

I often hear foreigners complain that Japanese people will not sit next to them on the train. The perception is that this is some form of discrimination, or perhaps more simply, that we just plain smell bad. Or maybe foreigners feel this is a form of ostracizing, leaving them feel all alone.
JAPAN
Jul 2, 2006

81% want to be told of dementia

More than 80 percent of people surveyed say they want to be informed if they are someday diagnosed with dementia, according to the National Institute for Longevity Sciences.
LIFE
Jul 2, 2006

Showdown at Budokan

The rightwing reactionaries were arriving in their menacing black-and-white trucks, blasting military music. The politicians were shaking their fists and telling people to go to a garbage dump. The police had locked down all entrances to the Imperial Palace grounds. Riot police lined the road leading...
JAPAN
Jul 1, 2006

Japan's population now world's grayest

The proportion of people age 65 and older in Japan reached the world's highest at 21 percent in 2005, surpassing Italy's 20 percent, the government said Friday in a preliminary report.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jul 1, 2006

A mite louder than mice: city gaijin vs. country gaijin

OK, so it's not the greatest conflict of all time. It's not Pepsi vs. Coke, Tom vs. Jerry or even Freddy vs. Jason. Plus it's not Japan-specific. The following swords of debate can be crossed in any nation at any time by anyone.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Jun 30, 2006

Psychedelic radar 06.30

Solstice Music Festival 2006: July 15-17
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jun 30, 2006

Playing to projected light

A member of Sun Ra's Arkestra from 1958, Marshall Allen was there at the inception of the avant-garde jazz scene in the 1960s. Sun Ra, who died in 1993 -- or was transported to another planet, as the eccentric artist always insisted would happen -- led one of the most experimental, and controversial...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 29, 2006

WTO: a call for 'enlightened negotiators'

The current multilateral trade negotiations under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are approaching the moment of truth. The major gridlock among key players, such as Japan, the United States, the European Union and Brazil seems, however, difficult to be unlocked at the series of ministerial...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jun 29, 2006

Shonen Knife cuts the cake

I recently caught up with guitarist/vocalist Naoko from Shonen Knife, arguably the most famous Japanese band in the world, as they celebrate their 25th anniversary this year.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 28, 2006

Japan needs better PR, less whale meat

LONDON -- Every year on my annual visit to Tokyo I spend at least one evening drinking sake in a small bar in Shibuya. And every year after I have finished eating one of the dishes the mama-san has put in front of me, while I am talking, there will be a big cheer and a lot of laughter. Yet again I have...
EDITORIALS
Jun 28, 2006

Supreme Court sidesteps issue

A banner that a plaintiff held up outside the nation's top court on Friday aptly summed up a ruling made the same day. It read: "Supreme Court avoids deciding on the constitutionality (of the issue)." The issue is Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine on Aug. 13,...
EDITORIALS
Jun 28, 2006

Justice for hepatitis victims

On June 16, the Supreme Court ruled that government-sponsored inoculations were responsible for infecting five people with the hepatitis B virus. It ordered the government to pay 5.5 million yen to each in compensation. Separately, on June 21, the Osaka District Court ordered the state, a drug maker...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 27, 2006

China showing less angst over Taiwan

HONOLULU -- In the seas around the U.S. island territory of Guam in the Central Pacific, a delegation of 10 Chinese army, navy and air force officers watched three American aircraft carriers and other armed forces go through strenuous training paces last week.
LIFE / Language
Jun 27, 2006

Colorful proverbs capture a peculiar sensibility

Every language has a vast number of proverbs, mottos and saws, and native speakers often quote them to express a feeling or to prove a point. The fact is that you can "prove" almost anything with a colorful turn of phrase as practically every proverb has an equal and opposite proverb.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jun 27, 2006

Have you ever had a racist experience?

Toru Ishii HR worker, 30 In Texas, I was walking on the street and some guy came up to me, said "f***in' Jap" and punched my stomach. Once at a Nagano onsen, the entrance guy said "gaijin dame." I told him "I'm Japanese!" and he apologized and let me in.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 25, 2006

What's in it for them to return us to 'prewar values'?

The leaders of many countries evoke their nation's history as if it were an idyll of virtue and civility. They gaze into the mirror of the past and see no dark blemish, only purity, goodness and light.
JAPAN
Jun 24, 2006

Schools taking anticrime steps

Over 90 percent of elementary schools have implemented measures to help protect their students from crime, including "hazard maps," according to an education ministry survey.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Jun 23, 2006

Here for your a muse ment

Though Roppongi is party central for most foreigners, Shibuya has, in the course of the last 10 years or so, emerged as a brave new challenger for the title. Even foreigners have come around to the upstart, which was originally put on the party map by a new breed of then young and restless Japanese revelers,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 22, 2006

Bringing "Lepage magic" to Tokyo

Last year, to mark the bicentennial of the birth of author Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75), Denmark held a yearlong celebration titled "Andersen Project 2005." Part of the project was a special commission to French-Canadian dramatist Robert Lepage to create a play commemorating the author's life and...
JAPAN
Jun 20, 2006

50 years on, Minamata stigma lingers

People with Minamata disease still face discrimination and prejudice half a century after the official recognition of the mercury-poisoning disease, they said at a public forum in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 19, 2006

The radicalization of Western Muslims

LONDON -- What is it that makes young Muslims in the West susceptible to radicalism? What is it about the experience of the West's rising generation of Muslims that leads a small minority to see violence as a solution to their economic and political dilemmas, and suicide as their reward and salvation?...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 18, 2006

Roles that lead a company to success

THE TEN FACES OF INNOVATION by Tom Kelley and Jonathon Littman. Doubleday, 276 pp., 2005, $29.95 (cloth). "It's the smile, stupid."
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 18, 2006

To whom it may concern:

Something exceedingly tragic is occurring in Japan today, something it falls to me to reveal now on these pages. It is, simply, that the Japanese people are becoming invisible before our very eyes. At the present rate, by my rough estimate, not one single identifiable Japanese individual will be living...

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