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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 13, 2009

Towa Tei wallows in optimism for art's sake

"In Tokyo, there is too much information," says famed Japanese producer and DJ Towa Tei. "Even if you don't want to listen to music, you are raped into listening to something you don't like at the convenience store. So I try to go somewhere quiet and listen whenever I want to!"
EDITORIALS
Feb 13, 2009

Beware pledges of sweet returns

The police have arrested the chairman of L&G K.K., a Tokyo-based bedding supplier, and 21 other people on suspicion of defrauding investors through a sham investment scheme. The specific charge that led to the arrests alleges that the suspects collected about ¥118 million from six people between July...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 13, 2009

'Defiance'

As I sit here in a Midtown cafe, sipping a latte and gazing leisurely at the late-season Christmas lights as dusk settles over this well-heated monument to 21st-century consumer pleasures, it's hard to imagine the potential for chaos.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 13, 2009

A Ginza haven for New World wines and Swiss cheese

Away from the glitzy buildings of Ginza's main crossing, behind a drab frontage down a nondescript side street, sits a wine bar that really stands out from the crowd. In contrast to the majority of Tokyo's wine bars, Cheese and Wine Salon Murase embraces New World rather than Old World wines and boasts...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 13, 2009

An abandoned history of Chinese influence

Edo Period (1603-1868) paintings from Osaka have been relatively neglected in comparison with paintings from Tokyo and Kyoto. A canonical list of works and a historical framework were written up in Tokyo in the 1890s in a series of influential lectures by scholar Okakura Tenshin, setting the directions...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 13, 2009

Light moments in a drab metropolis

Tokyo can be a drag. At least if you are a photographer trying to tackle what can appear on the surface as one of the most unphotogenic cities in the world. A scarcity of obviously iconic buildings, combined with cramped, crowded and twisted spaces — usually crisscrossed with unsightly wires and hemmed...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 13, 2009

Young vines, intense wines

Last month saw the Washington Wine Commission host the Taste Washington event, which showcased wines from 45 wineries in the region. For the event in Ebisu at the Westin Hotel's Galaxy Ballroom on Jan. 29, wine enthusiasts gathered from all over Tokyo eager to sample wines from a location that, while...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 13, 2009

A variation on a Bach classic

Although most music is in a constant state of change, Spanish pianist Isidro Barrio will create a bigger stir than most when he presents his variation of the "Goldberg Variations" in Tokyo on Feb. 17.
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2009

Yamaha Motor projects '09 net loss

Yamaha Motor Co. said it will post a net loss this year as demand for its vehicles drops.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 13, 2009

Theater unchained in Marx-themed play

The grave of Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery, North London, is marked by a bronze bust of the German political philosopher and economist atop a massive granite block on which is inscribed: "Workers of all lands unite."
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2009

GDP likely shrank 11.7%: experts

Japan's economy shrank at an annual pace of more than 10 percent last quarter amid an unprecedented collapse in exports and production, a report next week may show.
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2009

Toyota, GM slip in cost survey

Toyota Motor Corp. and General Motors Corp., the world's two largest automakers, lost ground in an annual survey of ownership costs that includes such measures as resale value and repair costs.
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2009

Pioneer to dismiss 10,000, exit TVs

Pioneer Corp., projecting a fifth straight year of losses, forecast a wider annual deficit because of lower than expected sales of car electronics and said it is pulling out of the television business altogether and will cut 10,000 jobs worldwide.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 13, 2009

'Heaven's Door'/'Lost Girl'

Youth, illness and love are the basic ingredients of many a movie, especially in Japan, where romantic dramas about dying teenagers are about as common as convenience stores.
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2009

China sales to slow

Nissan Motor Co. expects sales growth for Nissan brand vehicles in China to slow to 4.6 percent this year, on a par with growth in the overall Chinese market.
Reader Mail
Feb 12, 2009

Establish regional trauma centers

Regarding the Feb. 5 article "Crash victim refused by 14 hospitals dies": The emergency medical service in Japan is not failing; it failed a long time ago and is basically beyond death's door. Japan needs to set up a system of regional trauma centers, each serving several hundred thousand people, with...
Reader Mail
Feb 12, 2009

Who is responsible for the past?

Regarding the Feb. 7 article "Aso Mining POWs seek redress": Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker Yukihisa Fujita is quoted as saying, "As a prime minister of a nation who represents the country, (Prime Minister Taro) Aso needs to take responsibility for the past as well as the future."
Reader Mail
Feb 12, 2009

Doubts about high school quality

The enrollment figures presented by Robert Dujarric and Yuki Allyson Honjo in their Feb. 5 article, "Why can't Japanese kids get into Harvard?," mirrored my own observations from when I was an undergrad there. Compared to the many students from Korea, China and elsewhere throughout Asia, Japanese students...
Reader Mail
Feb 12, 2009

Poor motivation is inefficient

Regarding Gregory Clark's Feb. 5 article, "What's wrong with the way English is taught in Japan": If I spent 15 minutes carefully showing someone how to do the simple act of juggling three golf balls in the air, and then handed him the golf balls so he could demonstrate how much he had learned, I would...
Reader Mail
Feb 12, 2009

Stumbling block for bright students

As former chair of the Secondary Schools Committee for the Harvard Club of Japan from 1990 until 1999, and a member of the International Admissions Committee in the Harvard Admissions Office before that, I am in a unique position to support the observations of Robert Dujarric and Yuki Allyson Honjo in...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 12, 2009

U.S. expert urges death penalty rethink

While 80 percent of the Japanese public is in favor of capital punishment, support for executions would drop if life without parole sentences were also an option, according to an American criminologist who visited Tokyo recently.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 12, 2009

Japan as the catalyst for improving global public health

What place should Japan occupy in the world? This existential question has troubled Japan's leaders for the past two decades. Military leadership is restricted by the Constitution. Economic might has lost its glimmer. Cultural influence, epitomized by "cool Japan," has yet to take center stage.
SOCCER / World cup
Feb 12, 2009

Socceroos frustrate Japan in draw

YOKOHAMA — A disciplined defensive performance from Australia frustrated Japan's attempts to jump to the top of Asian World Cup qualifying Group A on Wednesday night as the Socceroos held Takeshi Okada's men to a 0-0 draw.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 12, 2009

Nation grapples with pot-smoking sumo wrestlers

Sumo wrestlers with pot bellies, yes. Sumo wrestlers with pot? Now that's harder to grapple with.
EDITORIALS
Feb 12, 2009

Abuse of anonymity

The Metropolitan Police Department plans to send papers on 18 men and women, 17 to 45 years old, to public prosecutors for allegedly posting several hundreds of defamatory messages on the blog of a 37-year-old comedian. It has already sent papers on a 29-year-old woman from Kawasaki to public prosecutors...

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo