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COMMENTARY / World
Sep 3, 2012

The heirs of inequality

It has long been known that spurts of rapid economic growth can increase inequality: China and India are the latest examples. But might slow growth and rising inequality — the two most salient characteristics of developed economies nowadays — also be connected?
Japan Times
Sep 3, 2012

Explore new horizons in borderless world

The findings of a survey conducted recently by a leading Japanese business daily have come as a great shock for Japanese university officials and others concerned. The survey asked senior personnel managers at major Japanese corporations to name any Japanese universities that they believe are worthy...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 2, 2012

A Borgesian look at a fictional Hong Kong

ATLAS: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City, by Dung Kai-cheung, translated by Anders Hansson and Bonnie S. McDougall. Columbia University Press, 2012, 192 pp., $24.50 (hardcover).
SOCCER / J. League
Sep 1, 2012

Yokohama defender Kurihara has big ambitions with club and country

Yuzo Kurihara may be suspended for Japan's World Cup qualifier against Iraq this month, but if the Yokohama F. Marinos defender cannot be with his teammates in body, he fully intends to be there in spirit.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 31, 2012

'Intouchables'

It's often said that the Japanese are blissfully ignorant of race issues that occur in the West while being overly (sometimes absurdly) alert to those same issues at home, even as they have no idea how to deal with them. With this in mind, it's a little tempting to think what would happen if a remake...
Reader Mail
Aug 30, 2012

Old 'small government' refrain

In a Washington Post opinion article that ran Aug. 27 in The Japan Times under the headline "The unlikely chance of shrinking government," Lawrence Summers discusses the debate about the size of government, and how and why the size is unlikely to decrease in the coming years.
Reader Mail
Aug 30, 2012

Harbinger of the future is here

Thank you for Stephen Hesse's insightful Aug. 26 article, "If we ruin the air, what will our children breathe?" Here in Missouri the drought of 2012 continues to oppress both farmer and rancher across the state. Rural water wells are going dry! Major cities are asking residents to refrain from watering...
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Aug 30, 2012

The customer is always right, but that's what's wrong in Japan's live-house scene

The roundly despised pay-to-play system in place throughout most of Tokyo's live-music scene, and to a slightly lesser extent in many other cities, is something I've written about in this column before.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 30, 2012

'Our Planet' director focuses on Japan's locals

Just three years ago, in 2009, Yukio Shiba burst to stardom at age 27 with his masterful first play, "Waga Hoshi" ("Our Planet"), which premiered in Tokyo and the following year scooped Japanese contemporary theater's prestigious Kishida Kunio Award.
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Aug 28, 2012

Houlton feels good about '12 Giants

D.J. Houlton is dealing with a case of deja vu.
COMMENTARY
Aug 28, 2012

Lockdown on expert candor

Larry Summers knows better. In a column for the Washington Post (which ran Monday in The Japan Times under the headline "The unlikely chance of shrinking government"), the Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and former economic adviser to President Barack Obama shows why the federal government...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LIGHT GIST
Aug 28, 2012

How did we end up here, in 'Hashimotopia,' 2022?

Walking home the other night, I glanced furtively over my shoulder and clocked the notorious tattoo-enforcement police heading in my direction. I ducked into a nearby konbini and cursed that bad decision inked onto my forearm in the 1990s.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Aug 28, 2012

Paid leave, advice for foreign parents, JET's value: readers' views

Uncompetitive Japan Inc. Not being a Japanese person employed in a private Japanese company, it is hard for me to imagine the hardship experienced by the writer of the July 17 Have Your Say letter ("Working employees to death"). I can, however, say with a high degree of confidence that laws mandating...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Aug 28, 2012

Hunter Shoji Kuramochi

Shoji Kuramochi, 73, is one of Japan's few surviving hunters, and he may be the only one with 100 trained hunting dogs. Besides being a hunter of wild boars and deer, he's also an expert at the traditional Japanese art forms of bonsai cultivation and the breeding of beautiful and rare types of kingyo...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Aug 28, 2012

American photojournalist combines traditional with modern in daily life

Everett Brown's lifestyle is a reflection of his philosophy on life.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Aug 27, 2012

Noda's hapless diplomacy

Strange though it may seem, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who heads the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, is seeking support and advice from former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori of the No. 1 opposition Liberal Democratic Party in his bid to restructure Japanese diplomacy in general as well as improve...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 26, 2012

In the real world if it looks like violence it's violence

On Aug. 15 police in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture, arrested a 19-year-old man for trying to kill the head of the local board of education. The suspect was reportedly angry at the board's failure to properly investigate the suicide of a male junior high school student last October. After the parents of the...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Aug 26, 2012

All the fun of the fair — and that's just the temples

Inspired by this summer's Olympic quest for gold medals, I opt to go for the gold myself. Toshimaen amusement park in Tokyo's northwestern Nerima Ward is home to Carousel El Dorado, one of the world's oldest hand-carved wooden merry-go-rounds. Named for an imaginary city of gold sought by 16th-century...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Aug 26, 2012

If we ruin the air, what will our children breathe?

Watching the sun set into the Pacific Ocean from a hotel tucked in among the dry scrub hills of San Diego, I have a chance to reflect on life here in Southern California, on climate changes and on what's in store for future generations.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Aug 25, 2012

Moyes deserves shot with big club

David Moyes accepted the praise and plaudits in his typically unassuming manner.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Aug 25, 2012

Forced out 20 years ago, moms return as cops

Donning badges for the first time in more than 20 years has given a new sense of duty to three female officers in the Shiga Prefectural Police who were effectively forced out when they had kids.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Aug 24, 2012

Poorer people passing up cancer screenings

The lower your income, the less likely you'll take advantage of your local cancer screening program.
COMMENTARY
Aug 24, 2012

China seems loath to wait for Romney to learn

During the American presidential campaign of 2008, China was virtually a nonissue. During the televised debates between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, China was barely mentioned.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 24, 2012

Ridley Scott returns to sci-fi with 'Prometheus'

"As a cinematic genre, science-fiction has a longer shelf life than most," says director/producer Sir Ridley Scott. The mastermind behind such classics as "Alien" (1979), "Blade Runner" (1982) and this year's "Prometheus" is referring to how aspects of a sci-fi film can morph from fiction into fact with...
SOCCER / J. League / J. LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Aug 23, 2012

Slow and steady rise gives Sanfrecce upper hand in title race

There will be many more twists and turns before this season's J. League title is won, but after opening up a four-point gap at the top of the table, the balance of power is steadily shifting Sanfrecce Hiroshima's way.
COMMENTARY
Aug 22, 2012

Brother of Thai leader upholds a feisty profile

Thaksin Shinawatra is undoubtedly the most controversial politician ever to become prime minister of Thailand, an oft-ignored country in Southeast Asia with a population and landmass greater than Britain or Italy. (But who besides a Thai knows this?) Elected several times in national elections deemed...
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Aug 21, 2012

Takahashi's 300th homer bittersweet

Yoshinobu Takahashi looked more relieved than happy after his 300th home run. Many fans and observers had expected it to come earlier in his career, before later wondering if it would come at all. That helped give the moment feelings of both admiration and incompletion.

Longform

A mushroom cloud from the atomic bombing on Hiroshima taken from a U.S. military aircraft on Aug. 6, 1945. Copying the photo without permission is prohibited.
80 years on, a Japanese American hibakusha recalls the day the bomb dropped