Search - things-to-do

 
 
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 1, 2012

Feline fine in Iriomote's unspoilt wilderness

For the jaded traveler, arrival in one place in Japan can often seem suspiciously like arrival in any other. After quitting a station building, you can find yourself viewing thoroughfares lined with familiar-looking stores, with it all appearing instantly similar to other places beheld elsewhere the...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 30, 2012

The toad tax and other ways to raise money

Read my lips: no new taxes! Just old ones raised.
JAPAN
Jun 30, 2012

Rakuten's English drive ready to take full effect, chief says

Rakuten Inc. CEO Hiroshi Mikitani is happy with the improvement of his workers' English proficiency and all employees understand its importance as the company expands globally, he said Friday.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jun 29, 2012

Warriors to give Burrell shot in Summer League

Power forward Justin Burrell has accepted an invitation to play for the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Summer League in July.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 29, 2012

'The Amazing Spider-Man'

One telling scene in "The Amazing Spider-Man" is also the movie's defining moment. A high school English lit teacher explains to her class the premise of fiction and she gives it in three short words: "Who am I?" That's the question Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, struggles with in this reboot to the famed...
JAPAN
Jun 29, 2012

Koshiishi scrambles to avoid DPJ split

Hoping to head off a possible breakaway from the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, DPJ Secretary General Azuma Koshiishi met Thursday with Ichiro Ozawa, appealing to the party kingpin to stand behind Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and shore up unity.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 29, 2012

'Crazy Horse' / 'This Must Be the Place'

I knew a dancer back in the States who worked with the Washington Ballet ... by day. Some nights, under a different name, she performed as a stripper in a seedier part of town. While recognizing the need for secrecy, she herself had no problem with moonlighting as a peeler, and in fact enjoyed it. I...
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Jun 28, 2012

Japanese acts still find wonder in Can's 'Lost Tapes'

It's rare that a band whose most celebrated recordings were originally released almost 40 years ago can generate excitement among classic-rock fans, prog-hating punks and musicians whose parents were still in elementary school at the time — but then Can were no ordinary band.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 28, 2012

DJ Kentaro set to scratch a new itch

Only a handful of artists can say they've reached the top of their trade, but Kentaro Okamoto is one of them. As DJ Kentaro, his record-scratching skills got him noticed by beat heads worldwide back in 2002, when he won the DMC World DJ Final in London. But, now this DJ wants an image change.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 27, 2012

Obama shares the blame for Arab Spring mess

A year ago Barack Obama described the epic wave of revolution that had begun in Tunisia and Egypt as "a historic opportunity" for the United States "to pursue the world as it should be." He said America must promote "change that advances self-determination and opportunity." And he asserted that "we can...
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Jun 27, 2012

More hurdles in store for Noda

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda managed to get the Lower House to pass the contentious tax hike bill, but his troubles are far from over, as demonstrated by the no votes cast by the Democratic Party of Japan's kingpin, Ichiro Ozawa, and more than 50 of his followers.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jun 26, 2012

Social-media manager Lin Qing Xiang

Lin Qing Xiang, 33, is the social-media manager of the "The Ruby Alan Show" (also known as "The RA Show"), a video blog that explores both Singaporean and Japanese culture. Lin creates travelogues of his journeys around Japan and also films Japanese-culture events in Singapore. A die-hard fan, he loves...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jun 26, 2012

Cut gaijin-gawking children some slack — it's how they learn

Re: "Parents, please keep your kids away from me at feeding time" by Christy Bridgeman (Hotline to Nagatacho, May 22):
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 25, 2012

Swallows' Barnette adapting to new role

In his two-plus seasons in Japan, Tony Barnette has gone from being a starter, to released, to re-signed, to a reliever, and finally a closer for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.
EDITORIALS
Jun 25, 2012

Talk, please!

The Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education has announced a new policy of group discussion in parts of the admission system for public high schools from 2013. This will be the first time a talking component will be conducted for the recommendation-based admissions system (suisen nyugaku) for middle school...
Reader Mail
Jun 24, 2012

Japan too important to die off

I was happy to see the June 19 editorial "Reversing the population decline." Much more needs to be done on this critical issue. I keep reading articles in business journals about how Japan needs more female CEOs, and I think, no, what Japan needs is more mothers.
Reader Mail
Jun 24, 2012

Jokes can reinforce stereotypes

Regarding Jim Makin's June 14 letter, "Getting accepted as an equal": I would like to thank Makin for taking my June 14 letter ("Undoing foreign stereotypes") seriously and for expressing agreement with the letter's main point — that foreigners in Japan sometimes contribute to the perpetuation of stereotypical...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 24, 2012

Katmandu beckons all who visit Nepal

Everest may be its most famous site, and Lumbini one of its holiest, but Nepal has plenty more to offer. Annapurna is the country's other great trekking location, while Chitwan National Park is home to some of the region's rarest wildlife, offering the chance to spot the endangered Bengal tiger, as well...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 24, 2012

The doomsday cult of 9-to-5 depression

One of the enduring mysteries of the Aum Shinrikyo atrocities of the 1990s is the ease with which the cult attracted members. The arrest this month of the last two fugitives allegedly involved in Aum's fatal 1995 sarin gas assault on the Tokyo subway system recalls the whole ghastly episode, together...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 24, 2012

Fumiko Hayashi: Haunted to the grave by her wartime 'flute and drums'

If you compare the treatment dealt out in the immediate postwar period to Japanese writers who supported their nation's military aggression in World War II with that meted out to such writers in Europe, the Japanese literary collaborators seem to have got off lightly.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jun 24, 2012

Fans provide insight on good, bad of Japanese baseball

Two readers checked in with responses to the June 10 column to state what they like and do not like about Japanese baseball.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 24, 2012

Over the top ambitions in Mukogaoka

The neighborhood of Mukogaoka — literally, "Yonder Hill" — huddles under clouds clustered like violet hydrangea blossoms the morning I arrive to explore.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jun 24, 2012

There's none so blind as those who deny they cannot see

Buddhism teaches that all human suffering is rooted in greed, anger and ignorance. Whether true or not, it is clear that related human failings are compromising our planet: our material greed, our ignorance of natural systems, and most of all, our dogged denial.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 24, 2012

A woman's world

PASSIONATE FRIENDSHIP: The Aesthetics of Girls' Culture in Japan, by Deborah Shamoon. Univ. of Hawai'i Press, 2012, 181 pp., $27.00 (paperback) The subject of this book is one that is baffling to outsiders, but visible on the streets of Tokyo, especially the more fashionable parts, and in fiction, dress...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jun 23, 2012

England must step it up to advance

It was Jock Stein, the former Celtic manager, who said of tournament football: "You qualify in your boiler suit and then put on your tuxedo."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 22, 2012

Skytree a mixed blessing for locals

A month after the opening of Tokyo Skytree and Tokyo Skytree Town in Sumida Ward, the world's tallest broadcasting tower and its shopping and entertainment complex continue to draw hordes of visitors, reaching 1.6 million in just the first week, according to operator Tobu Tower Skytree Co. and its parent,...

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