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COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 23, 2007

Oh, to be American — with God on Your side

The administration of George W. Bush, with its faith-based mission, is seen by many as a radical departure from the main- stream of American politics. But in fact it is no more than a continuation, in a mildly extreme form, of what has gone before. Bush has changed the typeface, but not the layout, on...
LIFE
Dec 23, 2007

One missionary's 'swamp' is another's 'religion allergy' challenge

"For 20 years I labored in the mission. The one thing I know is that our religion does not take root in this country."
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Dec 23, 2007

CL's second-division teams stock up on foreign players

The Yokohama BayStars and Hiroshima Carp, realizing they need to do something in order to compete with the powerhouse Yomiuri Giants and Chunichi Dragons, are bringing in a slew of foreign players to fill in the body spaces and — hopefully — the talent void left by the loss of star American and Japanese...
Reader Mail
Dec 23, 2007

Deplorable case of reporting

The TV coverage of the Dec. 14 shootings at a Sasebo sports club was deplorable. A reporter from one TV channel implied on many occasions that a "gaikokujin" (foreigner) was most likely the shooter. I imagine his guess was based, at best, on an erroneous interpretation or, at worse, willful misrepresentation...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Dec 23, 2007

Triumph Tiger comes out of the wild

Triumph Motorcycles is a rare success story in the British motor industry. Rescued from the abyss of bankruptcy in 1983 by property developer and self-made millionaire John Bloor, this company with roots reaching back to the 19th century is now producing some of the best bikes around.
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 23, 2007

Japan's 'Hidden Christians'

"It is 12:30 p.m. in Nagasaki, on March 17, 1865. Father Bernard Petitjean, a priest of the French Societe des Missions Etrangeres, hears a noise at the back door of his little chapel. On opening he is surprised to find a group of 15 middle-aged Japanese men and women — surprised because all native-...
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 23, 2007

From Bliss to blood

Some scholars say Japan's Christian history began long before the so-called "Christian century" (1549-c.1640). Their claim takes us all the way back to 7th- and 8th-century Nara, where Nestorian Christians from Persia are said to have built churches, operated a leper hospital and even converted the Empress...
Reader Mail
Dec 23, 2007

Nonsensical attempt to justify

Scientific? What a joke, Japan cannot understand just how much the world hates it right now. The world's media paints it as a murderer, the world's citizens see it as a coward. How dare Japan try to compare the slaughter of these majestic animals to farmed cows. If this were the case, whales would...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 23, 2007

The many faces of a complex city

TOKYO TOKYO TOKYO, photographs by Gorazd Vilhar, text by Charlotte Anderson. IBC Publishing Co., 2007, 144 pp., ¥3,300 (cloth) The very title of this new collection by Gorazd Vilhar and Charlotte Anderson suggests multiple Tokyos. It posits a city so multifaceted that only various versions of it can...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Dec 23, 2007

Inside criminal scams, raising the Yamada quintuplets, unique cooking

A few years ago, the media was filled with reports about people falling victim to ingenious swindling operations called "furikome sagi," an umbrella term describing schemes that fool victims into sending money to con men via bank transfers. Because of the publicity, the frequency of such incidents has...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 23, 2007

Japan faces up to a world of gun crime

As is often the case with breaking news stories, the on-site, real-time television coverage of the shooting at the Renaissance Sports Club on the evening of Dec. 14 in Sasebo City, Nagasaki Prefecture, was a flurry of vague incidentals and conflicting accounts.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 23, 2007

An odious and deadly trade in antiquities

GRAVE IMPORTS by Eric Stone. Bleak House, Madison, Wis., 2007, 328 pp., $14.95, (paper) All too many thrillers in which a Western agent sets out to infiltrate some insidious Asian organization come across as vestiges of works from the 1950s and '60s, the era of Ian Fleming and his numerous spinoffs....
MORE SPORTS
Dec 22, 2007

Wrestler Yoshida wins Grand Prix

Saori Yoshida, who has captured five consecutive world wrestling titles, captured a prestigious national honor on Thursday, when she collected the Grand Prix prize at the 57th Japan Sports Awards.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 22, 2007

Wenger's young Gunners in fine form during Carling Cup

LONDON — Arsenal not only has the best first team in the Premier League, but it's second XI is also capable of beating England's finest.
JAPAN
Dec 22, 2007

Diet unites to tighten politicians' funding rules

With money scandals marring the image of lawmakers, the Diet passed a bill Friday to increase the transparency of political funding by obliging them to disclose all expenses other than salaries.
JAPAN
Dec 22, 2007

Japan calls off hunt for humpbacks

Even as its whalers sail for the Southern Ocean hunting grounds, Japan has agreed to temporarily suspend its pursuit of humpback whales, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura indicated Friday.
JAPAN
Dec 22, 2007

Taiwan's presidential candidates jostle to win Japan's crucial backing

, which supports unification with China, has typically fared poorly at establishing a rapport with Tokyo — something that comes more naturally to the independence-inclined DPP. In November, however, Nationalist presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou smashed that paradigm with what many pundits hailed...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 22, 2007

Tokyo American Club prepares to move

Michael Bumgardner is not only the general manager of Tokyo American Club; he's a "keeper of trees," as his ancestral German name Baumgartner suggests.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 22, 2007

Preparing for . . . the Christmas that never comes

You think Christmas celebrations start too early in your country? So that when Christmas finally comes, you've already had enough of it? Where do you think "Season's Greetings" comes from?

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan