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Reader Mail
Sep 30, 2007

Blame game is no remedy

Japan has been my home for almost 10 years. It has many good points and I would not have stayed this long if it didn't. However, more and more, I am hearing the same complaint about the negative influence of American culture on Japanese people. It is their opinion that the reason for this breakdown...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 30, 2007

Cancer may kill, but it can also revitalize a flagging media career

Right now there's a commercial on TV for the American insurance company AFLAC featuring veteran journalist Shuntaro Torigoe, who was diagnosed with cancer two years ago. It shows the 67-year-old reporter in what looks like home videos undergoing tests, or about to be operated on, or clowning around with...
Reader Mail
Sep 30, 2007

Breaking away from the U.S.

Regarding Robyn Lim's Sept. 20 article, "Defense debate bordering on bizarre": It's Lim's inchoate ramblings that are bizarre. Lim fails to grasp Japanese concern that Shinzo Abe and his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi brought Japan too close for comfort to the United States militarily. A poll showed...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 30, 2007

The Murakami addiction

Murakami Haruki: The Simulacrum in Contemporary Japanese Culture, by Michael R. Seats, 2006, 384 pp., $70 (cloth) Haruki Murakami's novels have much in common with potato chips. Both are often addictive and both are often ultimately unsatisfying. Yet one can't help but buy another bag of chips at the...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 30, 2007

Beyond darkness: sleepless in Tokyo

After Dark by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin. Knopf, 2007, 208 pp., $22.95 (cloth) If New York is the city that never sleeps, Tokyo is the city of sleepless souls — or so it appears in the cinematic narrative of "After Dark," among the most hauntingly detached of Haruki Murakami's nine novels...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 30, 2007

Sophistication from improvisation

Kitano Takeshi. London: British Film Institute, 2007, 272 pp., with photos. £16.99 (paper) This is a brilliant book on a mercurial subject. Takeshi Kitano is an actor and film director, ubiquitous on television as well, who has become a media event. His persona has splintered and he stands Janus-faced...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 30, 2007

Bilingual blanks are nothing to kobosu your guchi about

Last week in this column, I addressed the trials and tribulations of bringing up a child to be bilingual — both for parents and children. As anyone who has been down that road knows, it's what Japanese people would call shinan no waza (an arduous task).
Reader Mail
Sep 30, 2007

English school has been good to us

Regarding the Sept. 21 front-page article "Nova may close hundreds of schools": As a Nova student for 11 years, I think it's a shame that Nova has been so criticized by the media. We love Nova's system, which includes flexible lesson-time schedules, voice rooms (one ticket lets us be there seven hours...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Sep 29, 2007

Wenger proves again he is one of top managers in world

LONDON — Is Arsene Wenger the best coach in the world?
JAPAN / Q&A
Sep 29, 2007

All eyes on Japan Post as privatization begins

Japan Post will be reorganized Monday, paving the way for it to become a private company for the first time in its more than 130-year history. The following are questions and answers on how the privatization will affect Japan's postal services.
EDITORIALS
Sep 29, 2007

Stemming the violence in Myanmar

The situation in Myanmar has become ugly as the country's security forces mount a violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators. Already more than a dozen people have died, including Buddhist monks and a Japanese journalist. It is the first such shedding of blood since prodemocracy demonstrations in 1988,...
EDITORIALS
Sep 29, 2007

Land prices bear watching

Recent land-price rises in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya merit scrutiny to determine whether real estate investment in these cities has peaked. On the other hand, land-price movements in the countryside indicate that measures are needed to bolster economic activities, although some areas have seen higher land...
JAPAN
Sep 29, 2007

Yasukuni issue kept me out of '06 presidential race: Fukuda

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Friday that he decided not to run for president of the Liberal Democratic Party last September because he didn't want to make Yasukuni Shrine the focus of the race.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’