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COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Oct 16, 2007

From ants to antiques

Insect infestations A concerned reader writes: "We live in a traditional Japanese house, and have noticed with some alarm that the step into our "genkan" (hallway) is being eaten away. The wood is crumbling into dust from the inside and spreading. Any idea what might be the problem?"
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Oct 16, 2007

Sake barrels at shrines

Dear Alice,
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Oct 16, 2007

What do you think of Japan's "sempai-kohai" (senior-junior) system?

Takashi KurosawaTeacher, 40 When I was a student the system was more prevalent than now. In Korea seniority is taken more seriously: Kohai must turn away from sempai to drink or smoke a cigarette.
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Oct 16, 2007

Self-study sites welcome you to the world of kanji

When I first suggested in this column using Internet resources for learning kanji in 2001, a Yahoo search yielded 12,700 hits for "kanji learning." That number has now reached a staggering 1.4 million. New, sophisticated online kanji self-study resources are increasingly enabling foreign kanji learners...
JAPAN
Oct 15, 2007

M4.0 earthquake jolts western Japan

Kyodo News An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.0 jolted Shimane and neighboring prefectures in western Japan early Sunday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. No tsunami warning was issued. The 3:07 a.m. quake measured 4 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture,...
JAPAN
Oct 15, 2007

Ex-gangster shot by gunmen in Tokyo shopping area

Kyodo News A man was shot and later pronounced dead Sunday after several men opened fire on him with handguns on a street in a busy commercial district in Tokyo's Taito Ward, police said.
JAPAN
Oct 15, 2007

LDP's Nakatani calls refueling mission opponents 'terrorists'

Kyodo News Gen Nakatani, who heads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's security policy panel, enraged the opposition camp Sunday by calling opponents of Japan's antiterrorism refueling mission "terrorists" in criticizing the camp dissenting against the mission.
SOCCER / J. League
Oct 14, 2007

Frontale into Nabisco final

KAWASAKI — Kawasaki Frontale advanced to the Nabisco Cup final with a 4-2 victory over local rivals Yokohama F. Marinos at Todoroki Stadium on Saturday.
MORE SPORTS
Oct 14, 2007

Young star Nagasu has priorities in order

The kanji in her first name means "future" and it is looking pretty bright for the young American skater with the Japanese name.
Reader Mail
Oct 14, 2007

There is no push-button growth

Gregory Clark contrasts former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's economic policies with those of China: "Meanwhile, China, with an even larger bank bad-loan problem, solved it simply by continued economic expansion. It also greatly enhanced its Asian status at Japan's expense as a result."
Reader Mail
Oct 14, 2007

Society must de-commercialize

David Howell's Oct. 9 article, "The vanity in 'green' virtues," was good to read: Japan has made a beginning. But cleaning up one's own space and throwing the garbage outside a neighbor's door will not help society as whole.
Reader Mail
Oct 14, 2007

Tired myth of uniqueness

In her Oct. 7 book review of Alan Macfarlane's "Japan Through the Looking Glass," Mariko Kato writes "It is fully known that Japan -- despite being the world's second-largest economy and a hyperproductive civilization -- is utterly different from the West."
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / 2007 NPB PLAYOFFS
Oct 14, 2007

Dragons dominate Tigers

NAGOYA — The formula was simple, and it worked.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Oct 14, 2007

Will CL champion Giants be rusty after 15-day layoff?

The Yomiuri Giants will host the winner of the on-going Stage 1 of the Central League Climax Series when Stage 2 of the CLCS begins Oct. 18 at Tokyo Dome.
Reader Mail
Oct 14, 2007

Worldviews and movie reviews

It seems quite the norm for Japan Times film critic Giovanni Fazio to tell his readers that some movies (such as "United 97" and "300") are propaganda tools and not worth the price of admission, while writing glowing reviews for movies like "The Assassination of a President" or "Sicko," simply because...
Reader Mail
Oct 14, 2007

A typhoon by any other name

Jun Hongo's Sept. 18 article, "Typhoons more predictable but still deadly," states that Japan and 13 other Asian countries use a list with some 140 names to name typhoons. I found one mistake: The writer wrote that "Damrey" means "elephant" in the Thai language. That's wrong. Damrey means elephant in...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 14, 2007

Nagai Kafu's geisha: expurgated, revised, then finally fully exposed

Rivalry: A Geisha's Tale, translated by Stephen Snyder. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007, 166 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Komayo, widowed young, resumes her life as a geisha, taking up with a former patron who wants to redeem her. She, however, falls in love with a young actor specializing in female...
Reader Mail
Oct 14, 2007

Hazy educational standards

Regarding the Sept. 20 article "Education spending renders Japan second to last in OECD": Japan has few clear national education standards for teacher education requirements, teacher certification and re-certification standards, student subject-matter learning standards, or student subject-matter testing...
EDITORIALS
Oct 14, 2007

Framed by the police

In a retrial of a man who had been found guilty of rape, the Takaoka branch of the Toyama District Court acquitted him Wednesday. Noting that his pretrial oral statements on which investigators had based their case against him were not trustworthy, the court ruled that the man is not the perpetrator....

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes