Search - things-to-do

 
 
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2008

'Les Paul: Chasing Sound'

Any devotee of the electric guitar soon comes to learn the names of those pioneering musicians who realized the instrument's potential: people like Charlie Christian, who first started overdriving his amps and incorporating distortion into his playing, or Jimi Hendrix, who took that concept to the nth...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 14, 2008

Street players give hoops diplomacy a shot

On one sunny Sunday afternoon this spring, dozens of people of various ages and nationalities converged on the basketball courts at Yoyogi Park in Tokyo. Juking, dunking, shooting and scoring, they played with grit as their competitive juices flowed.
Reader Mail
Aug 14, 2008

No-name arrests don't seem right

Regarding Robert McKinney's opinion ("No advantage in a media circus," Aug. 7 letter) of my July 31 letter ("A HREF="http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20080731a4.html">Mind boggles at police reports"): Perhaps the female slasher who attacked six at Hiratsuka Station is "mentally impaired" —...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 14, 2008

Innovative firms profit on spiking fuel prices

For businesspeople, one of summer's great discomforts is sweating in a suit under a sizzling sun.
COMMENTARY
Aug 13, 2008

Beijing Games focus U.S. attention on Asia

There's one huge under-appreciated plus about the Summer Olympics Games in China. They will bring an important part of Asia into the American living room day after day and night after night.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Aug 12, 2008

'Gyoza' heaven for carnivores, plus help for hungry vegans

A vegan friend is coming over to visit B, and he's at a loss as to what to feed him.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 12, 2008

Custody battles: an unfair fight

"Sport at its best obliterates divisions between peoples, such as ostentatious flag-waving and exaggerated national sentiment." New York Times senior writer Howard W. French — who has covered China for the past five years, was Tokyo bureau chief from 1999 to 2003, and has lived overseas for all but...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Aug 12, 2008

Which Olympic sports are you looking forward to watching this summer?

CULTURE / Books
Aug 10, 2008

Sharing Japanese poetry with the rest of the world

THE RABBIT IN THE MOON/TSUKI NO USAGI by Kayoko Hashimoto. Kadokawa-shoten, 2007, 260 pp., ¥2,667 (cloth) EARTH PILGRIMAGE/PELLEGRINO TERRESTRE/CHIKYU JUNREI by Ban'ya Natsuishi, English translations by the author and Jim Kacian, Italian by Luca Toma. Milan, Italy: Albalibre, 2007, 146 pp., 10.00 euro...
Reader Mail
Aug 10, 2008

Change begins with children

I have followed Debito Arudou's articles for five years, whenever they show up, and find them interesting, but he seems rather like the Lone Ranger. He has had a political cause ever since he arrived and became a Japanese citizen, fighting the Japanese legal system and trying to improve its human rights...
Reader Mail
Aug 10, 2008

Denunciation of nuclear weapons

Dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 was one of the most significant and terrible events in the history of humankind. But it is amazing that so few Americans know much about the horror of the atomic bomb. No American president has ever visited Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Americans justify the use...
Reader Mail
Aug 10, 2008

Foreigner metaphor off the mark

In his Aug. 5 article "Once a 'gaijin,' always a 'gaijin,' " Debito Arudou says the word gaijin (foreigner) "strips the world of diversity," yet he himself is stripping the diversity of experiences of foreigners in Japan by asserting that we are treated like "n--gers" here.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / JAPAN NATIONAL BASEBALL TEAM
Aug 9, 2008

Japan barely wins in Olympic tuneup

The Japan national team did just enough to get a win on Friday night. It'll probably take a lot more to bring home the gold in Beijing.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 7, 2008

Making art out of Article 9

Perhaps there are two types of Japanese people: those who stay in Japan, and those who leave for foreign shores. Distance means the two rarely interact, and it's just as well, because the results can be fiery.
Reader Mail
Aug 7, 2008

Tighten the leash on spammers

Recently, since I started venturing out into Web sites, my address has somehow been intercepted and I'm starting to receive seven to eight junk e-mails per day. A businessman I know counts about 100 spams every morning awaiting deletion. I don't pay my e-mail provider for the privilege of serving as...
BUSINESS / CABINET INTERVIEW
Aug 7, 2008

Tanigaki touts foreign tourism to boost economy

Attracting more foreign tourists can help offset the loss of economic vitality foreseen as the nation ages and the population declines, tourism minister Sadakazu Tanigaki said Monday.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Aug 6, 2008

City gone wild

In June this year I took a group of Japanese friends and members of our Afan Woodland Trust up here in the Nagano hills on a trip to Britain. We went on an All Nippon Airways tour designed for people with an interest in ecology and nature restoration, and we visited our "twin" forest, the Afan Argoed...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Aug 5, 2008

What aspects of other cultures would you like to see Japan adopt?

JAPAN
Aug 3, 2008

'Cosplay' contest draws hundreds

NAGOYA — Hundreds of people from across the world converged on Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, on Saturday to march as characters from animated movies in the Osu Cosplay Parade.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 3, 2008

The obsession over those dumbed down cute mascots

Japan is overrun with cute mascots. They represent everything from chain stores to police departments, and for the past decade or so there has been a marked increase in the popularity of one species of mascot called "yuru-kyara." The second half of this word stands for "character," while "yuru" is from...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 3, 2008

Lest we forget, it's a story that cries out for telling and retelling

What can be more chilling than the statistics of war? Tens of thousands dying in a single day on the Western Front in World War I. Millions perishing in World War II. India. Pakistan. Korea. Kenya. Vietnam. Cambodia. Rwanda. Iraq. And where next?
Reader Mail
Aug 3, 2008

Pets demonstrate sanctity of life

In Japan, around 400,000 dogs and cats are killed at public health centers every year. Most are taken there by their owners for "unavoidable reasons," as the owners put it. What that means is that the owners are going on a trip and won't be home to care for the pet, or they're just tired of taking care...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 3, 2008

The new language of translated films

CINEMA BABEL: Translating Global Cinema, by Abe Mark Nornes. Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2008, 304 pp.,$22.50 (paper) Though foreign film is now seen by all, we are still dependent on translation to discover what is going on up on the big screen or on the little tube. This translation of dialogue can be...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 3, 2008

The commodification of bodies of both sexes

LONDON — In the 1960s, feminists coined the slogan, "Our bodies, our selves." But that liberating sentiment has recently undergone an ironic twist. As an anonymous American woman, justifying her decision to undergo cosmetic surgery, put it, "All we have in life is ourselves, and what we can put out...

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?