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COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 10, 2010

Polls highlight dark times perchance prior to Japan's new dawn

Second of two parts
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 9, 2010

Leaders' broken promises are costing lives

PRINCETON, N.J. — In 2000, the world's leaders met in New York and issued a ringing Millennium Declaration, promising to halve the proportion of people suffering from extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 3, 2010

Architect triumphs in defeat

Kengo Kuma might be the most self-effacing architect around. His trademarks are not large monumental forms or breathtaking sculptural shapes, but finely wrought details such as elegant stone cladding on a high-rise tower, an unlikely pitched roof or a superbly framed view on a garden.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 3, 2010

Japanese opinion polls now reflect reality far better than of yore

First of two parts
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Sep 28, 2010

Building a world without barriers, borders

One afternoon in the mid-1980s, Hiroko Kimura was taking a rest from sightseeing on a park bench in Adelaide, southern Australia. As she was enjoying the warm sunshine, she spotted the words "Japs go home" carved into the wood. This was the height of the bubble years and Kimura was aware that some people...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Sep 19, 2010

Thinking aloud

Few philosophers are compared to rock stars or TV celebrities, but that's the kind of popularity Michael Sandel enjoys in Japan.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 18, 2010

Hey, you — go home!

This is one of the few modern countries in the world where you can go back in time without ever leaving the current century.
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 12, 2010

Aging through the ages

"If only, when one heard That Old Age was coming One could bolt the door Answer 'not at home' And refuse to meet him!" (Anonymous, "Kokinshu" Imperial poetry anthology, 10th century)
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 9, 2010

Japan good on HIV globally but not at home: U.N. exec

The head of the U.N. effort to deal with HIV and AIDS praises Japan for its commitment to the global battle against the pandemic but says domestic organizations need more support in raising awareness here.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 24, 2010

A new generation's search for ground zero

An estimated 140,000 were killed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, another 70,000 in Nagasaki, with thousands more succumbing to radiation-related illnesses in the months and years that followed. Shocking statistics like these are supposedly etched in history, taught in classrooms across Japan and...
JAPAN
Aug 21, 2010

Tattoo as art on human canvases

The human body becomes a canvas in the hands of tattoo artist Horiyoshi III. Each dot, each line is carefully engraved, until gradually it becomes a colorful masterpiece.
EDITORIALS
Aug 14, 2010

Where are the missing elderly?

One municipality after another is unable to locate people aged 100 or over. It is likely that more than 200 such people are unaccounted for nationwide. Among them are 105 names of elderly people on the residents' basic register in Kobe and 63 in Osaka. The situation highlights municipalities' failure...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 7, 2010

Why not ride the sushi train to work?

It is not the fault of the Seto Inland Sea islands themselves that they are suffering from declining populations. It's the glossy brochures put out by local governments that are to blame.
JAPAN
Aug 5, 2010

Die-hard hikers assault Fuji from the coast

It was a 22-hour hike from the sea to the top of Japan's highest peak, starting out in scorching summer heat and ending with the temperature near zero.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jul 23, 2010

Events spur on a new generation of sake drinkers

At 5:30 p.m. on a recent Saturday evening, the line of people at the entrance to the Smile Nihonshu sake event was six deep. Inside the bar, groups of young people in their 20s and 30s clinked glasses and nodded along to a bouncy rendition of Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldier" under a green-lit disco ball....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 17, 2010

Briton looks through lens with an eye to change

Japan-based photographer and activist El-Branden Brazil quotes Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama: "If you think you're too small to make a difference, sleep in the room with a mosquito."
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Jul 7, 2010

thatjapanesegirl

Her moniker on YouTube says it all — born and raised in Kyoto, thatjapanesegirl has lived in Japan all her life, moving to Tokyo just this year. With more than 24,000 subscribers to her two YouTube channels, thatjapanese girl, who prefers to withhold her real name, is one of Japan's most viewed English-speaking...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 4, 2010

Japanese betray some blinkered views of their foreign coworkers

On June 6, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper ran a feature on Japanese people's attitudes to non-Japanese colleagues at their places of work. The article included the results of a survey that explored those attitudes.
EDITORIALS
Jun 26, 2010

Elderly participation

The 2010 white paper on the aging society, approved by the Cabinet last month, shows a rapidly graying population. As of Oct. 1, 2009, people age 65 or over numbered a record 29.01 million, or 22.7 percent of the total population, a rise of 0.6 percentage point from 2008. The number of elderly people...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 25, 2010

Caribou asserts latest album is 'uniquely mine'

Daniel Snaith is a remarkable individual. Not just because of his astounding, cerebral, diacritic music that, nearly a decade and five albums later, is seeping into the minds of people searching for, as one recent reviewer put it, "electronics for grownups."
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 24, 2010

Face to face with Internet privacy issues

NEW YORK — Long ago, when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was in grade school, I wrote a book ("Release 2.1: A Design for Living in the Digital Age") in which I lauded something called gP3h (now p3p), the platform for privacy preferences. I was sure that people would start using P3 or something like...
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Jun 22, 2010

'Hafu' draws viewers into world of Japanese identity

"Hafu," the Japanese term for people who are half-Japanese, takes on a more intricate meaning through the unfolding of mixed-race Japanese lives in the documentary "Hafu." Those starring in the film and those behind the project identify themselves as a newly emerging community.
EDITORIALS
Jun 12, 2010

Mr. Kan states his approach

In his first general-policy speech before the Diet on Friday, Prime Minister Naoto Kan showed that while he will inherit the major policy line of his predecessor Mr. Yukio Hatoyama, he will make a clear departure in economic policy, calling for serious efforts to reconstruct state finances.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 8, 2010

Whether covered or brazen, tattoos make a statement

Tattoos have long occupied a place in Japanese society, generally in the shadows of the underworld and the realm of taboo.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 6, 2010

Dancing for joy in Japan

As I sipped my vin rouge last week during an interval in "The Sleeping Beauty," K-Ballet's latest Tokyo production, a woman at the next table said to her companion: "I can't believe that evil fairy was a man! I just naturally thought it was a woman dancing that role."
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 22, 2010

The Island of Heavenly Fields

I live next to a heavenly field. So do lots of other people on my island.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 18, 2010

Sakurai: a very dapper demagogue

Makoto Sakurai brings to mind that old joke about the man in a pub who says "I'm not racist, but . . . "
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 11, 2010

Japan zines: Never mind the bloggers

Koenji is a nice, quiet place in the suburbs, but venturing along its Kitanaka Street one weekend last March, you could not have missed the commotion coming out of Shirouto no Ran No. 12. Crammed inside this small rental space, dozens of people were poring over, discussing and exchanging piles upon piles...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 8, 2010

The era of the 'small woman' is gone forever

Japanese people are definitely getting taller, along with the people of other countries around the world.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji