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July 31, 2025
 

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EDITORIALS
Mar 1, 2007

Beating the Yamato drum

With health minister Hakuo Yanagisawa's gaffe remark that women are "childbearing machines" still fresh in people's memory, yet another Cabinet member has put his foot in his mouth. This time, education minister Bunmei Ibuki has voiced objectionable ideas on the general character of the Japanese state...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2007

SDF deploys perky mascot to boast cuddly image

Perky cartoon character Prince Pickles -- with saucer eyes, big dimples and tiny, booted feet -- poses in front of tanks, rappels from helicopters and shakes hands with smiling Iraqis.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 11, 2007

Mammon and myopia: Japan's governing '70s legacy

Over the past three weeks I have looked back in this column at the decades leading up to the 21st century, which has to date seen a marked shift in Japanese domestic and international policy back toward a not-so-new form of nationalism. In this last article I discuss the 1970s, when critical decisions...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 14, 2007

It's high time for Japan to ride the space-tourism wave

The United States and Europe are finally, albeit slowly, paving the way for space tourism to become a revolutionary source of new business -- some economists even believe it could save the stagnating world economy.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jan 7, 2007

Yoshiharu Habu: Japan's king of the board

Yoshiharu Habu shocked the shogi (Japanese chess) world when, on Feb. 14, 1996, at the age of 25, he won his 7th title to become the only person in the history of the ancient board game to simultaneously possess all seven titles -- Meijin, Ryuo, Kio, Oza, Kisei, Oi and Osho.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Dec 12, 2006

Heizaburo and Reiko Kawaguchi

Heizaburo and Reiko Kawaguchi, 84 and 81, from Kobe, believe that simple meals and large servings of complex ideas from Japanese manga, anime and classical literature pave the way to a long and happy life. Trained as a fukuryu (underwater kamikaze diver), and later head of a 300-year-old family business...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 12, 2006

Students spread their wings

Ever since Japan opened its doors to the West, English has been zealously studied in Japan's high schools, night schools, universities and companies.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 10, 2006

What remains 'Japanese' in such climates of change?

What is national character, and how does it differ from custom, manners and fashion? People talk about "the Japanese" as if referring to a nationality with an immutable quality that has existed and will continue to exist throughout the ages; and yet, Japan and the Japanese of the past are so different...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 16, 2006

An ambassador of enlightenment

When I was a teenager living in New York some 20 years ago, I bought a tiny introduction to Zen Buddhism from a bookstore in midtown Manhattan. A $1 clearance-sale copy, it was so small that I could slip it into my back pocket.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 15, 2006

Wasted chance as Taiwan's president

PRINCETON, New Jersey -- Taiwan's public prosecutor has indicted the wife of President Chen Shui-bian for embezzling public funds. Chen, as a sitting president, cannot be indicted even though the prosecutor says he has evidence to prove his guilt. But Chen's legacy was already in tatters.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 14, 2006

Beneath the surface

A converted bean storehouse in a Kyoto back-street is the unusual venue for an innovative introduction to traditional Japanese culture. During just one busy day, participants in the Origin Arts Program can try their hand at the ancient martial art of "Waraku," tea ceremony, calligraphy and Noh theater....
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 5, 2006

Conspiracy of complacency costs countless lives on the roads

Ihad a great aunt who drove a car right up until she was in her late 80s. On one occasion her daughter, my cousin, was a passenger in the car, and I heard the following from her. "Mom drove right through a red light," she told me, "but I decided not to mention it to her. Then she ran another red light....
Japan Times
LIFE / CONFUCIUS
Sep 10, 2006

Confucius and his 'golden age'

Is what Confucius said true? Can music, poetry and decorum govern the world? Do rulers, by cultivating benevolence in themselves, plant benevolence in their subjects, and harmony in the polity?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Sep 5, 2006

Does Japan need an emperor or empress?

Taichi Kadowaki Office worker, 32 I don't think we need an emperor or empress. We Japanese adore the royal family because they are this great symbol,but they don't really do anything. They just spend our tax money, but on nothing useful or important.
COMMENTARY
Jul 19, 2006

Cultural diplomacy in the Middle East

Political and economic stability in the Middle East is vital to ensure Japan's energy security and to reduce risks in the global economic system. In the interests of this region's mid- and long-term political stability, it is clearly desirable for "democratization" in the region to take root deeply and...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 2, 2006

Hedge your bets: Conform, but don't act like you belong

'The barriers of racial feeling [between Japanese and foreigners], of emotional differentiation, or language, of manners and beliefs, are likely to remain insurmountable for centuries."
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 16, 2006

Ducasse brings young talent to Japan

As one of the world's top chefs, Alain Ducasse needs little introduction. Over the past two decades, few people have done more to develop and spread the gospel of French haute cuisine.
COMMENTARY
Jun 15, 2006

Soccer, flags and nationalism

LONDON -- All over England, on houses, cars and vans, you will see the cross of St. George waving in the wind. Prime Minister Tony Blair has been persuaded that the English flag should be flown at his residence on days when the English team are playing in the World Cup.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 5, 2006

The revolution will not be memorialized

PRAGUE -- Forty years ago, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution. The Propaganda Department of China's ruling Communists have now issued an order banning any kind of reviews or commemoration of this disaster as part of the party's bid to make the Chinese forget about that lost decade.
EDITORIALS
May 17, 2006

Revising the Organ Transplant Law

The Organ Transplant Law went into effect in 1997. Between February 1999 and March 2006, organs from 44 brain-dead people were used for 167 transplants, which involved hearts, lungs, livers, pancreases, kidneys and small intestines. But the number is extremely small compared with the United States, where...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 14, 2006

Letting history speak for itself

TRADITIONAL JAPANESE ARTS AND CULTURE: An Illustrated Sourcebook, edited by Stephen Addiss, Gerald Groemer and J. Thomas Rimer. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006, 254 pp., 64 color plates, $29 (paper). For nearly half a century, an important text for learning about Japanese culture in general...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 7, 2006

Japanese being ensnared in ill-suited U.S. trappings

Back in the 1960s and '70s, the Japanese people were being raked over the coals from West Virginia to the Ruhr Valley and beyond for, chiefly, two things.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 8, 2006

Clothes as a threat to society from 1950s to now

Told in advance by his publisher that Paul Gorman would be waiting in the reception area of Hotel New Otani, I find him jet-lagged, with a cold, and wearing a 25-year-old T-shirt that in suitably faded fashion screams "SEX PISTOLS" across his chest.
LIFE / Language
Mar 28, 2006

Modern teaching tools capitalize on 'Japan cool'

Enter a British school and Japanese is likely to have been left outside the classroom. According to statistics from the United Kingdom's National Centre for Languages (CILT), last year 978 students took Japanese at GCSE level, the public exams taken at 16 after which students can leave school or continue...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 25, 2006

Software aids communication in cultural context

Nils Plett, president and CEO of QE Tech, is tall. While angling my camera skyward to get his picture, walking alongside requires two steps to his every stride.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 24, 2006

Can Japan absorb foreign influx?

When discussing the recent ethnic riots in France, The Economist newsmagazine ("Minority Reports," Nov. 10, 2005) posed an important question: How come some countries assimilate immigrants more peacefully than others?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 22, 2005

Elemental expressions

Art comes in many forms, but all those forms have in common their intimate dependence on light (something to bear in mind on this, the shortest day of the year). Without this miraculous form of energy you wouldn't know the difference between an Old Master canvas, an Abstract Expressionist work or an...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 24, 2005

Artifacts so old they're modern

Civilization seems to have its own enormous bell curve. If you go back a few hundred years, everything looks old, quaint, dated. The aesthetic of those times immediately tells you that people were looking at the world in quite a different way from you. However, if you keep the pedal of your time machine...
Japan on edge but prepared for tsunami after huge Kamchatka earthquake
Police officers ask a man to evacuate from an empty beach following a tsunami warning, in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Wednesday.
Japan to start new residency system for foreign workers
Students hoping to work in Japan attend a Japanese class at a job placement company in Hanoi in October 2022.
Last soldiers of Imperial Japanese Army have a warning for younger generations
Kunshiro Kiyozumi, 97, who was the youngest crew member of the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-58 in World War II, on his way to a restaurant to have lunch in Matsuyama, Japan, on April 29.
Japan marks highest-ever temperature of 41.2 C in Hyogo
Japan's temperature soared to a record 41.2 degrees Celsius in Tanba, Hyogo Prefecture, on Wednesday, surpassing the previous high of 41.1 C.
Japan should take all possible measures to raise wages, white paper says
Prolonged high prices for food and other goods have pushed down consumer sentiment and real wages, according to the Annual Report on the Japanese Economy and Public Finance for fiscal 2025.
Artist Chiharu Shiota weaves a hidden marvel on Teshima
“Memory of Lines” is Chiharu Shiota’s second art installation on Teshima as part of the Setouchi Triennale.
How the Japanese TV industry is changing
Fuji TV headquarters in Tokyo's Minato Ward. Fuji TV came under fire over the manner in which it handled a case of “sexual trouble” involving former boy band member Masahiro Nakai and a female announcer.
Last soldiers of Imperial Japanese Army have a warning for younger generations
Kunshiro Kiyozumi, 97, who was the youngest crew member of the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-58 in World War II, on his way to a restaurant to have lunch in Matsuyama, Japan, on April 29.
Why Ishiba refuses to quit even amid intense pressure for him to go
Supporters of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba take part in a rally across the street from the Prime Minister's Office on Friday.
Behind the scenes at the Baseball Hall of Fame's new Yakyu/Baseball exhibit
“Yakyu / Baseball: The Transpacific Exchange of the Game” is set to remain on display in Cooperstown for at least five to 10 years — and possibly indefinitely.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear
By Jason Coskrey

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