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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.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 2, 2010

He's unusual, so why not just kill him

In a review of the book "Shikei de Ii desu" ("The Death Sentence Is OK With Me") that appears in the Feb. 26 issue of Kinyobi, critic Tatsunori Yagashiwa asks if a society that "disregards illness" can properly judge criminal suspects.
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Apr 28, 2010

Hikosaemon

New Zealand-born Hikosaemon (who prefers to go by his YouTube moniker) was raised an army brat. His father's overseas postings allowed him to see a bit of the world at an early age, and a two-year stay in Singapore when he was 7 years old helped spark his interest in Asian cultures. After returning to...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 20, 2010

Let the clean water flow

LONDON — The 18th annual World Water Day (March 22) offers the same old problems and rejects the practical solutions. On Monday, 1 billion people will, as usual, spend the day without clean water and a third of humanity without adequate sanitation. As usual, some 3.5 million men, women and children...
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Mar 15, 2010

1000 Things About Japan/Japanese Snack Reviews

When Shari Custer arrived in Japan with her American husband, the original plan was to stay for "five years." That was 20 years ago. During her extended time in Japan, Custer wanted to chronicle some of the little things that many overlook, and her ongoing list comprises one of her blogs: 1000 Things...
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 28, 2010

Japan's love affair with dogs and cats

Takako Toda welcomed her lively, 7-year-old English pointer into her home in the city of Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, when the puppy she named Woowo was just a month old.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Feb 21, 2010

True love blooms eternal whatever life's obstacles

"Finding a life partner was like finding a light in a dark cave," writes Satoko Yoshida, describing that joy by the only means she can — a keyboard — due to the fact she was born with hearing problems and suffers paralysis on the right side of her body.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 16, 2010

Help for Haiti from half a world away

A plain black bow adorns the coat of arms on the door of the Haitian Embassy in Tokyo, a poignant reminder to visitors of the hundreds of thousands who have died in the country since the devastating earthquake of Jan 12. It is a small gesture that belies the scale of the destruction wrought by the quake:...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 13, 2010

Computer whiz turns 'strangeness' into asset

From his early days in Japan as a destitute student sleeping in train station stairwells to living in a 3-mat room that cost him ¥10,000 a month, Richard Northcott went on to head a mobile software company that now enjoys sales of $2 million a year.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 12, 2010

China struggles with Internet reality

The Internet plays an increasingly vital role as a forum of public opinion in China as other forms of media remain under tight Communist Party control, though government restrictions on the Web will likely intensify, experts said at a recent symposium held in Tokyo.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Feb 7, 2010

Taeko Tomiyama: Brushing with authority

I will never forget the day I went to a show titled "Embracing Asia: Taeko Tomiyama Retrospective 1950-2009," which was one of 370 art exhibits by creators from 40 countries comprising the fourth Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial staged over 50 days last autumn at locations across a huge area of rural Niigata...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jan 3, 2010

Jake Adelstein: Insider reaching out

Author Joshua "Jake" Adelstein supposes that if he'd stayed home in rural Missouri and had never come to Japan, he'd probably have become a small-town lawyer or a very happy detective on the local police force.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Dec 29, 2009

New Year's: Communing with family, the gods

In the West, people count down the seconds to midnight Dec. 31 and in many cases keep partying into the wee hours, then sleep in. Once the clock strikes 12 in Japan, many people head to temples and shrines, then proceed to make New Year's Day a family occasion.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 19, 2009

Restaurateur's passion is aiding others

Christmas is a time of prayers, dreams and wishes, of children waiting for a gift from their parents and for an appearance by Santa Claus. But about 150 poor children on Smoky Mountain in Manila have a special Santa to wait for.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 11, 2009

(Near) death of a salesman

Amit started downloading music when he was 16 years old in India.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past