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Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 13, 2005

Back to the original balanced diet

When Kit Kitatani was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1986, he went through the usual procedure of having the tumor surgically removed and starting chemotherapy treatments. But his white blood-cell count was too low to continue the chemo. His doctor said he had less than six months to live.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 28, 2005

The face of joy and happiness

OTAFUKU: Joy of Japan, by Amy Sylvester Katoh, photographs by Yutaka Sato. Singapore: Tuttle/Periplus, bilingual (English and Japanese), 2005, 192 pp., many illustrations, 1,700 yen (cloth). Most of us know Otafuku without knowing her name. She is the full-faced folk figure we see all around us in Japan,...
BUSINESS
Jul 27, 2005

All insurers told to probe payouts

The Financial Services Agency on Tuesday ordered all 39 life insurance companies operating in Japan to investigate and report by the end of September whether they failed to make due payouts to policyholders over the past five years.
COMMUNITY
Jul 2, 2005

Tokyo's 'ambassador of light' high on old spirits

Channeler Rae Chandran refuses anything to drink but water. He sits on a "zabuton" and takes a deep breath, stiffens, then shudders, his posture and face relaxing into what can only be described as a light trance-like state.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 10, 2005

Schiavo case deepens America's divide

ONTARIO, Calif. -- Seldom can I recall any issue in America producing as much emotion and division as the case of Terri Schiavo. The Iraq war has not come close to reaching this level of emotional expression. After being denied food and water for 13 days, her death on March 31, at 41 years of age, brings...
EDITORIALS
Mar 6, 2005

Dolls without borders

'T here is no new thing under the sun," said the preacher (Ecclesiastes, 1:9). Well, the preacher had it half right. Sometimes people come up with a brand-new thing in response to an age-old reality. Consider the case of Hong Kong-based software developer Eberhard Schoeneburg. According to recent reports,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 9, 2005

Betrayal of Dr. Schweitzer's message

LAMBARENE, Gabon -- I first learned of Dr. Albert Schweitzer's work when I was a medical student in the 1960s. During those years, the story of Schweitzer's efforts to improve the health of Africans in his hospital in Lambarene ignited my colleagues' and my imaginations. It was thus with a sense of privilege...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 28, 2004

Director has whale of a time making experimental 'Mind Game'

Now an animation veteran, with 17 years in the business, Masaaki Yuasa still looks young enough, acts deferential enough and dresses down enough to be mistaken for a rank-and-filer. Instead, he is a rising industry star hailed for his work on the "Crayon Shinchan" franchise, the nearest Japanese animation...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 4, 2004

From mourning to 'magic'

It may be only mildly surprising that Japanese translations of the first four "Harry Potter" titles have racked up 16.5 million sales to date. It is, though, quite astonishing that the publisher is not an industry giant, but a small Tokyo firm with no previous best seller to its name.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 23, 2003

At home in japan without the kinks

So is this what they mean by globalization?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / CLOSE-UP
Oct 5, 2003

Winning smile

Think back to 1984, before the Japanese government had recruited armies of foreign-born English instructors to internationalize the countryside and when gaijin commentators on television were all but unheard of.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 13, 2003

We can work it out

"Naze hatarakunoka (Why Do We Work?)";
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 12, 2003

Charlie Watts: The beat goes (40 years) on

Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, 61, has sunk into a deep leather chair in a huge hotel room in Toronto. In the corner hundreds of jazz CDs cover the walls. The table is strewn with old snapshots. Watts coughs and straightens his brown jacket.
BUSINESS
Nov 11, 2001

Asahi Mutual may sell off unit to Tokio

Asahi Mutual Life Insurance Co. is in final talks with Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Co. to sell off its sales division to the nonlife insurer's wholly owned subsidiary, Tokio Marine Life Insurance Co., sources close to the talks said Saturday.
COMMUNITY
Oct 14, 2001

High-flying ad man comes down to earth in Shikoku

Eleven years ago, Toshihito Takahashi was a high-flying advertising copywriter with a leading Tokyo agency, one of the select few whose work regularly appeared on the nation's TV screens.
BUSINESS
Sep 14, 2001

Insurers to launch pension fund firm

Eight insurers plan to jointly establish a company Oct. 1 to handle administrative duties related to their corporate pension funds in a bid to cut operating costs.
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2001

Legitimized foreigners urge more amnesty

A 15-year-old Iranian girl's first trip to her home country in 10 years last July began with a surprise welcome at Tehran airport by some 100 relatives.
JAPAN / WEEKEND WISDOM
Jun 17, 2001

Folklore researcher advocates power of story-telling for kids

In an age of rising violence and crime, parents and teachers who are at a loss over how to teach children the importance of life could find a treasure trove of hints in ancient tales.
BUSINESS
Mar 8, 2001

Four Tokyo 'shinkin' banks to unite

banks said Wednesday they will merge on an equal footing, possibly in January, to create the nation's eighth-largest shinkin bank in terms of deposits. The combined deposits of Asahi Shinkin Bank, Edogawa Shinkin Bank, Kyoseki Shinkin Bank and Bunkyo Shinkin Bank were 1.637 trillion yen as of Jan. 31,...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Feb 7, 2001

Asian biodiversity under threat

As we travel south through the broad swath of continental Asia, we move along two contrasting gradients. First, land area declines as we approach the tropics from the Arctic. Second, and in direct contrast, species diversity increases enormously, as do elements that are uniquely Asian.
BUSINESS
Jan 20, 2001

Manulife Century to assume control of Daihyaku Mutual

Following months of delicate negotiations, the failed Daihyaku Mutual Life Insurance Co. agreed Friday to transfer its operations to Manulife Century Life Insurance Co.
COMMUNITY
Dec 28, 2000

Down's diagnoses defied

Hope was not in the prognosis that doctors gave to Chie Myo, after examining her first son, Shunsuke, at the age of 3 months. They diagnosed the baby as having been born with Mongolism, a derogatory term previously used for Down syndrome, and predicted that he would not live long, saying a mere cold...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 21, 2000

Nourishing one's own inner source of joy

Just as the sun draws life from the earth, urging flowers to bloom and fruits to ripen, thus creating an earth "worthy" for humans to dwell in, so, I believe, in each person's soul an "inner sun" shines which makes human life well worth living.
LIFE / ALTERNATIVE LUXURIES
Jul 6, 2000

Mixing traditions in a quest for freedom

A frog smokes a cigarette in this detail from "The Waiting" by Taeko Takezawa. "I am a totally different type from the other people you've interviewed," says painter Taeko Takezawa as she lights up a clove cigarette. "I am not living my life with any kind of issue consciousness. I'm just trying...
BUSINESS
Jun 2, 2000

Prudential to buy Kyoei shares

Kyoei Life Insurance Co. stands to gain up to 30 billion yen from Prudential Insurance Co. of America, which will buy new shares in the firm. The two companies said Thursday that they have signed a memorandum of understanding, which if realized, would see Prudential purchase a minority interest in the...
BUSINESS
Mar 8, 2000

Insurance policyholder safety-net bill approved

The Cabinet endorsed a bill Tuesday to rewrite the insurance business law with a view to creating a safety-net system to protect policyholders in the event of a life insurer's collapse.
COMMUNITY
Mar 3, 2000

Heavy and light in minority fiction

The first Akutagawa Prizes of the year 2000 have been awarded to two works about minority life in Japan. "Kage no Sumika" by Gengetsu, a second-generation Korean-Japanese, deals with life in Osaka's Korean community, while "Natsu no Yakusoku" by Fujino Chiya sketches the daily life of a group of young...
LIFE
Jan 20, 2000

Living within the abundance of less

When Osamu Nakamura is not in the mountains of Nepal studying woodblock print making, he's almost always in the small farmhouse among the terraced rice fields in the interior of Shikoku that he calls home. He has no telephone, so if you want to visit, you have to stop by to see if he is in.
JAPAN
Jul 17, 1998

Shimizu admits charges in welfare pension scam, apologizes

OSAKA -- Former Higashi-Osaka Mayor Yukio Shimizu admitted to all charges brought against him in a welfare pension scam and apologized to the city's residents during the first hearing of his trial Friday at the Osaka District Court.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / ADOPT ME!
Apr 30, 2023

Put some spring in your step with a new forever friend to share your home

Found wandering the streets, Calabash wasn't wary of people like most dogs who come to the shelter. He'll be your best friend if you let him.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami