Search - life

 
 
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 5, 2012

Cusack delves into the dark with 'The Raven'

"One of the negative things about the Internet," actor John Cusack remarks when asked about rumors surrounding casting in his new film, "The Raven," "is unnecessary information. Stuff that doesn't serve any real purpose and can be detrimental to someone's ego or ... like I say, useless. Hopefully a good...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 23, 2012

The third space: the cafe's place in forming modern Japan

COFFEE LIFE IN JAPAN, by Merry White. University of California Press, 2012, 240 pp., $24.95 (paperback) Those of us interested in coffee, life and Japan will open Merry White's "Coffee Life in Japan" with high expectations. For most readers, alas, these expectations will be only partially fulfilled....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Sep 22, 2012

Filipino filmmaker-writer captures the stories of Asians on the fringe

Rey Ventura's prose startles with the subtle force of cinematic images: From the "rustling leaves" that signal the return of the rebel forces to the Aeta hill tribes in the Philippines to the "standing men" or day laborers populating the alleyways of the Kotobukicho district of Yokohama. As both filmmaker...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2012

Court judgment in Canada may set guidelines for physician-assisted death in terminal cases

Gloria Taylor, a Canadian, has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Over a period of a few years, her muscles will weaken until she can no longer walk, use her hands, chew, swallow, speak and, ultimately, breathe. Then she will die.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jun 24, 2012

Mutombo using stature to make a difference in world

Dikembe Mutombo commands attention, and it's not because he towers over people at 218 cm, or the fascinating fact that he speaks nine languages (including five African dialects) or blocked 3,289 shots during his 18-season NBA career. Simply put, the big fellow has lived a remarkable life.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 23, 2012

Aussie rejects salaryman lifestyle to embrace love of nature in Hokkaido

Rambling among crates of raw fish, dawdling around with 450 types of freshly caught produce. It may seem an odd way to relax, but for James Gallagher, 46, the organized chaos of the Tsukiji Fish Market used to be a welcome respite during his lunch breaks at the advertising firm Dentsu in Tokyo.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 29, 2012

Japanese families on endangered list

The family is humanity's oldest and most universal institution. But its shape, size, aims and ideologies seem infinitely variable. Japan's families down the ages have been polygamous and monogamous, multigeneration and single-generation, swarming with children or comparatively, if not entirely, devoid...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 20, 2011

Fate's path led Canadian to Kamakura

Rarely does life offer a clear-cut crossroads, but Heather Willson, a 34-year resident of Japan, faced one squarely when she was 22 years old.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 5, 2011

Doomed self-obsessive remains iconic to some in the Japan of today

"It's not that I'm weak, it's that the suffering weighs down on me too heavily."
COMMENTARY
Jul 7, 2010

The price of living longer

The British coalition government has announced that it will set from 2016 the qualifying age for old-age pensions for men at 66 instead of 65. Women have hitherto received old-age pensions at 60, but the qualifying age will be brought into line with that for men through a speedier timetable than hitherto...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jul 4, 2010

Manga's Cinderella story

"I want to tell you a real love story," whispers a pen-wielding Misako, a graphic-novel version of comic artist Misako Takashima, on the first page of the 2007 book, "Rock and Roll Love."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 13, 2010

Volleyball star finds meaning off court

As every top-level athlete knows, sacrifice underpins every training plan and for an Olympic athlete it becomes a way of life. For Sohn Jeong Wook, his goal of taking part in the Olympics was more important than country, but it didn't override family.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 6, 2009

Scaremeister Raimi sheds light on his fondness for darkness

Sam Raimi is best known as the man behind the "Spiderman" franchise, but he's also widely regarded as a master of the macabre and of horror. After all, he broke through in 1981 with "The Evil Dead" after fixating on horror movies as a child. Before age 10, he was making 8-mm home movies.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 27, 2009

Is it better to end in 'beautiful madness' than quicksands of banality?

On the morning of Sept. 18, 1939, a man and a woman walked into a woodland that was then in eastern Poland. They took a cocktail of drugs. When the woman woke up several hours later, the man was dead. He was buried the next day not far away.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 8, 2009

Working humbly to serve everyone

Ian De Stains has a place in a decades-old British order of chivalry created by King George V in 1917. Yet after knowing him, this may be hard to believe.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 18, 2009

German genetics law a double-edged sword

MELBOURNE — In April, Germany's parliament placed limits on the use of genetic diagnosis. Is the new German law a model for other countries to follow as we grapple with the ethical issues posed by our growing knowledge of human genetics?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 2, 2009

Creating a catalyst for self-reflection

"One of the hardest missions for people is to face themselves in the mirror, to criticize themselves, to ask themselves really basic questions," says ex-Israeli soldier Avichay Sharon. "No one wants to touch sensitive nerves, no one wants to go underneath, scratch underneath within himself." Sharon is...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 6, 2009

Juliette Binoche takes to the stage — this time to dance

The Oscars are still in the air, and not just in Hollywood, as Tokyo is set to host Juliette Binoche — winner of Best Supporting Actress in 1996 for her role in "The English Patient" — in a weeklong run of "in-i," a dance work she created and is performing with Akram Khan, one of England's hottest...
LIFE / CLOSE-UP
Mar 1, 2009

Of money and motherhood

Kazuyo Katsuma is a charismatic economic analyst, best-selling writer and working mother, who has regular columns in newspapers and appears frequently in magazines and on TV shows. Katsuma is considered one of Japan's foremost writers on the subjects of self- development skills for people in business,...
LIFE / CLOSE-UP
Mar 1, 2009

Kazuyo Katsuma: Of money and motherhood

Kazuyo Katsuma is a charismatic economic analyst, best-selling writer and working mother, who has regular columns in newspapers and appears frequently in magazines and on TV shows. Katsuma is considered one of Japan's foremost writers on the subjects of self- development skills for people in business,...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jan 18, 2009

Of orphans and granddaughters

When I was 10 years old, I found a book titled "Akage no An" ("Anne with Red Hair") in a library. It was a Japanese translation of "Anne of Green Gables" written by Canadian novelist Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) in 1908.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2008

Salaryman-turned-activist keeps island nation Tuvalu in the picture

Tanned and relaxed, 42-year-old Shuichi Endo has set himself a monumental task: Photograph 10,000 residents of the tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu, nearly the entire population.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Sep 21, 2008

Kenji Miyazawa: In harmony with all creation

If the primary theme of human life in the 21st century is living in harmony with other animals and plants — and also preserving the bounties of the Earth — then Kenji Miyazawa is the Japanese writer who can most thoroughly help us to understand and pursue this theme.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 10, 2008

Island chanteuse Hajime finds tranquillity on Saturn

It wouldn't be the obvious place to look. And yet singer Hajime Chitose was seeking a new peace of mind when, 1.3 billion km away, she found what she was looking for.
LIFE / Travel
Jun 22, 2008

In the footsteps of Dylan Thomas

SWANSEA, Wales — Thursday night in Swansea and it's a full house. Outside, it's the kind of night that Dylan Thomas would have described as "starless and Bible black." Inside, text-messaging teenagers and polite pensioners count the seconds to the interval and the ritual stampede for ice-cream as the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 5, 2008

Humble Harrison bucks his years

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
May 4, 2008

Hideki Noda: Acting with joy in his soul

Even in today's theater world in Japan, which tends to venerate age, at just 52 Hideki Noda is already a towering, legendary figure.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 10, 2008

Kurosawa cohort tells illuminating Showa tails

Alongside great artists are those who witness their triumphs and setbacks, recording behind-the-scenes episodes that illuminate the processes of art.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 19, 2007

Moses trying to help less fortunate hurdle obstacles

Edwin Moses was an untouchable, unbeatable performer as a track and field superstar during his heyday in the 1970s and '80s.

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