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Angela Jeffs
After 26 years in Japan, Angela is currently test driving the Scottish winter. Describing herself as a “people person,” she wrote weekly profiles and features for The Japan Times between 1987 and 2011. For writings since 3/11/2011, see www.embrace-transition.com/. Her first book, "Chasing Shooting Stars – A South American Paper Trail into the Past," was published in paperback in January 2013.
COMMUNITY
Apr 2, 2000
Activist monthly comes to Japan
When Caitlin Stronell first came to Japan in 1984 to spend a year in Tochigi Prefecture, her father gave her a subscription to the U.K. cooperatively produced monthly magazine New Internationalist. "He thought it'd keep me in touch with social and political activism in the rest of the world, while giving...
COMMUNITY
Mar 26, 2000
Lebanese Marie-Rose has a lot to say on love
Last Tuesday Marie-Rose Ishiguro was at odds with her handbag. Dressed in a bright red suit, with gold jewelry and matching buttons, she looked every inch the power executive. But her battered brown leather bag -- more a holdall really, handles secured with string and spilling papers, books and clothes...
COMMUNITY
Mar 19, 2000
Illegal worker in catch-22 for love of daughter
"Ram Sharma" and I talked long about the wisdom of doing this piece. He wanted to share his isolation and humiliation with another human being and possibly get some help in extricating himself from his situation. Regarding an interview, he said I should decide. No, I replied; he was the one at risk....
COMMUNITY
Mar 12, 2000
Retailer joins big boys with Little Me for kids
If there was one thing Ron Kessler was sure of growing up in Chicago, he was not the corporate type. Yet surrounded by uncles in business, he really liked the idea of being an entrepreneur, working for himself. The irony, he said, is that "success forces you to become a manager. Starting up something...
COMMUNITY
Mar 5, 2000
Researcher dives deep, flies high, blows bubbles
Minoru Yamada thinks there is something rather beautiful -- poetic even -- about the location of the headquarters of JAMSTEC (Japan Marine Science and Technology Center) in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. And this has nothing to do with being right beside the sea, with a great view across Tokyo Bay to...
COMMUNITY
Feb 27, 2000
'Dalit' priest researches caste system in Japan
As a child the Rev. Busi Suneel Bhanu had no inkling of his status in the Indian caste system. Enlightenment came in his early teens, when a teacher voiced shock on being told that Suneel was "Dalit," the name used for those Indians regarded as "untouchable" because of the traditional nature of their...
COMMUNITY
Feb 20, 2000
Off to Iraq with leads for pencils
Having spent time with student nurse Erika Ito, I would very much like to meet her mother. Firstly I would shake her hand and say: "Congratulations, job well done! You have one terrific daughter." Then I'd patent the secret of her success, and make us all as fortunate.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 13, 2000
Installation artist explores the void of all
Visualize three individuals -- one man and two women -- sitting on three chairs in an otherwise empty room. This space is painted white and measures 8 meters long by 4 meters wide by 3 meters high.
COMMUNITY
Feb 6, 2000
The best parents are both parents
David Brian Thomas (who with a name like that can only owe his heritage to Welsh Wales) carries two photos in his wallet. One shows a baby; the other a gravely sweet 3-year-old -- the age Thomas last saw his son seven years ago.
COMMUNITY
Jan 30, 2000
Preaching the gospel of women's television
Those who watch the program "New Yorkers," broadcast weekly on NHK's satellite channel, will be familiar with the name Nancy Lee. But how many realize that this snappy, bright, Jewish-American from New Jersey is as much at home in Japanese as English?
COMMUNITY
Jan 23, 2000
U.S. lawyer set to solve your immigration woes
Being a quietly spoken, modest-sounding soul, immigration lawyer Mark Ivener, of the California-based law practice Ivener & Holt, may not like the following revelation. But the fact is he gives a good part of his professional time for free by giving immigration lectures and seminars.
COMMUNITY
Jan 9, 2000
Good I-house innkeeper still making world news
Meet my first man of the 2000s after last Sunday's press holiday. Hiroshi Matsumoto may be 70, and a "banto," but a more civilized and forward-thinking innkeeper you are unlikely to meet in the next 99 years (or 999 years, for that matter).
CULTURE / Music
Sep 5, 1999
Is it your place or mine?
Enormous excitement was generated back in May by a trial series of creative workshops for children in English and Japanese, organized by New Order Arts at Open Studio Nope in Tokyo's Minato Ward.
COMMUNITY
Apr 8, 1999
If it could happen to Superman . . .
Founded in 1995, the Japan Spinal Cord Foundation (provisional, since members are still raising the money necessary to legalize the foundation) has just achieved a major breakthrough. For months, members had been trying to make contact with an established similar organization, the American Paralysis...

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Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?