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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 18, 2000

Three weeks is a lifetime for pet crickets

Welcome to Japan's rainy season, also known as the Insect Season. Although I live in an old Japanese house with generations of insects going back as far as the Heian Period, I also live with the comfort of knowing I'll never starve to death. "Getemono," the Japanese word for "gross things to eat," includes...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Jun 18, 2000

The end for Kim Jong Il?

My trip to North Korea 11 years ago was one of the most depressing times in my whole life. I have never seen a sadder country. It was not simply an issue of appalling poverty: In 1989, the shelves of stores in Moscow were also barren, and Beijing still sported a maze of miniature slums -- the notorious...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jun 18, 2000

Toshio Sugihara

Recently the College Women's Association of Japan held an anniversary celebration. "Music and Tea" was an afternoon program commemorating 25 years of the activities of Volunteers for Blind Students, a group that is part of CWAJ's education program. "In April, The Japan Vocational Development Center for...
CULTURE / Art
Jun 17, 2000

Putting things into perspective

Imagine a social mixer for celestial beings. A casual affair, a brunch maybe, with olives and wine and the tones of a harp wafting through the ether. Our God is there, looking good, and by way of introduction he reaches into his wallet and takes out some photographs to pass around for the other cosmic...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 17, 2000

India needs a two-track approach to China

NEW DELHI -- Behind the pomp and ceremony that greeted Indian President K.R. Narayanan during his state visit to China earlier this month was an important message: Beijing wants to strengthen its engagement with India, but not at the cost of its containment strategy. Despite hailing Narayanan as an "old...
CULTURE / Art
Jun 17, 2000

Sculptures that capture the mysterious rhythms of nature

The press release for the sculptor Susumu Shingu's "Wind Caravan" project opens charmingly with a quote from Christina Rossetti: "Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I, but when the trees bow down their heads, the wind is blowing by."
JAPAN
Jun 16, 2000

Students schooled in politics, not apathy

Hiroshi Harada, a 23-year-old associate of the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management, better known as Matsushita Seikei Juku, gets up before 6 a.m. every day, does exercises to an NHK radio program and cleans up around the institute's main gate with other associates.
EDITORIALS
Jun 16, 2000

Progress in Pyongyang

It has been a historic week on the Korean Peninsula. The summit between the leaders of North and South Korea, Mr. Kim Jong Il and Mr. Kim Dae Jung, has surpassed all expectations. It is tempting to say that the two men are writing the final chapter of the Cold War, but the temptation should be resisted....
MORE SPORTS
Jun 16, 2000

Dedication the name of the game for aerobics 'queen'

OK, maybe I'm not in the best shape of my life, but does she really have to rub it in?
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 16, 2000

Pakistan gains clear edge over India in race for nuclear prowess

NEW DELHI -- It seems sad rather than tragic that warring India and Pakistan have not learned lessons that history taught us after such pain and suffering. In the summer of 1998, India exploded nuclear bombs. Pakistan did the same within days to begin what is clearly a disturbing sign in the subcontinent:...
JAPAN
Jun 15, 2000

DoCoMo i-mode crashes for more than two hours

Subscribers to NTT DoCoMo Inc.'s i-mode Internet service were denied access for more than two hours from late Tuesday to early Wednesday, the company said, despite an earlier announcement that the problems had been repaired.
LIFE / Travel
Jun 14, 2000

The return of an old classic: fresh fish and soccer for all

Shimizu, a port city in Shizuoka Prefecture, is back in fashion again. In the Edo Period, Shimizu was a popular post town on the Tokaido Highway. Travelers liked its fresh fish and tasty Oiwake yokan bean paste. But the inauguration of train service between Tokyo and Kyoto spelled doom for Shimizu, as...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 14, 2000

Japan's path from imitator to world-beating innovator

CULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY IN MODERN JAPAN, edited by Ian Inkster and Fumihiko Satofuka. London/New York: Tauris, 2000, 169 pp., unpriced. The relationship between culture and technology is complex and multilayered. Technological innovations that had profound effects on culture are easy to find: Think of...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Jun 14, 2000

Winding down

In Sunday's column, I told readers why I will be leaving Japan while, appropriately, explaining what is required for foreigners to get married in Japan, which is what we did. I also said I would explain what would replace this column. Actually, I can't do that. It is up to you. I know there are a lot...
COMMENTARY
Jun 13, 2000

Future rides on this election

The Japanese archipelago will be deafened by the din of election campaigning for the Lower House for about two weeks beginning today. Given the growing public distrust of politics, however, the ranks of voters who claim no party affiliation are swelling. Political parties have repeatedly embraced unprincipled...
JAPAN
Jun 13, 2000

Prison sought for ex-boxer in gun case

OSAKA — Prosecutors demanded six years in prison for a former world boxing champion indicted last year for procuring and selling guns, one of which was allegedly used in a drug-related killing.
EDITORIALS
Jun 11, 2000

For want of an ale

Visitors to Japan just lost one of their favorite tell-the-folks-back-home anecdotes, the one that goes: They sell beer in vending machines here! Every guidebook mentions the fabled dispensers; sooner or later, every tourist gets photographed standing next to one. It is modern Japan's answer to Mount...
CULTURE / Art
Jun 11, 2000

Public art goes to the grass roots

In the golden bubble days, when public money flowed like wine at an alcoholic's banquet, the urban landscape of Japan was colonized by sculptural objects of such widely differing quality that some areas took on the appearance of a garage sale. The public was not fooled and has treated these objects with...
JAPAN
Jun 10, 2000

EBC chair urges politicians to work for deregulation

Foreign businesses in Japan expect political leaders to facilitate fair competition by promoting further deregulation and harmonizing Japanese standards with global rules, said Isabelle Hupperts, chairwoman of the European Business Community.
CULTURE / Art
Jun 10, 2000

Filmmaker lights a fire under corruption

Well known for kaiju (monster) films populated by giant luminaries such as Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan, Toho Inc. now brings us "Cross Fire," an sf thriller about a pyrokinetic office lady at odds with Japanese corruption. Adapted from a novel by best-selling author Miyuki Miyabe, the movie is directed...
JAPAN
Jun 9, 2000

Ainu law fails to address grievances

ASAHIKAWA, Hokkaido — For thousands of years, Kenichi Kawamura's ancestors owned nothing but had access to everything.
COMMUNITY
Jun 9, 2000

Getting in touch with your animal nature

I did it. Finally dipped into dobutsu uranai (animal fortunetelling), the Japanese fengshui of human relationships. For the past year I've endured the discomfort of having acquaintances whisper across the table at lunch: "I know what you are, you're a monkey. The way you slurp your noodles like that?...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Jun 8, 2000

A taste of brewers' best

The 88th New-Sake Tasting Competitions were held in Hiroshima May 16.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 8, 2000

Fresh innovations at home in Tsukiji

Urban dining myth number one: The closer you eat to Tsukiji, the better quality the fish must be.
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2000

Volcano leaves Lake Toya in limbo

ABUTA, Hokkaido — Lake Toya is silent. The smell of sulfur is heavy in the air.
EDITORIALS
Jun 7, 2000

Looking for balance

U.S. President Bill Clinton has just concluded his fifth and probably last visit to Moscow. There he held a summit with his Russian counterpart, Mr. Vladimir Putin. As in all such recent meetings, the disparities between the two countries hung over the summit. Leadership dynamics have been added to the...
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2000

Windswept town realizes gusts can be a clean money-spinner

TOMAMAE, Hokkaido — They tower above the ocean on bluffs and farmland, spinning like otherworldly contraptions misplaced on Hokkaido's bucolic coast. But the livestock don't seem to mind.
JAPAN
Jun 6, 2000

Mori denies that 'kokutai' carries Imperial connotations

Gaffe-prone Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Monday defended his use of the term "kokutai," which referred to a national polity centering on the Emperor before and during World War II, and said he has no plans to retract it.
JAPAN
Jun 6, 2000

NPOs key to revitalizing nation, union chief says

Political leaders can mitigate the country's record-high jobless rate and help solve other important national problems by generating citizens' power in the field of grassroots businesses, according to the president of the Japanese Workers' Cooperative Union.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat