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CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jun 6, 2000

Super Furries, Eels, Bentley signed up for summer of fun

Super Furry Animals -- "Mwng" (Placid Casual) Their warped imaginations proffer a bent reality, a Dali-like melting pot of madness; they adorn their album covers with exotic monstrosities that are both cute and menacing. They are totally fuzzy. They are the Super Furry Animals, they don't play by the...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 6, 2000

Some rules were made to be broken

THE IRON BOOK OF BRITISH HAIKU, edited by David Cobb and Martin Lucas. Iron Press, 1998, 112 pp., 6.50 British pounds. A NEW RESONANCE: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, edited by Jim Kacian and Dee Evetts. Red Moon Press, 1999, 201 pp., $14.50. Reading these anthologies of English-language...
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 4, 2000

Chinese ballet master comes in from the cold

It was too off-the-wall to resist: the chance to meet a Chinese ballet master from Alaska. So we arranged to meet in front of Tokyo's Yotsuya Station (not as easy as it sounds, since he is newly arrived and a stranger to Japan) and find him somewhere to eat. Luckily there was a Chinese restaurant right...
CULTURE / Art
Jun 3, 2000

Paintings that invite you to linger longer

The first thing you notice are the fingers. These are big, long fingers, four of them radiating outward from each half of a stretching oil on canvas diptych the artist calls "Double Fist."
JAPAN
Jun 2, 2000

Official or not, English a must for Japan leaders: symposium

The proposal to make English Japan's official second language has been hotly debated over the past few months, but panelists at a recent symposium say it is Japan's leaders — not necessarily the general public — who need to master the language.
EDITORIALS
Jun 1, 2000

Mr. Fujimori's two faces

Few world leaders are as perplexing as Peru's president, Mr. Alberto Fujimori. Both sides of his complex personality have been on display in recent weeks: the taciturn autocrat who defies international opinion to hold an election and the leader who wins that vote with substantial popular support. But...
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Jun 1, 2000

F. Marinos starting to shape up, but other teams aren't far away

Well, that was a curious one, wasn't it? In the end, it almost seemed as if no team wanted to win the J. League's first stage. And the way the Yokohama F. Marinos triumphed, it felt like they won it by default after having to rely on Cerezo Osaka's extra-time loss to Kawasaki Frontale.
JAPAN
May 31, 2000

Motherly love a hurdle for teens

In today's society, families are having fewer children, fathers are working more and mothers are clinging to their children with greater intensity, hampering children's growth, according to psychologist Yoshiomi Takahashi.
SOCCER / J. League
May 30, 2000

S-Pulse's Endo impresses the Mechelen man

If Mechelen boss Ivan Buskens had actually seen a J. League game before signing Masahiro Endo, perhaps it would have changed his mind.
BUSINESS
May 29, 2000

Coleman ventures beyond camping to stamp image on new generation

For many outside Japan, the name Coleman is likely to conjure up images of tents and weekend camping trips by a roaring campfire.
MORE SPORTS
May 28, 2000

Japanese soccer finished, or glory days still ahead?

This past week the lists of the top income taxpayers in Japan were announced and bantered about in all the media. And, as this country loves youth like just about no other, 17-year-old singing sensation Hikaru Utada and 19-year-old Seibu Lions pitching phenom Daisuke Matsuzaka garnered more attention...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
May 28, 2000

Only yesterday

Sometimes this column is credited with far more than it can do. It cannot turn back the calendar to long gone days and bring back the past, except to present it in the form that whatever-it-was has now assumed. Take, for example, traditional Japanese architecture, the lovely old houses we once could...
EDITORIALS
May 27, 2000

Myanmar's lost decade

Ten years ago today, Myanmar had a brief taste of democracy. It was a heady experience: Prodemocracy activists decisively rejected the military junta that had ruled for 28 years. Stunned, the cabal then rejected that verdict, imprisoned its opponents and shut down the country. And so things stand today....
JAPAN
May 27, 2000

Rigid schools failing kids in tough times

The rigidity of Japanese schools is suffocating children and is one of the causes behind the recent rise in youth crime, according to education experts.
CULTURE / Art
May 27, 2000

A vision of hope in a life of disaster

Painting the kind of life he would like to live instead of the hard one he actually has, artist Andrew Boerger creates an appealing, serene world on canvas that has art buyers snapping up his work.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
May 27, 2000

Sweet treats on a canvas of glaze

Though most of the world loves labels, it's hard to give one to the pottery of Norio Kamiya. Many collectors of Japanese pottery feel more comfortable if they know that this style is called Kutani or that one Arita or that this potter has won this award and exhibits at such-and-such gallery. Only after...
COMMENTARY
May 25, 2000

One currency, 11 masters

LONDON -- Many commentators seem genuinely surprised at the miserable performance of the euro. How, they ask, can it be that the new currency for most of Western Europe, which was billed to be the rival of the dollar and the world's alternative reserve currency, is now trading against the dollar at 25...
LIFE / Travel
May 24, 2000

Lazy days on Yanagawa's canals

Yanagawa, in Fukuoka Prefecture, almost doesn't feel like a castle town. After all, the castle's remains (several heavy stone walls covered with greenery) now have two schools sprawling over them, and today the city is more associated with water, willow trees and writers. However Yanagawa's most distinctive...
JAPAN
May 23, 2000

Youth crime laid to insular life

Juvenile crimes stem from a society adults created, and changing laws to merely impose a stricter punishment on young offenders will not get to the root of the problem, according to a former family court examiner.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 23, 2000

Basho, a man for all seasons

REDISCOVERING BASHO: A 300th Anniversary Celebration, edited by Stephen Henry Gill & C. Andrew Gerstle. Kent: Global Oriental/Global Books, 1999, 168 pp., 14.95 British pounds. During the 300 years since his death, Basho has turned into Japan's most famous poet, the personification of haiku culture...
BUSINESS
May 22, 2000

As with risk, ranks of analysts rising

Once again the time has come for the mass-release of Japan Inc.'s annual earnings reports. While the stock market is showing signs of rumbling back to life after nearly a decade of dormancy, significant changes to Japan's financial landscape are forcing players to make rapid transitions just to keep...
COMMUNITY
May 21, 2000

Monkey mugs teacher juggling long way home

After eight months traveling in Asia, Leslie Davis is back in Japan for 2 1/2 weeks. She is using this time "to get grounded": sorting out taxes and boxes, seeing friends and reorganizing her backpack for the next stage of her journey. This will take her through Indonesia to Australia, New Zealand...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
May 21, 2000

Mohan Kumar

NEW DELHI -- "Three things are necessary for a driver: a good horn, good brakes and good luck."
COMMENTARY
May 21, 2000

Much ado about nothing?

Claims that Tokyo's governor, Shintaro Ishihara, is racist because he recently described Asians here as "sankoku-jin" (third-country nationals) -- a fairly neutral Occupation-era term used to distinguish resident Koreans and Taiwanese from Westerners -- were a bit far-fetched.
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2000

The limits of peacekeeping

There is a troubling sense of deja vu in the tragedy befalling the U.N. peacekeeping effort in Sierra Leone (it is really peace enforcement, a euphemism for getting sucked into someone else's war). And more than just putting at risk future U.N. operations, recent events pose vexing questions about how...
COMMENTARY
May 20, 2000

Bigger isn't always better

The failure of the proposed merger between Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank ought to have signaled the end of the merger mania among the world's major banks and to have cautioned banks and other enterprises that big does not mean best. But the message does not seem to have seeped through to some people...
BUSINESS
May 18, 2000

Classes help individuals learn about stock market

With the devastatingly low interest rate available on deposits and the prospect of the introduction in Japan of U.S. 401(k)-style pension plans, more people are studying stock market investment.
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
May 18, 2000

The facts you should know before trying to take it all off

More people than ever are overweight, and I would guess that the percentage of people on diets has gone up proportionally as well. Add the number of dieters who really do need to lose weight to those who diet out of some misguided desire to be skeletal, and you've got a lot of people. Weight loss is...
JAPAN
May 17, 2000

Summit expected to disrupt tourist industry

Hoteliers in Okinawa seem to have a common message to guests invited to the Group of Eight Summit in Okinawa in July: We will be happy to have you here, but we wish you would come in winter.

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