Search - text

 
 
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2003

Oshima back in the frying pan

Scandal-tainted farm minister Tadamori Oshima faced more trouble Thursday as opposition lawmakers grilled House of Representatives Legislative Bureau officials who coached Oshima on how to respond to sensitive questions at a recent Diet committee session concerning misdeeds by his former aide.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 25, 2003

Bidding a farewell to arms in Japan

When a bullet strikes the car in which one is riding, the sound -- a sharp, metallic "WHAP!" -- is unmistakable. This writer has heard it twice in his life, and I hope the second time will be the last.
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2003

Public-private forum backs U.S. Iraq stance

Members of the Japan Forum on International Relations, a public-private proposal group, issued an appeal Thursday supporting the U.S. stance on the Iraqi crisis. [Full text of appeal]
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2003

Ancient voices, timeless tales brought back to life

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- "Thai" or "Tai"?
COMMENTARY
Feb 5, 2003

New life for de Gaulle's old dream

PARIS -- France and Germany have solemnly celebrated the 40th anniversary of the so-called Elysee Treaty, signed by French President Charles de Gaulle and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer on Jan. 22, 1963. Last month governments and parliaments in both Paris and Berlin held joint meetings, as French...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 2, 2003

How the 'modern' code was cracked

The headless body of a woman in her 50s was laid on a straw mat inside a hut at Kotsukahara in Edo's Senju area. Born in Kyoto and nicknamed "Aochababa," sketchy court records indicate the woman had been convicted of killing her adopted children. She had been executed by beheading that very morning,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 2, 2003

One-man media airs his views

It's 10 a.m. Sunday, and TBS TV's "Sunday Japon" show is getting under way. American entertainer Dave Spector, a regular panelist, shares the stage with a former porn actress, a Korean journalist and a member of the Diet. After an hour of exchanging ripostes with the others on major international and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 15, 2003

MoT showcases artists who draw deeply from real life

"Art," wrote the French artist Robert Filliou (1926-87), "is what makes life more interesting than art." And this, dear reader, is just about my favorite quote. Profoundly mystifying, it serves as an M.C. Escher-esque comeback when the old "What is art?" line is thrown out less as a question than as...
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2003

New system to facilitate closer flying

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport plans to more than halve the minimum separation distance between commercial aircraft flying over the busy North Pacific and polar route between Japan and the U.S. East Coast.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 3, 2003

Chic eats for the months ahead

It's prognostication time again and, just like Janus (after whom this month is, after all, named), the Food File likes to look ahead by surveying all that lies behind.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 29, 2002

Koma Square -- a new years' tale by RK

1997-99 He woke to the sound of a prerecorded voice booming from the nationalists' minitruck rolling through their neighborhood, making the windows rattle. Shirtless on the tatami, his bare back pressed to the ribbed weave, he heard the voice as part of his dream and then part of the day, and then...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 27, 2002

Roberto Carlos was best player of 2002

LONDON -- As the year winds down we are seeing a plethora of honors being handed out to different soccer players around the globe. Here are my picks for some alternative awards for 2002:
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 25, 2002

Ennosuke masters Mishima's extravagant vision

The Kabukiza Theater in Ginza concludes the year in style, with outstanding performances by the versatile Ichikawa Ennosuke, 63, and members of his troupe.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 22, 2002

A little something for the god

GRACIOUS GIFTS: Japan's Sacred Offerings, photographed by Gorazd Vilhar, text by Charlotte Anderson. Tokyo: Shufunotomo-sha, 1999, 128 pp., 172 color plates, 4,000 yen (cloth) All religions encourage gifts. From Catholic prayer boxes to Protestant collection plates, from the donation repositories of...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 21, 2002

World of Gorgles and other prehysterical things

Any visitor this weekend to the Hirabayashi coffee shop opposite Yokosuka's Shioiri Station in Kanagawa Prefecture might be excused for thinking they had wandered onto another planet. They would be right. Until Monday, it is Clara Birnbaum's world: her World of the Gorgles.
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

Covering their tracks on the way to war

To obfuscate the waging of war on several fronts simultaneously may seem an unlikely and incredible ambition. However, as more and more information surrounding Japan's attacks on Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in the Pacific on Dec. 7, 1941, comes to light, it becomes ever more clear that its military rulers...
COMMENTARY
Dec 12, 2002

Which is worse, adultery or promiscuity?

JEJU, South Korea -- Adultery or promiscuity: Which is worse? Oddly enough, that question hung over discussions at the United Nations-ROK conference* that convened last week at this South Korean resort. Those of us debating "changing security dynamics and their implications for disarmament and nonproliferation"...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 1, 2002

'Mongrel' seeker after new self-understandings

"One day, people will realize they are a mongrel people with a mongrel history."
CULTURE / Music
Nov 17, 2002

Cozy up to the 'new' classical

Classical music fans frequently complain that avant-garde music made after Schonberg hasn't resonated with listeners and that composers create tunes for their own satisfaction, without audiences in mind.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 13, 2002

Dishonor avenged, love avowed

This month, following the lead of the Kabukiza, the National Theater in Tokyo also presents "Kanadehon Chushingura (The 47 Loyal Retainers)" to mark the upcoming 300th anniversary of the famous act of revenge carried out by the 47 ronin (masterless samurai) on the night of Dec. 14, 1702 (on the old calendar)....
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 8, 2002

DoCoMo group profit plummets

NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Thursday its group net profit for the fiscal half plummeted 95.3 percent year-on-year to 4.17 billion yen, due to hefty appraisal losses on its overseas investments.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2002

Opposition lawmakers slam interim report

Lawmakers on a constitutional panel slammed a report issued by the panel on Friday, stating that the document had been edited to bolster pro-amendment views.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 1, 2002

Japan goes from clunky typewriter to waapuro

I wonder how many readers have ever experienced typing on an old-style Japanese typewriter. I tried my hand at it, just once. It was around 1973, and afterwards I was relieved that my clumsy effort was merely done out of curiosity and not necessity.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Nov 1, 2002

Gathering closes summer's curtain

HIWADAKOUGEN, Gifu Pref. -- I was inside my tent changing from damp clothes to dry when the whooshing thuds of a low-flying helicopter took the campsite by surprise. I thought little of it until the commotion started. News travels fast in a village of nylon walls. Clearly something was amiss.
EDITORIALS
Oct 27, 2002

At last, a move to cut down on popups

Sometimes you have to wonder what advertising gurus use for brains. For decades now, we've watched them fail to grasp the simple truth that television commercials repeated ad nauseam can actually drive viewers to boycott products rather than buy them. In recent years, though, it has been the idea of...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 27, 2002

The lesser of many possible evils

THE UNITED STATES IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC SINCE 1945, by Roger Buckley. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2002. 258 pp., $65 (cloth) This is a wide-ranging, ambitious and informative work on an immense subject. Given the vast terrain and limited space, Roger Buckley has had to resist the temptations...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Oct 2, 2002

Oppai -obsessed oeuvre that isn't well-rounded

I'm often asked the question: "What characterizes Japanese contemporary art?" At the risk of over-generalizing, I usually reply that two qualities recur among artists at the vanguard of this country's creative culture -- an obsessiveness vis a vis the subject, or an obsessive attention to detail in the...
COMMUNITY
Sep 22, 2002

William Tyndale: A martyr's memory heals old wounds

ANTWERP, Belgium -- William Tyndale, the first translator of the Bible into English from its original Greek and Hebrew texts, is making a comeback that -- if not miraculous -- is considered by many to be at least long overdue.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 22, 2002

Hsia Yu: modern, universal and refreshing

FUSION KITSCH: Poetry by Hsia Yu, Translated by Steve Bradbury. Zephyr Press, Massachusetts, 2001, 131 pp., $13 (paper) The title of this book, the first bilingual collection of work by Taiwanese poet Hsia Yu, is apt. In fact, translator Steve Bradbury, a professor at National Central University in Taiwan,...
COMMUNITY
Sep 15, 2002

Did Plato's Republic find a spiritual home in Japan?

Four hundred and two years ago this week, a battle was fought near the village of Sekigahara, 40 km northwest of Nagoya. Though short -- it was over soon after lunchtime -- the battle was decisive, ushering in . . . Plato's Republic?

Longform

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