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JAPAN
Apr 19, 2005

History not key issue: Chinese in Japan

OSAKA -- The current tensions between Japan and China have less to do with history textbooks and more to do with a long-term political and economic rivalry, according to some knowledgeable Chinese living in Japan.
COMMENTARY
Apr 19, 2005

Libya hasn't changed its spots

LONDON -- A recent trip to Libya showed that it remains a police state dominated by a personality cult. Col. Moammar Gadhafi's portrait was everywhere, and tourists were warned of severe penalties for criticizing the leadership.
BUSINESS
Apr 19, 2005

'Livedoor shock' reviving Japan's cross-shareholding habit

When Internet services company Livedoor Co. announced its bid to acquire Nippon Broadcasting System Inc., the vulnerabilities of Japan's capital markets were suddenly laid bare, prompting domestic companies to scramble for ways to defend themselves from hostile takeovers.
COMMUNITY / LIFELINES
Apr 19, 2005

Pensions, easy credit, freecycling and dogs

Lump Sum payments Following on from last week's Zeit Gist article on the insurance probe involving Japan's eikaiwa, Rob has a question on pension refunds.
EDITORIALS
Apr 18, 2005

Put surplus funds to better use

Japan's corporate sector is said to be awash in money. Many companies, having improved their balance sheets dramatically in recent years, now hold a large amount of surplus funds. For many of them, the crushing debt burden that was once a heavy drag on business development is said to be a thing of the...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 17, 2005

Former boy idol Hiromi Go stars in Fuji TV's "Bokura no Ongaku" and more

Fuji TV pretty much has the Monday night, 9 p.m. time slot all to itself. Traditionally, the network has saved its hottest "trendy" dramas for this time period, and whenever it has a series starring perennial heartthrob Takuya Kimura, who recently topped a magazine's annual poll for the "celebrity you...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Apr 17, 2005

'Man Friday' recalls time in line at Japan's first record expo

With the 2005 World Expo Aichi in full swing until September in Nagoya, it may come as a surprise to some that Japan's first world exposition was to have taken place as long ago as in 1912. But that was cancelled due to the death of Emperor Meiji. Another one, to have run in conjunction with Tokyo's...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Apr 17, 2005

Make no bones about it, this place is like nowhere on Earth

The view is daunting. Colossal. Inland, thunderheads loom over distant mountains signaling heavy rains in the interior. To our left, considerably nearer, a thick bank of billowing sea fog rises several hundred meters high. The sun is just visible behind it, pale and wan; a ghostly eye peering down on...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Apr 17, 2005

Jackpot jottings

While Japan's auto industry is forever being feted, the country's far-bigger pachinko business -- which takes a staggering 30 trillion yen a year in bets -- is almost entirely overlooked by society and the wider world.
Features
Apr 17, 2005

It's time Japan jumped on its cultural bandwagon

The Japanese have never regarded their culture as universal.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2005

Aging icebreaker back from Antarctic

The icebreaker Shirase returned home Wednesday, about five months after leaving Tokyo to carry Japan's 46th Antarctic expedition team.
COMMENTARY
Apr 13, 2005

China's cultural soul being sacrificed on altar of growth

HONG KONG -- As the Chinese economy continues to power ahead, everyone in the country is pleased with the visible improvement in standards of living, but very few people are counting the cost in terms of the loss of China's historical legacy, the growing sense of alienation and the loss of the cohesiveness...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 10, 2005

Corporate deregulation: Fear, loathing, firms losing the plot

Ever since the Japanese government started deregulating the economy in the '90s, there has been talk of an emerging income gap (kakusa). To a country that likes to think of itself as being uniformly middle class, social stratification means trouble, since it is often related to increasing crime, alienation,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 10, 2005

An English waking of 'Winter Sleep'

WINTER SLEEP, by Kenzo Kitakata. Vertical, 2005, 282 pp., $14.95 (paper). In a recent article for the Society of Writers, Editors and Translators, D. Patrick Dimick has defined the great trade deficit in literary translation between Japanese and other languages: "In 2002 the ratio of foreign books translated...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 10, 2005

Impermissible surrender and its consequences

THE ANGUISH OF SURRENDER: Japanese POWs of WWII, By Ulrich Strauss. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004, 282 pp., $27.50 (cloth) It is well known that in World War II Japanese soldiers rarely surrendered, and fought to the death rather than bring dishonor to their families. Their having been...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 10, 2005

The all-new "Doraemon" premieres on TV Asahi with an hour-long special and more

Marriage is often thought of as a win-lose proposition, as if it were a gamble. Under such circumstances, the clear winners in the marriage game are Japanese women who marry wealthy foreign men.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 10, 2005

Billy Bang

If poets are the unacknowledged statesmen of the world, musicians are the unacknowledged healers. Jazz violinist Billy Bang is a great example. After studying classical violin as a teenager and playing in bands through college, his career was put on hold -- to say the least -- after he was drafted and...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 9, 2005

Japan Post unit chiefs to be from private sector

The government will select private-sector personnel for the presidential posts at five spinoff units of Japan Post to be created in April 2007, sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2005

Thrice court-recognized refugee wants ministry nod

Afghan asylum-seeker Abdul Aziz says he is tired of fighting.
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2005

Asylum-seeker sues state for damages

A Myanmarese asylum-seeker who recently received a special residence permit filed a damages suit against the government Friday, demanding 11 million yen for being detained despite his status as a refugee, his lawyers said.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 8, 2005

Aum killer's death sentence finalized

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence for a former senior Aum Shinrikyo figure for his role in the 1989 murders of a Yokohama lawyer, the attorney's wife and infant son, and a cultist trying to defect.
EDITORIALS
Apr 8, 2005

Mr. Koizumi's privatization battle

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's administration, which has just completed a skeleton draft bill to privatize postal services, is trying hard to iron out the remaining differences with the Liberal Democratic Party -- a crucial process that will largely determine the nature and direction of postal privatization....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Apr 8, 2005

Honest, Doc, I can still dance

I missed everything in the doctor's explanation of my condition after she used the "A" word.
COMMUNITY
Apr 7, 2005

Metabolic syndrome comes with clusters of risks

The term "metabolic syndrome" may not be on the tip of the collective tongue, so to speak, but it makes sense to at least be aware of the existence of this cluster of risk factors that increases the chance of heart attack, stroke, diabetes and death.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 7, 2005

Cardinal hopes next pope is like John Paul

Roman Catholic Cardinal Seiichi Shirayanagi, one of two Japanese eligible to vote for a new pope, hopes Pope John Paul II's replacement will offer more of the same.
BUSINESS
Apr 7, 2005

BOJ maintains monetary policy; member objects

The Bank of Japan said Wednesday its policy-setting panel decided to leave its ultraloose monetary policy unchanged.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Apr 7, 2005

Birds of fine feather -- and taste

The Green or Common pheasant was adopted as the national bird of Japan in 1947, and a pair of these kiji used to decorate the 10,000 yen note. Recently however, the noble pheasant, symbol of masculine might and courage -- and, through its sudden agitated flying and crying, supposedly a prophet of earthquakes...

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