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JAPAN
Jan 27, 2004

Middle-aged are filling temp agency labor niche

Although the employment situation remains severe for older job seekers in search of full-time work, temporary employment services for the middle-aged are attracting increasing attention.
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2004

Parties agree on 'citizen judge' plan

The two governing coalition parties reached a final agreement Monday on a format for a new "citizen judge" system, deciding to place three professional and six lay judges on criminal trial panels, party lawmakers said.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / A GAIJIN'S TALE
Jan 27, 2004

Birthday suit blackout

In the same way you acquire a taste for initially unappetizing foreign food, the reverse can happen you lose the capacity to digest food which previously you'd gobble down with gusto.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 25, 2004

Embracing the beauty and the beast

The Chicago band Califone and Tucson-based singer-songwriter Howe Gelb will be coming to Japan next month to do a club tour together. Both artists record for the same Chicago indie, Thrill Jockey, which has a licensing deal with the Japanese company Headz, and they both happen to have time to kill in...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Jan 25, 2004

Surprise guests inspire unholy thoughts

MOSCOW -- It started with a rectangular jellyfish floating toward the lower right-hand corner of my computer screen. The jellyfish carried a logo, Kodak Easy Share, and was of a nauseating white-yellow-red design. The jellyfish had been there for quite a while, distracting me from students' papers and...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2004

Risky North Korea rescue left unfinished

Desperate to save his sons and other relatives, a 56-year-old escapee from North Korea hatched a bold plan to free them by smuggling himself back into the country.
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2004

Book to immortalize slain envoy

A series of reports on Iraq written by a Japanese diplomat killed in an ambush there last year will go on sale in book form Friday, a Tokyo-based publisher said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2004

Japanese directors score big abroad with Western musicals

Japanese directors are winning over audiences overseas with their unique interpretations of Western musicals, drawing on popular Japanese approaches like the all-female Takarazuka Revue Co.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 22, 2004

Out of thought, out of mind

Sigmund Freud was well aware that his theories were controversial. "What progress we are making," he commented in 1933. "In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books."
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2004

Typical wife beater: 40-year-old boozer

The typical perpetrator of domestic violence in Japan is a 40-year-old male who drinks regularly and has a six-year history of assaulting family members, according to a recent Justice Ministry study.
EDITORIALS
Jan 21, 2004

Reform key to Mr. Koizumi's future

In his policy speech to the Diet on Monday, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi spent a considerable amount of time trying to convince a public that is skeptical about sending Self-Defense Force troops to Iraq to provide humanitarian aid and assist with reconstruction. It is not clear whether he succeeded...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 21, 2004

Where the rock girls are . . . By SIMON BARTZ

In "Kill Bill," Japanese garage-rockers The 5.6.7.8's dripped cool as the blood splashed. But that was just a scratch on the surface of a thriving girl-band scene. Here we dig deeper to give you the chick picks of 2004.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 21, 2004

Making a spectacle of man's inhumanity to man

"Bent" is one of the outstanding theatrical creations of the 20th century. Ostensibly about the persecution of homosexuals and Jews under Hitler's dictatorship, what the play really addresses is the power -- in even the most disempowered circumstances -- of the individual and of love.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 18, 2004

Wacky potions can be crocks of gold

The doorbell rang. It was my neighbor, Mrs. S., asking if the lady of the house (a Taiwanese) could help her by translating the Chinese-language instructions for a "miracle" baldness remedy that someone had brought back from China and presented to her husband.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jan 17, 2004

Restaurant's food still alive and kicking

Recently, I went to Manabe Island, in Okayama Prefecture, two islands away from mine. The island has a population of 400 and only one restaurant. But the restaurant, called Ryouka, is so famous, you need reservations to get in for lunch on weekends. Meals are 5,000 yen per person, and the favored transportation...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2004

Hope for Indo-Pakistani peace

Some years ago, I was visiting Samarkand in Uzbekistan, from where the Mughal Dynasty came down to the subcontinent. The only other person from South Asia in the group was a senior Pakistani military officer. We soon realized we had more in common with each other than any other members of the group because...
EDITORIALS
Jan 16, 2004

A dangerous flu season

While international attention has been focused on the prospect of the re-emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, scientists and health officials are concerned about the outbreak of another disease in Asia. Avian flu has been detected in three countries. It has killed thousands of birds...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 16, 2004

Your geisha fantasy fulfilled

It was high time for a break from the pressures of jobs and family.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jan 15, 2004

'Little' Matsui is ready for New York challenge

Moving to the major leagues won't be the first big change Japanese star Kazuo Matsui has had to make in his baseball career.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2004

North Korea escapees, NGO rep held in China

Two ethnic Koreans born in Japan who fled North Korea and an official of a Japanese nongovernmental organization were taken into custody by Chinese authorities in mid-December and are still being held, the NGO said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2004

World's young see Japan wealth, diligence waning

An increasing percentage of young people in Japan, South Korea, the United States, Germany and Sweden see Japan's economy as waning and Japanese as less diligent than before, according to the results of a government survey released Monday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / A GAIJIN'S TALE
Jan 13, 2004

Tenant trouble

My Japanese supervisor and I set out to select a new apartment for my African-American colleague who would soon be moving here to be my co-attorney in the office.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2004

American environmentalist dead in suspected suicide

An American environmentalist who dedicated his life to marine conservation in Japan has died in a suspected suicide, police said Sunday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 12, 2004

Let the Saudis choose their revolution

SYDNEY -- In November 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush described what he termed the third pillar of America's security: "global democratic revolution." If Iraq and Afghanistan were the first "beneficiaries" of this revolution, then it seems almost certain that Saudi Arabia will feature somewhere in...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 11, 2004

A step back to the way life was

Everyone knows -- especially the organizers of home stays and house visits -- that you can learn a lot about a society from observing the way its people live. But how about taking a trip back in time, to a home of times past, to gain a better understanding of the cultural roots of today's society?
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 11, 2004

More than transformation to a photo critic's eye

THE HISTORY OF JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHY, edited and translated by John Junkerman. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003, 404 pp. $65 (cloth). The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, deserves kudos for sponsoring this superb slab of a book. This is certainly an impressively organized, thoughtful and comprehensive...

Longform

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