Search - life

 
 
EDITORIALS
Feb 23, 2003

Singing the karaoke blues

Japan has given much to world culture. Kimono, anime, sushi and ikebana are just some of the words that have become so well-known abroad they don't even need translating. But one pastime has come in the past few decades to represent Japan perhaps more authentically than any other activity -- and that's...
COMMENTARY
Feb 23, 2003

Don't ignore greater threat

HONOLULU -- The big debate raging in Washington these days is over which country poses the greater threat: North Korea or Iraq (with some throwing Iran into the mix, just to keep the old "axis of evil" intact).
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 23, 2003

Taisho treasure

Tokyo is in the throes of a particularly bold face-lift. In the cause of urban regeneration, massive high-rises are shooting up in Shinagawa, Shinbashi, Roppongi and Shinjuku, transforming the skyline of metropolitan Tokyo. On the ground, wrecking trucks clear more land, demolishing old homes and felling...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 23, 2003

A little space can go a long way

If you are renting a small apartment, your clothes, books, magazines and CDs -- things that are supposed to enrich your life -- can also be a burden as they gradually erode your limited space.
EDITORIALS
Feb 22, 2003

'Shunto' has lost steam

Wage bargaining is the stuff of the annual springtime labor offensive known as "shunto." This year's wage round, however, is essentially different from previous ones because wage increases are not the main subject of labor-management negotiations. The Japanese Trade Union Confederation, or Rengo, the...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2003

Karzai sends out a reminder

Visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday called on the international community to continue providing support to help rebuild his nation, even while the eyes of the world are focused on Iraq.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 22, 2003

Go Girls offers safe place for learning languages

There are many ways to learn a language. And there are several introduction services that brings students and teachers together. None, however, have the commitment and organizational safety net of Go Girls.
BUSINESS
Feb 21, 2003

Haseko plans holding firm for three condo service units

Haseko Corp. said Thursday it will establish a holding company April 1 to control three of its subsidiaries in charge of services-related business.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 21, 2003

Sasano: A hidden gem of an izakaya

It's always a pleasure to revisit a favorite haunt after a gap of a couple of years, and even more so to discover that it's just as good as ever. In the case of Sasano, that doesn't just mean premium sake and fine quality provender -- after all, those are the sine qua non of any self-respecting izakaya...
BASEBALL / MLB
Feb 20, 2003

Rose packs his bags, leaves Marines

Bobby Rose, a former Yokohama BayStars infielder, pulled out of a deal to play for the Chiba Lotte Marines for the upcoming season on Wednesday.
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Feb 20, 2003

Nokia fails to N-Gage Japan

Nokia's N-Gage mobile telephone/video game system, unveiled earlier this month, plays better than GameBoy Advance-quality games and has a built-in cellular telephone. So why aren't Nintendo executives shaking in their boots?
EDITORIALS
Feb 19, 2003

No cause to celebrate GDP growth

It may come as a bit of a surprise to learn that Japan's sluggish economy expanded for four straight quarters in calendar 2002. The truth is, though, it expanded only after the effect of deflation, or the continued decline in the prices of goods and services, was applied. The nation's deflation-adjusted...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2003

Welcome to the terrordome

"Terror" is much on our minds these days. Whether we believe that terrorist activity has made the world a more dangerous place to live, or condemn the "war on terror" as a mere cover for U.S. President George W. Bush's political ambition, the concept of terror has saturated our daily life.
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2003

Police arrest six over deadly Kabukicho fire

Six people were arrested Tuesday for alleged professional negligence in connection with a fire that claimed 44 lives in an unsafe building in Tokyo's Kabukicho nightlife district in 2001.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2003

When utopia went to hell

Although the 1920s and early 1930s were turbulent years indeed in the new Soviet Union forged out of 1917's October Revolution, despite civil war, famine, purges and mass deportations, many still clung to the dream of a workers' paradise promised by the revolutionaries who overthrew the Czarist regime....
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2003

Aid for workers of Japanese ancestry

The labor ministry plans to strengthen support for foreign workers of Japanese ancestry to help them find jobs and better settle in the country, ministry officials said Monday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / NOTES FROM THE SMOKE
Feb 18, 2003

Disturbing artwork and disturbed fish on the Koenji trail

A recent visit to the suburb of Koenji reminded me of my JET program orientation in Kansai; I visited a temple, learned some outlandish local customs, ate sushi, and was shown around a vintage toy store with cosmic price tags.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Feb 17, 2003

"Holes," "Love That Dog"

"Holes," Louis Sachar, Bloomsbury; 2000; 233 pp. It's hard to say why life is so downright unfair to some children. Take Stanley Yelnats: He gets bullied at school and is ignored by his teachers. And then one day, he gets hit on the head by a pair of sneakers that seems to fall out of the sky. He doesn't...
COMMENTARY
Feb 17, 2003

Fears of 'anti-Americanism' overblown

MANILA -- In 1996 Samuel Huntington published his epochal work "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order." In it, he argues that, since the demise of the Cold War, cultural divides have become the focal points of international conflicts. Judging from recent editorials in American and...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 16, 2003

Profits perpetuate horrors of child labor

MADRAS, India -- There is Dickensian distress in India, where child labor persists despite a law and a court order. Fifteen million children below 14 continue to work in the most horrific of conditions in blatant violation of the Indian Supreme Court ruling, which had called for the enforcement of the...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 16, 2003

Don't be too quick to jump on the bondwagon

Two weeks ago, post offices and financial institutions began taking orders for new Japanese government bonds targeted exclusively at individuals and set to go on sale March 10. Post offices immediately booked sales for all 50 billion yen worth of bonds they were entrusted with, and the remaining 280...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Feb 16, 2003

The turbulent isles are tranquil at last

Last of two parts Despite its appearance of timeless peace and tranquillity, the Seychelles has a turbulent history. Originally discovered by the Dutch, this remote archipelago in the Indian Ocean rapidly became a haunt of pirates.
JAPAN
Feb 15, 2003

Group offers info on Europe's 'Utopias'

An Osaka-based nonprofit organization promoting "eco-villages" provides information on such communities in Europe. It also makes arrangements for people who wish to visit or stay at one.
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2003

Japan NGO demands Beijing release 120 North Korean refugees, supporters

A Japanese nongovernmental organization helping North Koreans who have fled to China demanded Thursday that Beijing release at least 120 refugees and their supporters allegedly detained since October.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2003

Japan urged to take lead in easing of drug patents

As host of an informal ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization, Japan should take the initiative in easing rules on pharmaceutical patents so developing countries can have better access to desperately needed drugs, according to Dr. Tatsuo Hayashi, president of Africa-Japan Forum.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / NETWISE
Feb 13, 2003

Japanese get real on 2 Channel

It was 1975 when University of North Carolina graduate student Steve Bellovin developed a handful of short programs to facilitate communication via UUCP (Unix-to-Unix Copy) between the University of North Carolina and Duke University. The scripts were later rewritten in the computer language "C" and...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 13, 2003

Ensuring age is the crown of life

The English scholar John Bailey said his wife Iris Murdoch, a prolific, perfectionist novelist and lecturer, became like "a very nice 3-year-old" as her Alzheimer's disease progressed. The disease made the proteins in her brain "misfold" and collapse, forming clots called amyloids that disrupt normal...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Feb 13, 2003

Have we got the will to survive?

"State of the World 2003," this year's edition of a report published annually by the Worldwatch Institute, arrived in my mailbox several days before the shuttle tragedy, but it sat on my desk unopened until the morning of Columbia's fiery descent.

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