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JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 17, 2002

What webs we weave

Spiderman might still be the stuff of comic books, but spidermammals exist, and they are this week the stuff of science journals.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jan 17, 2002

Group seeks to close digital gender divide

The old stereotype of the "computer geek" -- taped Coke-bottle glasses, pens and protractors in breast pocket -- has gotten a series of upgrades over the last decade. The geek has morphed into the "techno-wizard," complete with a huge salary, power, influence and sometimes even new glasses.
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2002

New Year's poetry-reading ceremony held at Imperial Palace

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko on Tuesday attended the annual New Year's poetry recital at the Imperial Palace, where poems by members of the Imperial family and the general public were recited in traditional style.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Jan 16, 2002

If at first you don't succeed

Teen idol Ami Suzuki is apparently on the verge of making a comeback after disappearing from the J-pop radar more than a year ago.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 15, 2002

Effects of Sept. 11 on marketing policy

WASHINGTON -- The terror of Sept. 11 is a key fissure in American lives. At Georgetown's McDonough School of Business, we investigated the repercussions of the terror on international marketing policy and corporate practices. We found a new era of common sense characterized by five key dimensions.
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2002

Omron adds cat to robot pet population

A lifelike robot cat closes its eyes and meows after a young boy rubs the acrylic fur on its chin at a department store in Tokyo.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jan 15, 2002

The hippy haven that actually worked

In 1951, the Llwyngwern slate quarry in central North Wales closed down, causing many redundancies.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2002

Fuchu trots out story of horse racing

Horses, once essential for farming and transport, have all but disappeared from modern Japan -- except to fuel our sense of competition at the track.
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2002

Kansai Who & What

Guide club to take in temple sake ceremony The Guide Interpreter Volunteer Club is organizing a one-day tour for foreigners to an annual ceremony held at Daianji temple in Nara Prefecture on Jan. 23.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2002

The blackest summer in Sydney's history

SYDNEY -- The pall of eucalyptus-scented smoke that has smothered Australia's largest city since Christmas Day is lifting. More than 11,000 evacuees are returning to the burned-out bush where their homes once stood. The cost of Sydney's worst-ever bush-fire season? Who dares count?
COMMUNITY
Jan 13, 2002

The real deal in Kansai's kitchen

OSAKA -- Osaka's Kuromon Market has never ceased to fire the Japanese public imagination in its 180 years of existence. Back in the 1940s, it was described in Sakunosuke Oda's novels, including his well-known "Meotozenzai." And these days, Kuromon is on television, in a popular NHK morning serial "Honmamon"...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 13, 2002

No recovery in sight for Japanese book publishing industry

One often sees references in the Japanese media to the "lost decade" that followed the burst of the speculative bubble in the early 1990s, but the publishing world has only suffered a half decade of negative growth. After five consecutive years of falling sales, however, it can no longer ignore systemic...
COMMUNITY
Jan 13, 2002

Seafood central: Tokyo's Tsukiji market

"For Japanese, fish is the very best thing in the world," Sadao Ohashi declares with pride as he pushes his medieval-looking, two-wheeled wooden cart at jogging speed, maneuvering a load of mackerel, squid and sea bream through the moving maze of carts, people and battered one-man trucks that throng...
COMMUNITY
Jan 13, 2002

Fukuoka fish are jumping

FUKUOKA -- First-time visitors to this sunny city are often told with a certain friendly belligerence that Fukuoka's seafood is the best in Japan. Usually, just a glimpse of its sparkling harbor and rugged natural coastline is enough to whet their appetite to test this claim.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 13, 2002

Reassessing Kurosawa's neglected masterpiece

SEVEN SAMURAI: The Film by Akira Kurosawa, by Joan Mellen. London: British Film Institute, 2002, 96 pp., with many b/w photos, 8.99 British pounds (paper) The National Film Theater in London is currently presenting a two-month-long festival featuring the works of Akira Kurosawa. A number of other events...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 12, 2002

Tabibito Travel: flexible, friendly, frugal and fun

I first meet Matthew Cox for coffee in the summer of 2000. He wants to talk about writing, get feedback on a couple of articles, and doesn't yet get the lesson to be learned from American compatriot Raymond Carver.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jan 11, 2002

Northern fur seal

* Japanese name: Kita-ottosei * Scientific name: Callorhinus ursinus * Description: Fur seals have bodies streamlined for life in the sea. They have four limbs (unlike dolphins and whales, which have only two), but the arm and leg bones are relatively short and are contained within the body. The hand...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 10, 2002

Japan's rights and wrongs in the 'fishing boat' incident

HONOLULU -- Japan's violent pursuit of a suspected North Korean boat in the East China Sea has prompted both domestic and international controversy. Domestic opposition critics are questioning Japan's right to use force on the "high seas" and are using this incident to argue against expanding Japan's...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jan 10, 2002

Eco-tour program puts priority on people

First of two parts Stefan Ottomanski is a rare educator: He thrives on uncertainty and views obstacles as opportunities to teach both his students and himself lessons that were never part of the curriculum.
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Jan 10, 2002

Forget agents, get a comedian

Yakult Swallows pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii obviously didn't know what to do.
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2002

Koizumi celebrates 60th birthday

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi marked his 60th birthday Tuesday by pledging to make an all-out effort in his job as the nation's leader.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 9, 2002

Tokyo Kandenchi putting a little spark back into the Bard

For my first theater outing of 2002, I went to see "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" by Tokyo Kandenchi (Tokyo Dry Battery). In this -- their 25th anniversary performance, but their first-ever brush with the Bard of Avon -- the company made no pretense of striving to scale great literary heights, but instead...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 9, 2002

Back from the brink

The German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) said that people not drawing on 3,000 years of tradition are living on the edge of extinction. How, then, did Japanese craftsmen recover from the trauma of World War II, when their proud traditions, seemingly tainted by recent history, were thrown...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jan 9, 2002

Alec Empire

Alec Empire is a terrorist, let there be no question about that. Slide one of his records onto your grandmother's gramophone while she's making a cup of tea and then, on lowering the needle, watch her writhe in agony until she can take no more and commits seppuku with a knitting needle. Then again kids,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jan 9, 2002

Basement Jaxx

What most people respond to when they first hear Basement Jaxx aren't so much the recognizable references -- the Prince and P-Funk nods, the Latin rhythms, the beats-per-minute rules of late-'80s house music -- but the even more basic stuff, like song structure. Even if you're a champion of electronica...
BUSINESS
Jan 9, 2002

Foreigners stay net sellers

Foreign investors were net sellers of Japanese stocks for the second consecutive week during the third week of December.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 8, 2002

Behind the scenes with Phnom Penh's 'orange girls'

PHNOM PENH -- In central Phnom Penh, at one end of a semiderelict building, is a tiny lean-to shack. Its walls are made of scavenged wood planks and its roof of corrugated iron. The ground around it is a swamp of sewage and mud due to the daily monsoon rains. To get to the shack, you have to hop along...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jan 6, 2002

Fuzz Log: (rock)stardate, 2001

2001 was great for music, with rock 'n' roll at last being rescued from the clutches of tired nu-metal (Limp Bizkit, etc.), boring nu-acoustic rock (Coldplay, etc.) and punk-lite (Blink-182, etc.) by exciting new bands like The Strokes, The Toes and The White Stripes.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 6, 2002

A fresh look at a familiar subject

A SNAKE IN THE SHRINE: Journeys With Nobby Through Middle Japan, by David Geraghty. University of Otago Press, 2001, 222 pp., $29.95 (paper) Perhaps there's something about coming to Japan that brings out the writer in a person -- the peculiarities of the culture, the rarity of the experience, the seemingly...

Longform

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