Search - life

 
 
LIFE / Digital
Jan 24, 2001

Internet reincarnations

www.geocities.com/lilgreen91/ Photographic evidence that an alien/human hybrid is among us. Or at least in someone's kitchen.
LIFE / Food & Drink / KISSA KULTUR
Jan 24, 2001

Mariage Freres: A Ginza tea party

They haven't had to advertise in over 140 years. Of course, when your product is of the highest quality, word travels -- even to distant shores.
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Jan 23, 2001

Artists with eclectic tastes dispute the 'healing' tag

Of all the nonsensical musical genres, perhaps the most irksome is one coined here in Japan: "healing" music.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 22, 2001

The clock is ticking for Gen. Musharraf

ISLAMABAD -- Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, has vowed to give Pakistanis a new life through the establishment a new political order. This promise will be put to test in the next few months.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2001

Female Internet entrepreneur prefers company-making to money-making

Back in 1986, Tomoko Namba didn't really know what management consultancy firms did. She just wanted to join a company where she could "work and make money" at the same level as a man.
COMMENTARY
Jan 20, 2001

A good pick for key Asian-policy post

Nice guys don't always finish last. Soon after Gen. Colin Powell heard from President-elect George W. Bush that he was indeed to be nominated secretary of state, he picked up the telephone and asked someone he has known for years to join his team as the next assistant secretary of state for East Asian...
JAPAN
Jan 19, 2001

Bureaucratic reform date set

Basic reform principles for Japan's civil service and special public corporations will be drafted by June, Ryutaro Hashimoto, minister in charge of administrative reforms, said Thursday.
JAPAN
Jan 19, 2001

Mori asks panel to plan five-year science policy

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori asked an advisory panel Thursday to draw up a comprehensive science and technology strategy for the nation by the end of March.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 19, 2001

Understanding the power of evil

Hamlet's views on man are well known: "What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world!" (II-ii, 315-20)
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2001

Tormented Afghan woman seeks aid for refugees

A woman from Afghanistan who was forced to take refuge in Pakistan to escape from the violence of armed Islamic fundamentalists has visited Japan to tell of the torment she experienced.
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
Jan 18, 2001

Oranges for body and soul

Continuing with our citrus theme from the previous column, today we'll discover a few more uses of the spiritually potent, beautifying, healing orange and its citrus relatives.
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2001

Seirai, Horie win Akutagawa Prize

Yuichi Seirai and Toshiyuki Horie were chosen Tuesday evening as winners of the 124th Akutagawa Prize, one of Japan's most prestigious literary prizes, while the Naoki Prize for popular fiction went to Kiyoshi Shigematsu and Fumio Yamamoto.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2001

Arafat and the art of missing opportunities

If we Israelis had had a leader like the Palestinian Authority's Yasser Arafat, the state of Israel would never have come into being. Why? Because the test of a leader does not lie in his being swept up in his people's dreams; it lies in his pragmatic ability to accept what can be achieved. It is better...
CULTURE / Film
Jan 16, 2001

A living, dancing tradition

Stories may be universal, but story-telling, as a performance art, just doesn't travel well. Kabuki is universally known among the educated in the West, at least by name, while rakugo remains obscure to all but scholars and a handful of devotees. This is an unfortunate, but seemingly intractable position....
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2001

Quake-proofing old homes a costly quest

OSAKA -- When the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck in January 1995, it sent shivers down the spines of many living in old wooden homes nationwide because most of the 6,432 people killed in the temblor were found in similar structures, which had collapsed. Public interest in whether such houses and buildings...
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2001

Monkey exterminations on the rise

The number of municipalities exterminating monkeys reached about 500 in fiscal 1999, after the government revised a law to let prefectures eradicate harmful animals, a survey released Sunday shows.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jan 16, 2001

The buy-or-die albums of 2000

In 2000 America rocked with Limp Bizkit, Slipknot and At The Drive In, while Britain got all soppy and introverted with Richard Ashcroft, Coldplay and Belle & Sebastian. As for Japan, I have mixed feelings. It was great that Melt-Banana, Audio Active and 54 Nude Honeys (my favorite Japanese bands) all...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 16, 2001

A lesson for our swollen egos

SOUTHERN SILK ROAD: In the Footsteps of Sir Aurel Stein and Sven Haedin, by Christoph Baumer. Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2000, 152 pp., profusely illustrated with color plates, drawings, maps, $35 soft cover. This is the revised and expanded English edition of Baumer's "Geisterstaedte der Suedlichen Seidenstrasse...
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2001

Homelessness being tackled from new angle

Asked why he became homeless, he said he was a victim of the current economic trend.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2001

How Washington turns virtue into vice

WASHINGTON -- Only in the morally sick society of Washington would the charitable actions of Linda Chavez, George Bush's nominee for labor secretary, be condemned as political vices rather than celebrated as civic virtues. Her withdrawal of her candidacy unveils the perverse policies that the new administration...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 14, 2001

Sandra Gamo

Sandra Gamo is just old enough to be able to say that she was "a rare species" in the late 1950s, when she was a bilingual Pan American Airways flight hostess. In those days few young women in this part of the world had achieved her level of two languages, poise and presence. Remarkably, and very early...
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2001

Drunk driver's term not extended

The Tokyo High Court dismissed an appeal by prosecutors Friday who claimed that a four-year prison term for a drunken trucker who caused the deaths of two toddlers was too lenient.
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2001

Magnet find opens IT possibilities

Japanese scientists have discovered a new type of transparent magnet with the same properties as a permanent magnet that could increase the versatility of information technology, according to the U.S. journal Science.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2001

Fates of Estrada, Philippines hang on trial

MANILA -- President Joseph "Erap" Estrada is in the battle of his political life as his lawyers fight corruption charges in an impeachment trial.
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2001

G8 representatives to meet in Tokyo over cybercrime

Senior government officials and private corporate executives of the Group of Eight major countries will meet in Tokyo in late May to discuss a possible joint strategy toward fighting high-tech crime, especially cybercrime, government sources said Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Jan 12, 2001

A last chance for Africa?

Two years ago, the world talked of an "African Renaissance." After decades of failure and progressive impoverishment, Africans again had reason to welcome the future. Democracy was ascendant, market-oriented reforms were in place and political and economic stability held out hopes for growth and prosperity...
CULTURE / Film
Jan 12, 2001

Curry on my wayward sons

Culture clash comedy is a shtick often brought to the big screen, but its success depends heavily on the details. For "East Is East," the particulars lie in the U.K.-Asian community of Manchester,circa 1971. Focusing on first-generation Pakistani immigrant George Khan, his British wife Ella and their...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jan 11, 2001

Ichiro already a hit with fans in Seattle

It's great to see Major League Baseball teams and fans embrace their new Japanese signings. When I was in Seattle last summer, reliever Kazuhiro Sasaki's mug seemed to be everywhere, from the cover of the club's fan magazine to T-shirts being hawked on the streets to huge banners adorning the outside...

Longform

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