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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 7, 2003

If you love someone, give a slime stocker

The instructions were clear: Choose anything from the catalog, fill out the form, and it will be delivered to you for free. Anything from kitchen appliances to pearl necklaces. This was my landlord's way of thanking me for letting him stay in his own house for a weekend. He had already given me plenty...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jun 5, 2003

Winged wonders of nature -- and more

We humans share the world with perhaps as many as 100,000,000 species, yet among the most conspicuous and best-loved of all these are the mere 10,000 species of birds.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 3, 2003

Improv comics bring hit TV show to Tokyo

Any English teacher in Japan can doubtless relate sweat-soaked tales of turning up for work and being given a near-impossible task to perform.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 1, 2003

The flowered margin

TATTOOS OF THE FLOATING WORLD, by Takahiro Kitamura; foreword by Donald Richie. Hotei Publishing, 2003, 120 pp., 2,600 yen (cloth). In an age excessively concerned with outward appearances, official disapproval of tattoos in Japan is perhaps understandable. The Japanese are less seriously spooked by...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 1, 2003

Shame and the pious pioneer

Commodore Matthew Perry pried open the door to Japan, and the first American to pass through it was Townsend Harris.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 25, 2003

Art that's sweet enough to eat

In early summer, they might evoke dewy irises and swirling water. In autumn, plume grass trembling in the wind. Quite obviously, Japanese sweets are more than a mouthful of sweetness: They evoke the poetry and beauty of life itself.
COMMENTARY
May 21, 2003

Narrowing the U.S.-South Korean gap

WASHINGTON -- The summit meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun was, by almost all accounts, a success. The main reason, according to the skeptics, was that expectations were very low. No major breakthroughs were achieved, they argue; "success" merely meant...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 21, 2003

The first Western master of woodblock

A Western man clad in a kimono sits in his tatami-floored studio with his paintings strewn about him. In the background a shamisen stands in a wooden box, its neck jutting upward.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
May 14, 2003

A 'smashing' place for pots

It was 20 years ago today . . . that the famous Kikuchi Collection of Modern Japanese Ceramics was shown to "smashing" reviews at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The 300-piece collection sparked a great interest in modern and contemporary Japanese ceramics that has continued to this day. The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
May 11, 2003

A versatile jazz, classical and Latin lover

The typical image of Latin jazz comes mainly from salsa. Certainly, large bands playing fast-tempo dance music peppered by a hot horn section, thumping bass, razor-sharp piano and a small contingent of percussionists comprise the most common -- and perhaps most exhilarating -- form of Latin jazz.
ENVIRONMENT
May 8, 2003

Emerging specialty puts focus on the 'green' way cities could be

Cities appeared relatively late in human history, and have gradually evolved over five millennia to support complex economic, political, religious, academic and military organizations and hierarchies. However, their concentration of wealth, talent and creativity that breeds cultural and scientific innovation...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 7, 2003

Koby Israelite: "Dance of Idiots"

'Dance of the Idiots" takes the thrust of heavy metal and slams it together with a Balkan restlessness while maintaining a strong Jewish spiritedness. If you've grown up in a musical or cultural blender, this record will make perfect sense to you. If you haven't, it will strike you as highly imaginative...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 3, 2003

Time to reconnect? Home is where the hearts are

Living abroad has its ups and downs. There are times of euphoria -- total absorption and delight with one's adopted culture -- and there are the deep troughs, when negativity sets in and everything turns hateful and to be despised. There is also that infinitely more bewildering phase, when nothing feels...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 27, 2003

Enoshima: Kamakura's better half

Benten is one of those deities you can find yourself developing a soft spot for. She is the goddess of fortune and feminine beauty, she likes a bit of a song and, for a deity at least (as I was to discover), she seems like a game sort of girl.
JAPAN
Apr 24, 2003

Outlying regions want a piece of the action, too

Anticipating that the upcoming Visit Japan campaign will prove successful, businesses and local governments are developing strategies to draw prospective foreign tourists out of major cities and into their regions.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 24, 2003

Getting serious about tourism -- finally

Japan is finally getting serious about attracting some foreign visitors to its shores.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Apr 16, 2003

Pharoah Sanders

When John Coltrane expanded his traditional quartet by adding a young, little-known saxophonist from Little Rock, Ark., it wasn't so he could take a break. Coltrane knew Pharoah Sanders was a soul mate ready to accompany him on an exploration of the jazz universe's outer limits. Indeed, Sanders often...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Apr 9, 2003

Sun, sea, sand and . . . ceramics

The Izu Peninsula, just an hour out of Tokyo, has some of the finest scenery in all of Japan. Rugged coastlines, clear views of Mount Fuji, pristine forests with rivers and waterfalls, not to mention the many soothing hot-spring resorts dotting the land, shape Izu into a very attractive destination....
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 8, 2003

Shipbuilder plans to lead way to new energy source

A major shipbuilding company in Tokyo has been working to commercialize natural gas hydrate, a chemically stable combination of water and natural gas in powdery form, hoping to make it more economical to transport and store.
JAPAN
Apr 4, 2003

Racket in public places is fraying nerves

Sounds abound in Tokyo, from the blaring advertisements in busy shopping areas like Shinjuku to the stream of announcements on trains.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Apr 3, 2003

Mistletoe magic

I am back in my local wood in Hokkaido yet again. From one spot, I can see the fluffed-out form of a Ural owl sunning itself at the entrance of its day roost, while looking in another direction and a little higher in the canopy of a towering elm, I find more than half a dozen spherical clumps, like strange...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 30, 2003

East to West: the seductive Madame Sadayakko

MADAME SADAYAKKO: The Geisha Who Seduced the West, by Lesley Downer. London: Review Press/Hodder Headline, 2003, 336 pp., map, photos, £20 (cloth) In 1899, a 27-year-old ex-geisha who called herself Sadayakko embarked on a new career in San Francisco. With her entrepreneur-husband's enthusiastic backing,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 30, 2003

A new 'cutting-edge town' for the world

A sprawling redevelopment complex sporting luxury apartments, movie theaters, art galleries and a museum will soon give Tokyo's seedy Roppongi entertainment district a cleaner, more cultured appearance that the developer hopes will turn it into an "ultimate destination" for travelers worldwide.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 19, 2003

Double the beauty and pain

The Kabukiza Theater celebrates the advent of spring by offering an attractive selection of kabuki plays and dance numbers with excellent casts, including the two renowned onnagata, Nakamura Shikan and Bando Tamasaburo.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 16, 2003

Modern-day swordsmith forges perfection

Yoshindo Yoshihara is not looking forward to his trip to the United States this month. Ever since Sept. 11, Yoshihara, a master swordsmith, has had difficulty checking his baggage through U.S. airports. For security reasons, United Airlines has insisted that his chest of four swords, each one worth about...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Mar 16, 2003

Sitting here in limbo

This week, commercial television networks enter that twilight zone between seasons where they trot out the same variety standbys: real-life police documentaries, musical impersonation contests, blooper shows, etc.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 16, 2003

Kindred spirits on a journey into sound

The angelic voice of Canadian chanteuse Jane Siberry has graced a stunning series of CDs over the past 20 years. Since the early 1980s, she has released her own recordings and contributed songs to numerous compilations. Perhaps most famously, the lovely "Calling All Angels" was included on the soundtrack...
JAPAN / PREFECTURAL FARE
Mar 15, 2003

Pork, potatoes, pottery Kagoshima's mainstays

Kagoshima Yurakukan, a local-specialities complex taking up three floors of a building in Tokyo's Yurakucho district, has been attracting health-conscious consumers with its products from Kagoshima Prefecture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Mar 12, 2003

The good, the great -- and the freaky

Japan, without a doubt, has the world's largest number of art museums devoted solely to pottery -- more than 500 venues, I've heard. That's a lot of beauty (or not) to take in.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 9, 2003

Dropping out and tuning in to the rhythm of nature

SANTOKA: Grass and Tree Cairn, translated by Hiroaki Sato. Vermont: Red Moon Press, 2002, 74 pp., $14.95 (paper) No matter how deep one's faith or religion is, one may experience feelings of resignation and defeat as well as the loss of compassion for others and oneself.

Longform

Eme-Ima Kitchen is one of over 10,000 kodomo shokudō in Japan. A term first used in 2012 to describe makeshift eateries offering free or cheap meals to disadvantaged kids, it now refers to a diverse range of individuals, groups and organizations working to provide not only food but a sense of belonging to both children and adults.
Japan’s ‘children’s cafeterias’ are booming — but is that a good thing?