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LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Feb 22, 2001

Take time to savor the days of wine and oysters

Once again fate finds me back in Japan, wondering what I can enjoy eating here that I can't enjoy back in lovable Leuven, Belgium, where one can have excellent cuisine of all kinds with a glass of well-made wine for a pittance (the norm is the Belgian franc equivalent of under 1,000 yen). It's hard to...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 21, 2001

CWAJ lecture series draws a line

"What characterizes Japanese art is its obsession with lines," says Sumie Jones.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 17, 2001

Ukiyo-e treasures make brief return

The Baur Collection of ukiyo-e woodcuts by several of Japan's top masters is this country's own version of the Elgin Marbles. Perhaps this is why the 200 works are only on display so briefly. If you want to see these excellent examples of print art in their homeland, you have only a short time.
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
Feb 16, 2001

Scrub a dub dub: DIY spa treatments

Though spring isn't far off, it's that time of year when even the last dregs of winter seem to be lingering too long. To cheer yourself up and conjure up a sense of renewal, give yourself a DIY spa treatment.
COMMUNITY
Feb 15, 2001

A playground for the imagination

From the outside, Minamisawa Steiner Hoshi-no-ko Kodomo-en kindergarten looks much like any other home-run preschool. The two-story house is approached from a quiet side street, and you enter through a garden gate.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 12, 2001

Into the heart of darkness

What is it about deeply rural places and deeply strange religion and sex? In the United States, one has the stereotype of the hills of Appalachia as refuges for snake-handling preachers and cousin-marrying hillbillies. In Japan, one has the mountains of Shikoku in Masato Harada's "Inugami," where ancient...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 11, 2001

Christopher Hughes

Bath in southwestern England, his birthplace and home for his first 18 years, played its part in the makeup of Christopher Hughes. Several generations of his family have lived in that beautiful town of squares, crescents and terraces. Set in a bend of the River Avon and famed since Roman times, Bath...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 8, 2001

Calligraphy: a goodwill ambassador for Japanese culture

MADRID -- I used to take it for granted in my youth that my practice of "sho" (Japanese calligraphy) would bear no relation to my career as a diplomat, but over the past half century I have often found that sho serves as a good topic of conversation with my guests.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 6, 2001

Trauma in a sepia-tinged Kyushu

It's not easy filming the inner lives of human beings. Novelists can go on at length about their protagonist's stream of consciousness (see "Ulysses") while filmmakers cannot show scene after voiced-over scene of that same stream without inducing audience catatonia. See Joseph Strick's misbegotten 1967...
CULTURE / Film
Feb 2, 2001

Johnny Rebels without a cause

When director Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" took off last year on its ascent to critical and commercial success, many film-goers in Japan were left scratching their heads: How did this director of small,family-based melodramas like "The Ice Storm" or "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" suddenly make...
COMMUNITY
Feb 1, 2001

Sophistication with a poignant twist

There is nothing quite like Cosmic Wonder. Since its inception in 1994, the Osaka-based fashion label has gone from being a cult name that only a few aficionados could identify to a sell-out collection at Ray Beams, the most directional of the Beams clothing stores in Tokyo. The company's clothes even...
MORE SPORTS
Jan 30, 2001

Ravens dominate Giants for title

TAMPA, Fla. -- For a while it looked like it might be a game, but in the end it turned into a blowout.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 30, 2001

The brocaded body beautiful

PEAU DE BROCART: Le Corps Tatoue au Japon, by Philippe Pons. Paris: Seuil, 2000, 142 pp., plates (color, b/w) 60, FFr 230 (cloth). Rene Magritte has spoken of someone clad "only in the robe of her skin," and this concept of surface as substance is observed by the tattooing tradition of Japan, the...
COMMUNITY
Jan 28, 2001

Rip'em up, tear 'em up

SAN FRANCISCO -- If you've ever had the pleasure of watching a U.S. college or pro football game on television, you'll notice one thing invariably. Just before the commercial they'll pan to a too-cute-to-be-true cheerleader.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 26, 2001

Many rivers to cross in Les Rivieres Pourpres

On what attracted him to the project -- Matthieu Kassovitz: "The book was a best seller in France, and the producer came to me with the project. Jean was already interested in playing the lead, and I also thought it was a good chance to work with Vincent again. So getting this script was like a big present...
CULTURE / Film
Jan 23, 2001

Lock, stock and instant noodles

Here's a word association game for you. What comes to mind when you hear "Thai cinema?" A blank? Don't worry -- in Japan, you're hardly alone.
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 23, 2001

Keeping it all in the family

The Kabukiza Theater in Tokyo is starting 2001 with special programs to celebrate the succession (shumei) of Yasosuke Bando, 45, to the prestigious stage name Mitsugoro Bando X, left to him by his father Mitsugoro IX on his death in April 1999.
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)
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.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jan 17, 2001

Botswana's delta a force of nature

The Okavango delta (or "the Delta" as it's known by those in the know) is not a swamp, at least not in the conventionally unpleasant sense of the word.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2001

Making gardens accessible proving a slippery path

Legend has it that when the Koishikawa Korakuen Garden in Bunkyo Ward was built in the early Edo Period, it boasted gigantic rocks and majestic, ancient trees reminiscent of the steep mountains and dark valleys of China.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 14, 2001

Pursuing Japan's great love affair with Toulouse-Lautrec

The Japanese love Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). His art is lively and interesting, and strong Japanese influences can be detected in it. The current exhibition at the Tobu Museum of Art makes much of this mutual admiration, with the French artist's work revealing his love for Japan while the...
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...
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jan 13, 2001

Pottery with a Korean foundation

A simple fact to begin the Ceramic Scene 21st century: Many great Japanese ceramic traditions of western Japan began with Korean potters.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 8, 2001

Tomorrow today in Tokyo

TOKYO X. Photographs by Shunji Ohkura. Afterword translated by Ralph McCarthy, captions translated by Shii Ichiba, envoi by Giles Murray. Tokyo: Kodansha Intl., 2000, 216 pp., 251 plates with endpapers, 3,800 yen. In the afterword to this remarkable collection of pictures, the photographer says that...
CULTURE / Art
Jan 6, 2001

Gentility of famed Wedgwood

Despite fears that England is increasingly becoming an unpleasant and vulgar country with an antisocial yob culture, internationally it is still blessed with an image of civilized gentility.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 5, 2001

A film genius in his own mind

Harmony Korine -- screenwriter of "Kids," director of "Gummo" -- fancies himself the enfant terrible of contemporary cinema. Well, he is . . . terrible. Certain critics have been calling him "the new Godard," and I'd agreewith that too. But when was the last time Godard made anything that played better...
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
Jan 4, 2001

Festive citrus delights to brighten up the new year

If there is a companion plant to the evergreen that is so characteristic of this time of year, it must be the orange or one of its immediate relatives: the tangerine, the clementine, the mandarin, or even the citron or grapefruit.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jan 3, 2001

Kicking up a stink about smelling as natural as a skunk

While beauty traditionally belongs to the beholder's eye, correct hygiene might be better ascribed to his or her nose.
CULTURE / Art
Dec 30, 2000

Simple tea, the soul-soother

Japan , a hectic, densely-populated country, has always been guilty of overloading the senses. It is only natural that here too an ameliorating aesthetic should have developed. This is best expressed by the calmness and simplicity of the tea ceremony.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji