Search - u_times

 
 
COMMUNITY
Apr 15, 2001

A yen for thrift

There was a time when Japan prided itself on its thriftiness. Hard times after World War II produced the need to save money and cut every corner. Children were taught that each grain of rice was sacred and not to be wasted. Sardines and mackerel were standard fare, beef reserved only for special occasions....
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 15, 2001

Love and commiseration, all in a day's work

Show-biz synergy reaches critical mass Saturday with the premiere of "Ashita ga Arusa" (NTV, 9 p.m.). The title, which translates as "there is a tomorrow," meaning you should work hard because the future is always staring you in the face, was also the title of a popular song by Kyu Sakamoto in the '60s....
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Apr 15, 2001

Let's raise a glass to the final batch

The sake brewing season is drawing to a close. Except for the handful of large breweries that brew year-round in climate-controlled factories, most sakagura (breweries) will be finishing up their brewing sometime this month. Naturally, there will be ceremonies connected with significant activities within...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 15, 2001

The miracle man of Shimokitazawa

Self-professed "Miracle Man of the World" Masahiko Hirota sits me down on his massage table and quickly locates the knot just to the left of my right shoulder blade that has been bugging me for days. Closing my eyes, for an instant I am gratefully transported away as my knot is gradually unraveled by...
SUMO
Apr 15, 2001

Free sumo stable visits available

One explanation for the genesis of Japan's national sport, sumo, can be found in Japanese mythology, which says that the gods used to wrestle one another. One wonders if they bothered to do so at 5 a.m., when the modern-day gods of the dohyo get a most rude wake-up call.
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2001

Gadget guy puts ideology over profit

On a cluttered desk in a dimly lit office in central Tokyo lies a golden, cylindrical object you can't find in any store. It's a combination lock that would take 3.2 trillion years to crack, about 160 times the age of the universe.
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2001

Huge discrepancy in Obuchi assets

The late Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi left behind some 600 million yen in taxable assets when he died in May at the age of 62, a Gunma Prefecture tax office said Friday.
MORE SPORTS / THE DUKE OF HAZARDS
Apr 13, 2001

An ace can put a hole in your wallet

Ever scored a hole-in-one? I'm still trying, but I hope I don't do it in Japan.
EDITORIALS
Apr 12, 2001

Forty years of flying and dreaming

Forty years ago today, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in to space. It was a short trip: one 108-minute circumnavigation of Earth, but it changed human history. When humankind escaped the bounds of the earth's atmosphere, our views of the world and our place in it changed forever....
BASEBALL / MLB
Apr 12, 2001

Logjam atop CL standings

Hideki Matsui belted a two-run homer and Hisanori Takahashi was solid over 62/3 innings as the Yomiuri Giants created a three-way tie for the lead in the Central League with a 4-2 win over the Chunichi Dragons at the Nagoya Dome on Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 11, 2001

The Bank of Japan's new policy is sound

On March 19, the Bank of Japan decided that it would focus more on money supply than on interest rates and that the new policy would be continued until it was confident that the consumer price index, which has been declining continuously for over two years, was rising.
CULTURE / Film
Apr 11, 2001

Wong for mature audiences

It's quite a feat when an art-house director like Wong Kar-wai can fill a room at the Park Hyatt with more media than, say, Anthony Hopkins for "Hannibal." But that's exactly what he did, accompanied by his two stars, Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung, and it's testament to the director's successful mix of...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 11, 2001

How Italy taught the world to see

In many ways, Renaissance artists taught us how to see.
JAPAN
Apr 10, 2001

EU needs Japan's help to keep protocol: activist

Japan's actions may hold the key to the rescue of the Kyoto Protocol, according to a World Wide Fund for Nature climate change campaigner.
SOCCER / J. League / ON THE BALL
Apr 10, 2001

Two-headed monster haunts Kawasaki

Are two heads better than one? Not, apparently, in Kawasaki.
COMMENTARY
Apr 8, 2001

Panic commands a high price

LONDON — The foot-and-mouth outbreak in Britain is not devastating British farm production. It is devastating farming's relationship with the rest of Britain. Less than 2 percent of Britain's livestock have been slaughtered either because they have the disease or because, though healthy, they might...
JAPAN
Apr 8, 2001

Textbook furor won't sour relations: Foreign Ministry

The Foreign Ministry believes a junior high school history book written by nationalists will not spark diplomatic problems with China or South Korea as the two countries have not demanded the text be rewritten, ministry officials said Saturday.
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Apr 8, 2001

Rice grains of wisdom

I spent five years cooking in fine dining restaurants in the U.S., and yet I was not quite prepared for life as an apprentice in a Japanese kitchen.
ENVIRONMENT
Apr 8, 2001

Twitching to get out in the field and bird

Birders, bird-watchers, bird-spotters, ornithologists, listers, twitchers or birding dudes: Whatever you want to call them, they are the people -- a friend, a family member or maybe an eccentric relative -- who creep about at all hours of the day spotting, studying, grilling, scoping, twitching or, in...
BASEBALL / MLB
Apr 8, 2001

High-flyin' BlueWave best Buffs

Koichi Oshima went 4-for-4 with four RBIs and Tatsuya Shindo hit a three-run homer Saturday as the Orix BlueWave beat the Kintetsu Buffaloes 9-7 in Kobe to hold onto the lead in the Pacific League.
JAPAN
Apr 7, 2001

Ishihara to review bus sales from environmental angle

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara said Friday that he will review the metropolis' practice of selling its old buses to countryside operators from an environmental viewpoint, following a report last week that criticized the transaction.
COMMENTARY
Apr 7, 2001

Animal rights, terrorist tactics

LONDON -- Some animal-rights activists in Britain have committed violent crimes against people and companies they dislike. In so doing, they have shown not only that they have lost a sense of proportion, but that they have no rational ethical code. Animal-rights terrorists need to be confronted as firmly...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Apr 7, 2001

One with nature beneath the blossoms

It's the cherry-blossom season, and you know what that means -- we no longer have to look at those silly purple cabbage plants that have grown into conehead spectacles begging to be trodden down by a loose hippo. Yes, Japan's winter pallor will soon be infused with the colors of spring: pink "sakura"...
COMMENTARY
Apr 6, 2001

Few worthy leaders in LDP

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is expected to step down sometime this month, a year after he took office. Widely criticized for his alleged incompetence and lack of qualification for national leadership, Mori is sometimes called Japan's worst postwar prime minister. Even though Mori expressed his apparent...
JAPAN
Apr 6, 2001

Japan Inc. moves toward true accounting of books

The true standing of Japanese firms in relation to their foreign rivals is slowly becoming clear.
SOCCER / J. League
Apr 6, 2001

Super League seen as boost to Asian soccer

Asian Football Confederation general secretary Peter Velappan said in an interview with The Japan Times that the AFC is aiming to boost the sport in the region with the launch of a new Asian Super League and also hopes to bring next year's World Cup cohosts closer together with the establishment of a...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 5, 2001

Somei-Yoshino cherry blossom

This perfectly still Spring day bathed in the soft lightFrom the spread-out sky, Why do the cherry blossomsSo restlessly scatter down? -- Ki no Tomonori
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Apr 5, 2001

To dabble or dive: duck lifestyle choices

DNA analysis has enabled us to peer ever closer into the intricacies of what characterizes and distinguishes species, as well as the orders, genera and families they belong to.

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