Search - u_times

 
 
EDITORIALS
May 13, 1999

President Kim takes up the challenge

Among Asia's crisis-hit economies struggling for recovery and reform, South Korea may well claim it leads on both counts. Interest rates, the currency and equity prices have markedly improved from the depths of a year and half ago. A return of market confidence is also in evidence as foreign capital...
LIFE / Travel
May 13, 1999

Myanmar's Chinese connection

To the millions of Myanmar Buddhists who still visit it, Mandalay symbolizes, nominally at least, the Rome of this "Golden Land." It is a royal "City of Gems."
CULTURE / Art
May 13, 1999

Smithsonian celebrates culture, history of Ainu

WASHINGTON -- An unprecedented, in-depth look at the culture of the Ainu is being offered in the U.S. capital.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
May 13, 1999

Here and there

Some time ago I wrote about visiting Boeing's Everett factory near Seattle. Now a reader, planning to make his first trip to Seattle, wants to see where the plane he will be flying on was made and asks how he can see the factory.
LIFE / Travel
May 13, 1999

The 'red, green and white lines': rubies, jade and heroin

Like most things connected to money and profit in Myanmar, there is a sinister side to the north's resurgent economy, a subtext that generally eludes visitors' attention. Still, at least one travel book, Nicholas Greenwood's original and often very funny "Bradt Guide to Burma," has picked up on it. Not...
JAPAN
May 11, 1999

Smithsonian celebrates culture, history of Ainu

Staff writer
JAPAN
May 11, 1999

Osaka apologizes for PCB-laden soil

OSAKA -- Osaka Deputy Mayor Junichi Seki apologized Monday for using PCB-laden soil in the construction of Yumeshima Island in Osaka Bay, where the city plans to build an athlete's village for the 2008 Olympics.
CULTURE / Books
May 11, 1999

Coming of age, piece by piece

NAMAKO: Sea Cucumber, by Linda Watanabe McFerrin. Coffee House Press, 1998, 256 pp., $14.95 (paper). Like the sea cucumber, Ellen, the multicultural 9-year-old narrator of Linda Watanabe McFerrin's delightful first novel, cannot be easily classified. Animal or vegetable? Living and feeling, or merely...
JAPAN
May 10, 1999

Reform of Diet debate questioned

Staff writer
JAPAN
May 7, 1999

Dioxin: Levels high in incinerator-happy Japan

Last in a series Staff writer
JAPAN
May 4, 1999

Dioxin: Proximity to Tokyo dooms Tokorozawa

Second in a seriesStaff writer
CULTURE / Books
May 4, 1999

Artistry lost in translation

WHITE LETTER POEMS, by Fumi Saito, translated by Hatsue Kawamura and Jane Reichhold. AHA Books, 1998, 110 pp., $10. The title of this well-produced selection of tanka by the venerable poet Fumi Saito is taken from the first tanka in the book's first section, which contains work from "Gyo ka" (Songs...
JAPAN
May 3, 1999

Ready for 2000?: Japan's efforts overlooked when not in English

Sixth in an occasional series on Japan's Y2K preparedness
JAPAN
May 3, 1999

Kan's policy quest undeterred despite party's slump

Staff writer
JAPAN
May 3, 1999

Constitution's anniversary sparks debate on revision

With last month's Lower House passage of bills covering the updated Japan-U.S. defense cooperation guidelines as a backdrop, the nation on Monday celebrated the 52nd anniversary of the postwar Constitution with heated debate over the document itself.
COMMUNITY
May 2, 1999

Relaxation therapy for busy people

Shiatsu, acupuncture and moxibustion are for older men -- at least, that's what was believed.
EDITORIALS
May 1, 1999

A promise of change for women

It sometimes seems that the government chooses vague-sounding titles and odd release times for white papers and other official documents that contain information likely to embarrass Japanese officials when dealing with their foreign counterparts. This was the case when the Prime Minister's Office issued...
CULTURE / Stage
May 1, 1999

Expressing the microcosmos

Butoh dancer Goro Namerikawa, an ex-member of the Sankaijuku, and his troupe Art Amorphus will be holding a collaborative dance performance titled "Liminality" with Christophe Charles, a French composer and musician who has performed extensively in Japan and internationally. The event will take place...
CULTURE / Art
May 1, 1999

To capture a moment

Photographer Jason Unrau does a lot of waiting at gigs. He glues his eye to the camera and anticipates the moment when it all comes together. If it does, he can create a picture which, as he likes to put it, "has sound."
JAPAN
Apr 30, 1999

Ready for 2000?: Shinkansen on track for Y2K compliance

Fifth in an occasional series on Japan's Y2K preparedness
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Apr 30, 1999

Buffalo Daughter reinvents new rock again

After more than a year of touring, remixing, producing and more touring, Buffalo Daughter has returned home to the more mundane matters of daily life. Bassist and Moog player extraordinaire Yumiko Ohno recently tied the knot with longtime paramour Zak (producer of the Fishmans among others) while DJ...
JAPAN
Apr 29, 1999

State-employed Sony candidate upset with civil servant law

Staff writer
JAPAN
Apr 29, 1999

Nago to host G8; Fukuoka, Miyazaki get ministers

After weeks of heated debate and lobbying, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi decided Thursday that Japan will hold the 2000 summit of the Group of Eight major powers in the city of Nago, Okinawa Prefecture.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 29, 1999

D-I-V-O-R-C-E becomes final in one day

While divorce in Japan is increasing at what some people might call an alarming rate, it is still less common than it is in most Western countries, particularly the U.S., where it's projected that between half and two-thirds of all couples who marry this year will someday split.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Apr 28, 1999

Tyranny of temptation

The future was supposed to be darker. Technology, in the service of some vast, all-encompassing power, was going to enslave us. Human beings would be reduced to ciphers, forced to live anonymous, interchangeable lives.
JAPAN
Apr 27, 1999

Africa's image worries ambassadors

Ambassadors from five African nations said Tuesday that their continent's image and perception in Japan is too negative and that mutual understanding about Africa is needed at a grassroots level.
JAPAN
Apr 27, 1999

Defense bills evoke worry and comfort

Overseas reactions to Tuesday's Lower House passage of bills related to updated Japan-U.S. defense cooperation guidelines ranged from the warm welcome extended by Washington to the "deep concern" aired by neighboring China.
JAPAN
Apr 27, 1999

Ishihara calls for foreigners' rights

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara said Tuesday that the Constitution should be amended to recognize the rights of foreign nationals settled in Japan on a long-term basis.
COMMENTARY
Apr 24, 1999

Test Pyongyang's sincerity

Senior officials from North and South Korea, China and the United States reassemble in Geneva April 24 for the fifth round of four-party talks aimed at replacing the existing 1953 Korean War armistice with a permanent peace treaty. The odds of a breakthrough appear slim, however, given North Korean Deputy...

Longform

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