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CULTURE / Music
Oct 30, 1999

Pianist not forcing the feeling

When considering the performance of musicians in regard to taste, it is generally agreed that a player should not intrude his individual personality on the music.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 30, 1999

Two billion light years of poetry

SHUNTARO TANKIAWA SELECTED POEMS, translated by William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura. Manchester: Carcanet, 1998, 115 pp. + preface, 12.95 British pounds In early November 1998, Shuntaro Tanikawa and his translators took part in Britain's Poetry International. Among the bards contributing with Tanikawa...
JAPAN
Oct 14, 1999

Keidanren urges MITI to help ailing small firms

Top business leaders want Takashi Fukaya, new minister for international trade and industry, to take further measures to assist small and midsize firms that are struggling amid the stagnant economy, officials of the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) said Thursday.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Oct 13, 1999

Not just for kids anymore

I was never much of a video-game player, although I did have a brief infatuation with Missile Command. (It ended when a pal proceeded to stomp me every time we went head to head.) I must be one of the few: Video games are reckoned to be a $20 billion-a-year industry and revenues now outpace movie-ticket...
JAPAN
Oct 8, 1999

Top LDP execs to put wrangles aside

Staff writer
JAPAN
Oct 8, 1999

Stimulus package may top 11 trillion yen

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi on Friday ordered his Cabinet to draft an economic stimulus package worth more than 10 trillion yen, Chief Cabinet Secretary Mikio Aoki said.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 2, 1999

The duality of light and shadow at the crossing of diverging roads

At first glance, the photographs of Ralph Gibson and those of Robert Mapplethorpe appear to have little in common. Gibson (b. 1939) is a graduate of the school of "straight photography" (the term applies to a classic approach, not one's sexual orientation, although further differences between the two...
CULTURE / Art
Oct 2, 1999

Winged labors of love

Bird carvings have typically been thought of as a Western art form, but Haruo Uchiyama is challenging this assumption. Even the birds that have come into contact with his carvings have been made believers.
COMMUNITY
Oct 2, 1999

Grains of water and drops of sand

Every day, when the beach is quiet, a small figure can be seen walking on the sands of Hayama, gazing at the waves. She is Reika Iwami, an artist whose work is in museums in Britain and America, and who is only now, at the age of 72, becoming better known at home.
CULTURE / Music
Sep 24, 1999

Ellington's 100th birthday feted with Japan premiere

Numerous jazz concerts have been offered this year to celebrate the 100th year since the birth of Duke Ellington, but trumpeter Mike Price says they've got the focus all wrong.
JAPAN
Sep 16, 1999

Road to closed captions no freeway for hearing impaired

Staff writer
JAPAN
Sep 9, 1999

Experts differ over forces behind positive GDP data

Staff writers
JAPAN
Sep 9, 1999

Growth paves way for extra spending

Thursday's announcement of modest economic growth in the April-June quarter has paved the way for the state to prepare more spending measures to prop up the economy.
JAPAN
Aug 27, 1999

Budget requests likely to expand by 2%

Budget requests from government ministries and agencies for fiscal 2000 will total 83.54 trillion yen, 2 percent higher than the initial budget for the current year, the Finance Ministry said Friday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 25, 1999

Gesture your way to Japanese fluency

Yesterday I went into a convenience store to buy some aspirin. I asked the clerk using the English loanword "asupirin." The clerk pointed to the freezer section and said, "it's over there." "No, not 'aisu kurimu,' asupirin," I said. "Pudding?" he asked. At that point, he did what all befuddled clerks...
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jul 24, 1999

New and old blended in earthy harmony

One of the greatest challenges facing any Japanese artist is to mix tradition with meaningful innovation. Many artisans merely imitate the past with little originality -- a rehashing of past masters that leaves many of Japan's great artistic traditions in stagnation.
JAPAN
Jul 6, 1999

Setouchi Special: Bridge-linked isles hope for tourist blitz

Staff writer
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jun 12, 1999

Legacies live on in kingdom of Kato

In many ceramic centers around Japan a common thread in the community is not only a particular style but also a last name. For instance, if you walked into the middle of Tachikui, where Tanba is made, and shouted "Ichino-san!" almost all the houses would empty.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Jun 12, 1999

Open door to a world of dreams

David Wheeler, shakuhachi performer, teacher and writer on Japanese music, will be presenting a shakuhachi recital June 19 at Hamarikyu Asahi Hall.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 8, 1999

The darkest shores of the soul

SHIPWRECKS, by Akira Yoshimura, translated by Mark Ealey. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1996, 180 pp., $21. Though Akira Yoshimura, born in 1927, is the author of some 20 novels, this is the first to be translated into English. Perhaps the reason for the delay is that he is better known as a historian...
JAPAN
Jun 3, 1999

Immigrants: Foreign laborers attempt to organize

First of two parts
JAPAN
May 27, 1999

LDP envisions more jobs via public-private cooperation

A Liberal Democratic Party task force on Thursday drafted a set of measures to create new jobs by implementing public works projects and utilizing nonprofit organizations, party sources said.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 23, 1999

Slim down for summer with the chopstick diet

When my mother announced she would finally be coming to visit me in Japan this September, I asked her if she had any questions. She replied, "Yes, do I have to eat with those sticks?" This is when I realized that perhaps a lesson in "chopsticking" would be helpful. Mom, this one's for you: Chopsticks...
CULTURE / Books
May 13, 1999

Miyazawa comes to life for young English readers

GAUCHE THE CELLIST; SNOW CROSSING; THE STORY OF THE ZASHIKI BOKKO and Three Poems; THE RESTAURANT OF MANY ORDERS (4 vols. with four CDs and read-along booklet in English and Japanese), by Kenji Miyazawa, translated by Roger Pulvers, illustrated by Osamu Tsukasa. Tokyo: Labo Teaching Information Center,...
COMMUNITY
May 5, 1999

Immune system research pays off, paves way to AIDS cure

In 1987, American molecular biologists Jack Strominger and Don Wiley shocked the scientific world with a supreme example of the adage "A picture is worth a thousand words."
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

Prize-winning immunologists paved way for AIDS cure

Staff writer
JAPAN
May 3, 1999

Kan's policy quest undeterred despite party's slump

Staff writer
COMMUNITY
May 2, 1999

Relaxation therapy for busy people

Shiatsu, acupuncture and moxibustion are for older men -- at least, that's what was believed.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 20, 1999

Soseki's deep well of sadness

CHAOS AND ORDER IN THE WORKS OF NATSUME SOSEKI, by Angela Yiu. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998, 251 pp., $42 (cloth). This, the first full-length study of Soseki in English, is based upon the proposition that "beneath the emphasis on order, responsibility and a clear sense of morality, [there]...

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