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JAPAN
Nov 20, 2004

Doshisha to offer college entrance exams in China

Doshisha University in Kyoto Prefecture will hold an entrance examination in China next July to attract gifted Chinese students, university officials said Friday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Nov 20, 2004

Why Johnny can't read 'kanji'

Here's a quick communication survey of your typical long-term foreign resident of Japan, particularly one from the West.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 13, 2004

How mum juggles racing, soccer, K1, Portugal

Last Tuesday, Sonia Ito is busy with household chores in Zushi, Kanagawa Prefecture. Early evening she leaves husband Yuta with 2-year old daughter Julia and catches the train for Tokyo. By 7:30 p.m. she's seated on a purple "zabuton" in Fuji TV's headquarters at O-Daiba, recording the soccer program...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Nov 11, 2004

Promiscuous primates play a seminal role in sex

On average, men are bigger, stronger and more aggressive than women. The behavioral and physiological differences are the result of sexual competition: Males tend to fight among themselves for females, and so tend to be bigger and stronger. The pattern holds across most species.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 24, 2004

You put a spell on us

"Earnest, to me, is a bad word." Dean Wareham is reclining on a cream-colored couch in the offices of P-Vine, his Japanese record label, looking over a list of adjectives a popular Web site uses to describe his band, Luna. Curious, amused and slightly wary, he skims the list, eyebrows raised, quickly...
BUSINESS
Oct 9, 2004

Household spending inches upward

Household spending remained virtually unchanged in August from a year earlier, with families spending an average 302,657 yen, up 0.6 percent.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 6, 2004

Gadget helps bathroom-bashful

When Naoko Ito uses a public bathroom, she cringes in embarrassment at the thought other patrons can hear the sounds coming from her stall.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 25, 2004

Joan Burk

This year, the Association of Foreign Wives of Japanese celebrates its 35th anniversary. Founder Joan Burk says she has a special bond with the unique organization. "I think of AFWJ as my baby," she wrote from her present home in Canada. "I will always be interested in everything about AFWJ and its members....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 24, 2004

Northern delights of Sapporo

Despite its easy proximity, brought by the relatively short flying time from Tokyo, an air of remoteness still hangs over Hokkaido. Physically the island is more a last outpost of Siberia than an integral part of Japan. In Hokkaido, little rice grows, scant cherry trees bloom, no rainy season descends,...
EDITORIALS
Sep 5, 2004

A match for death

Death comes for us all, as the English martyr Sir Thomas More reminded his accusers in the play "A Man for All Seasons." The line echoed poignantly in the mind late last month when death finally came for Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross, the remarkable Swiss-born psychiatrist who had done as much as anyone to...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 1, 2004

Bringing the outsiders onto the stage

"Who are we?" and who are "the others"? And how should "we" associate with "them"? Written in 1996 by Hideki Noda, Japan's leading contemporary dramatist, this is one of the central themes of "Red Demon." It premiered in Japan with English actor Angus Burnett in the title role, before being staged in...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 21, 2004

Reinventing world through eyes of young people

More summer madness. I come down from where I work last Monday to make a cup of tea, and there is a Kazak sitting at my table.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 14, 2004

Just a lighter shade of bland

Hello. My name is Tom Dillon and I'm a tofu-holic.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 11, 2004

Walking on the wild side

Walkabout Rating: * * * * * (out of 5) Director: Nicholas Roeg Running time: 100 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] The Story of the Weeping Camel Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Director: Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni Running time:...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 11, 2004

Artist builds from zero

Suspicious of the pervasive role of Western culture in his homeland, Katsushige Nakahashi resolved to become a "Japanese artist."
COMMENTARY
Jul 26, 2004

Lifting women's job status

Women's status in male-dominated Japan remains alarmingly low, according to a recent international survey. A U.N. Development Program survey showed that Japan ranked 38th among countries of the world in the gender empowerment index, which measures women's participation in political and economic decision-making....
JAPAN
Jul 24, 2004

Birthrate benefits future students

The nation's falling birthrate is good news for future university and junior college applicants but could spell disaster for some unpopular institutions, according to a report compiled by the Central Education Council.
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2004

Mitsubishi Fuso tries to clean up its act

Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp. said Monday it will sack a senior quality control manager responsible for making a false report last week on defects found in clutch housings.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 11, 2004

Classic love-tragedy finds new blood

Noh, contemporary classical music and calligraphy -- each is an artistic form with its own appeal.
EDITORIALS
Jul 8, 2004

Educational reform in perspective

There is something disquieting about moves by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito to rewrite the Fundamental Law of Education. In an interim report they have just completed, the LDP emphasizes the importance of cultivating "love of country," meaning patriotism. Komeito uses a different...
EDITORIALS
Jun 27, 2004

Mr. Kerry's French

Every now and then, U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, lets slip that he speaks French. He chats with French reporters, has occasionally responded in French to a French-language question at a news conference, and once participated in a phone-in talk show in France....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 27, 2004

Korean wave may help erode discrimination

Though a lot of people are tired of the guy by now, there's something encouraging about the inexhaustible, Beatlemaniacal attention being paid to Korean star Bae Yong Joon. Bae's popularity is merely the most prominent feature of the current kanryu (Korean wave) boom, but the attraction that many Japanese...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 6, 2004

Move your butt and your mind will follow

Nic Offer and John Pugh, the vocalist and drummer of the New York dance-punk band who go by the moniker !!!, are on a mission to liberate butts everywhere, but right now they're hungry. It's a sunny spring day and they're sitting in an Ebisu bar and promoting their debut album, "Louden Up Now."
EDITORIALS
Jun 3, 2004

Copyright ethics for the digital age

As a result of rapid advances in the digitization and networking of information, the environment surrounding copyrights is undergoing dramatic change. Unfortunately, understanding of copyrights in Japan is far from adequate. Culture won't be nurtured unless the ethics exist in which the beneficiaries...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
May 28, 2004

Rockin' till dawn in the heart of suburbia

Kichijoji is a good 20 minutes west of Shibuya on an express train, which places it smack dab in the middle of Tokyo's suburban belt. As such, it's the last place one would think of finding a bar dedicated to rock culture -- let alone one with a pedigree spanning a quarter of a century and with a provocative...
COMMENTARY
May 27, 2004

What Asians tend to think of America

LOS ANGELES -- Asia -- home to something like 60 percent of the earth's people -- is a vast multitude of ethnicities, nationalities, religions and cultures.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 23, 2004

Foreign markets fail to grasp soul of anime

If, as many people claim, Japanese pop culture is sweeping the globe, then anime is the hand that wields the broom. A number of recent big-budget Japanese animated features, including Mamoru Oishii's "Innocence," currently in competition at Cannes, have attracted funding from Hollywood without the usual...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
May 16, 2004

EU stretching the envelope

MOSCOW -- Nobody truly knows where Europe ends. Geographically, it is supposed to run all the way east to the Ural Mountains, but few would argue that this definition should be taken seriously. What matters is culture and politics and the allegiances resulting from both. With the recent expansion of...
Features
May 9, 2004

When wrong can be right

At the beginning of "Showgirls," suspicious that a kind seamstress might be physically attracted to her, aspiring chorine Nomi (Elizabeth Berkley) asks: "Are you hitting on me?" The Japanese subtitle reads: "Are you making fun of me?"

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