Search - collection

 
 
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Feb 12, 2001

Getting back on the right track

In all walks of life, those who make successful comebacks have always been admired. They become figures of resilience with a commendable never-say-die attitude; think Muhammad Ali or even Bill Clinton.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 12, 2001

Let the spring light the fires

THE PILLOW BOOK OF SPRING AND LAUGHTER: Eroticism in Meiji, Taisho and Showa Japan, by John Stevens. Tokyo: The East Publications, Inc. 156 pp., profusely illustrated, color plates/b/w photos. 4,200 yen. We associate spring pictures ("shunga") with the Edo period, lovers usually fully dressed with...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 11, 2001

More than 15 minutes of fame

In many ways, prints take the pulse of modern art. The flowering of techniques early in the 20th century gave artists a wild new freedom of expression, just as their personal opinions and emotions began to move center stage. Prints also reflected the growing democracy of art, the seismic shift that occurred...
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2001

Scientists make gene breakthrough

The work of a Japanese-led international scientific consortium on the development of a method for identifying genes hidden in large genome sequences is described in the latest issue of the scientific journal Nature, which is released today.
LIFE / Digital
Feb 7, 2001

Post-Dreamcast, Sega set to become world's top game publisher

SEATTLE -- With its recent decision to abandon the 128-bit Dreamcast video game console and to publish games for PlayStation2 and other gaming platforms, Sega appears to be leaving the game hardware business permanently. Sega Enterprises cofounder David Rosen says it's about time.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 3, 2001

Europe puts out feelers toward N. Korea

A mixture of adventure, altruism and a desire not to be left behind economically is responsible for the European plunge into Korean political affairs that began this year. First Italy and then, in rapid succession, Belgium, Britain and Germany have dispatched missions to Pyongyang. Only France held back,...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 2, 2001

Casting a literary eye on Japan's aging society

The sociologist and feminist Ueno Chizuko has released a collection of past essays that examine Japanese literature as primary source material reflecting the society and era in which it was written.
BUSINESS
Jan 30, 2001

Expressway tollgates to go cashless

The so-called Electric Toll Collection system will begin full-scale operation on March 30 at 600 expressway gates in Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama and Okinawa prefectures, the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry announced Monday.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 28, 2001

Elegance in everyday sculptures

In the 19th century, ukiyo-e wood block prints and ornamental toggles for pouches -- netsuke -- were greatly prized in the West. But to most Japanese, in the whirl of modernization, they were simply old-fashioned aspects of a fading way of life.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jan 27, 2001

The art of appreciating ceramics

In pottery, as with life, sometimes the most basic questions are the most important: Why is this so? Or, how did this happen? Or, what does this part mean?
LIFE / Food & Drink / KISSA KULTUR
Jan 24, 2001

Mariage Freres: A Ginza tea party

They haven't had to advertise in over 140 years. Of course, when your product is of the highest quality, word travels -- even to distant shores.
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2001

Seirai, Horie win Akutagawa Prize

Yuichi Seirai and Toshiyuki Horie were chosen Tuesday evening as winners of the 124th Akutagawa Prize, one of Japan's most prestigious literary prizes, while the Naoki Prize for popular fiction went to Kiyoshi Shigematsu and Fumio Yamamoto.
LIFE / Digital
Jan 17, 2001

Old game + old system = high-tech breakthrough

SEATTLE -- Digital Eclipse, a relatively unknown video game design company in the United States, has achieved the incredible: It has taken a nearly 20-year-old video game, adapted it for a 12-year-old video game system and in process created a technological breakthrough.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jan 16, 2001

The buy-or-die albums of 2000

In 2000 America rocked with Limp Bizkit, Slipknot and At The Drive In, while Britain got all soppy and introverted with Richard Ashcroft, Coldplay and Belle & Sebastian. As for Japan, I have mixed feelings. It was great that Melt-Banana, Audio Active and 54 Nude Honeys (my favorite Japanese bands) all...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2001

Fates of Estrada, Philippines hang on trial

MANILA -- President Joseph "Erap" Estrada is in the battle of his political life as his lawyers fight corruption charges in an impeachment trial.
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Jan 10, 2001

Daimyo's garden: tall trees among the embassies

Arisugawa Memorial Park has an area of 3.6 hectares and is the largest park in Tokyo's Minato Ward. The collection of tall mature trees gives the park a pleasing woodland effect.
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Jan 9, 2001

Hitting the high notes of jazz

At the age of 5 or 6, Cassandra Wilson recalls hearing the music of Miles Davis for the first time. "Sketches of Spain" was part of her father's record collection, himself a jazz musician and was one of the records he would often play in their home in Jackson, Mississippi.
JAPAN
Jan 7, 2001

Book of Allied surrender fliers proves hot draw for publisher

OSAKA -- The publisher of a book reproducing a series of "rakkasan" (parachute) news leaflets that were dropped on battlefields in Japan and Southeast Asia by the U.S. military toward the end of World War II is excited over the high demand for his book.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 6, 2001

The movie's the thing

Who do you think you are, the Prince of Denmark? Such is the complaint I'd like to lodge with wordy, lordly, self-obsessed people whose introverted grievances often manifest themselves in extroverted acts of harm. Hamlet had always struck me as a curious choice for a hero. It's true he gave some great...
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 / Books
Jan 5, 2001

Have Japanese novelists lost touch with readers?

The fading interest in reading among younger Japanese first caused alarm several years ago in Japan, but I was recently startled to see a full page devoted to the topic in The New York Times' Book Review section (Dec. 10).
JAPAN
Jan 3, 2001

Asian women's fund to seek out businesses, labor unions

The cash-strapped Asian Women's Fund, which collects contributions for women forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, has decided to call on businesses and labor unions for financial assistance, informed sources said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2001

A question of hegemony

An implicit alliance has emerged in Washington since the Cold War's end between avowedly "Wilsonian" liberals, anxious to extend American influence and federate the democracies, and unilateralist neoconservative believers in U.S. power projection, who call for American world leadership, aggressively...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 30, 2000

'Discovering' Heinrich Vogeler

With most Tokyo galleries closed during the New Year's break, it can be difficult to find an interesting contemporary art show in the city.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 28, 2000

Down's diagnoses defied

Hope was not in the prognosis that doctors gave to Chie Myo, after examining her first son, Shunsuke, at the age of 3 months. They diagnosed the baby as having been born with Mongolism, a derogatory term previously used for Down syndrome, and predicted that he would not live long, saying a mere cold...
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2000

Town's win against dam had a cost

KITO, Tokushima Pref. -- This remote village lies along the upper stream of the 125-km Naka River.
JAPAN
Dec 22, 2000

DPJ to seek 30% cut in public works spending

Executives of the Democratic Party of Japan adopted a pledge Thursday to seek a 30 percent cut in public works expenditures over five years in the runup to next summer's House of Councilors election.

Longform

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