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Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 20, 2005

Serving up a dish fit for the '50s

"The Kitchen," Arnold Wesker's sizzlingly angry play about youthful discontent in postwar Britain, opened a two-week run in Tokyo's Shibuya last week for only its third major staging in Japan since its London premiere in 1959.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Apr 17, 2005

A nation asleep at the wheel

Train carriages filled with white-collar workers dozing off on each other's shoulders are one of the most striking sights in Japan.
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2005

Filipino teen faces deportation with parents, rest of Japan-born siblings

The Tokyo High Court on Wednesday overturned a ruling allowing a Japan-born Filipino girl to remain in the country.
Features
Apr 10, 2005

The God Gap: Japan and the clash of civilizations

There are many differences between Japan and the West, both historical and contemporary, but there is no gap so gaping and, perhaps, unbridgeable as the "God Gap."
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 6, 2005

Butoh creates beauty from misery

"Why are we in this form? Why do we have to be this particular shape? Why is the face on top of the neck? Our face could be on the soles of our feet. . . . Human beings are quite a strange kind of life form . . ."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 2, 2005

Alleged al-Qaeda link seeks vindication

A Bangladeshi businessman who was incorrectly alleged by police and the media last year as being linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist network is seeking vindication.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 23, 2005

The end of the line for American Eden

Times change and things move on. "The past," as L.P Hartley (1892-1972) wrote in his 1956 novel The Go-Between, "is a foreign country, they do things differently there."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 19, 2005

FIND gives hope to lost, depressed and suicidal

Yukio Saito pats the main staircase banister rail of the building that houses the Tokyo Lutheran Church in Iidabashi, explaining, "We are the same age, 68."
BUSINESS
Mar 17, 2005

Insurer Meiji Yasuda punishes 69 for fraudulent sales tactics

Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. said Wednesday it has punished 69 executives and employees in connection with illegal sales practices and nonpayment of insurance money.
BUSINESS
Mar 11, 2005

SMFG to issue shares to up capital

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group said Thursday it will effect a much-needed capital boost worth some 210 billion yen by issuing preferred shares.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Mar 10, 2005

"The Whispering Road," "The Pig in the Spigot"

"The Whispering Road," Livi Michael, Puffin Books; 2005; 336 pp. If you haven't read Charles Dickens yet, what could be a better introduction than Livi Michael's "The Whispering Road"? Michael's first novel for older children imbibes Dickens' influences, dramatic storytelling and colorful characterization...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Feb 16, 2005

Former prime minister's pride of pots

"On a sunny day I go to the fields, and, when it rains, I read. Simple enough, isn't it?" Sounds like the words of a cute obachan out in the countryside, but these are the words of former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa who now leads a quiet, secluded life.
EDITORIALS
Feb 13, 2005

Dead man moonwalking

Pity Michael Jackson. Of course, that's after checking off a long list of other justifiable reactions to the sad, clown-like figure whose trial on child molestation and other charges is now getting under way in California with all the solemnity of a circus. Amazement, impatience, sympathy, repugnance,...
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Feb 3, 2005

"Pirates!" "Mammalabilia"

"Pirates!" Celia Rees, Bloomsbury; 2004; 296 pp. Celia Rees's "Pirates!" is a gripping read from page one: It gains on you like Blackbeard's fearsome pirate ships, takes you hostage, and holds you without mercy till the last page. Her story of two young women taking to a life at sea as pirates is so...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 2, 2005

Miracles of the moment in Saburo Teshigawara's dance

Dancer, choreographer and artist Saburo Teshigawara works in a time zone of his own. In the 24 years since he came on the dance scene, Teshigawara has transformed the definition of movement. His work with his group Karas and major international companies, including the Frankfurt Ballet and the Opera...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 31, 2005

Fires of hope for the leprosy-afflicted

There is a disease that is completely curable. It is phenomenally hard to contract. If caught early, it has little to no effect on those who have been touched by it. Yet, mention of this disease fills people with more dread, with more gut-level loathing, than any other. The disease is leprosy. It is...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 26, 2005

Talkin' Bertolt

Between his return from the United States after World War II, and his death in 1956, playwright Bertolt Brecht, with his Berliner Ensemble, created one of the finest acting companies in the world -- one which became a testing-ground for his theatrical exploration and challenged the theatrical conventions...
COMMENTARY
Jan 25, 2005

Short shrift to a leader ousted by outlaws

HONG KONG -- The death of former Chinese Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang is a reminder of the tragedy that befell 15 years ago when the People's Liberation Army was called upon to shoot down unarmed demonstrators in Beijing, students as well as civilians. But it is also a reminder that China even today...
Japan Times
Features
Jan 23, 2005

Women to the fore in study of statues

At midday on March 29, 1914, a yacht named Mana, flying the British colors, dropped anchor in the tiny inlet of Cook's Bay, Hanga Roa. On board was an anthropologist who would carry out the first systematic survey of the Easter Island statues, and who would also record the last memories of a dying generation...
EDITORIALS
Jan 22, 2005

A man before his time

Zhao Ziyang, former general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), died last weekend at the age of 85. Zhao headed the CCP in the spring of 1989, when demonstrators filled Tiananmen Square in Beijing. He was dismissed days before tanks rolled in to crush the protests, and spent the remaining...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 22, 2005

Cotton Club's pianist records album with friends

It takes awhile to link up with Noriko Kamo, who keeps going adrift in the snowfalls of Hokkaido's Hakodate. Since her mother is now living alone, Noriko tries to come back to Japan every year to keep her company through the hardest month of the year. It helps, she says, that "it's quiet in New York...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 20, 2005

Examining the exotic ins and outs of marrying a foreigner

Elsewhere in the world, mixed marriages are no big deal. In Japan, however, the kokusai kekkon (international marriage) is still an issue tinged with exoticism and other-worldliness. Witness the enormous success of manga series "Daalin wa Gaikokujin" (My Darling is a Foreigner), and you'll see the point....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 12, 2005

Balancing act

Singer-songwriters are the half-breeds of pop music. Evolved from Bob Dylan's navel-gazing spawn, they lead hyphenated existences because each half of their calling is considered insupportable without the other. Though many are accomplished vocalists, what distinguishes them as singers doesn't always...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 11, 2005

Gaijin in cyberspace

It's a pretty lively gathering. A group of eikaiwa teachers are noisily denouncing their employers, while nearby a pair of leery Charisma Men are swapping tales of sexual conquests, and next to them some language students are loudly debating the Yasukuni Shrine.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 5, 2005

Miraculous folk art

Part of the appeal of Grandma Moses is that her life story reads like the script from a Frank Capra film -- the story of good regular folk experiencing miracles of fame and fortune.
COMMENTARY
Jan 3, 2005

Modern England leaves Granny behind

LONDON -- "What are we coming to" cried one of the grannies at my Christmas dinner, meaning we, the English. Her small anguish was prompted by the thought of the bank holidays and festive refusal of work that wraps everyone in a haze of food and alcohol, gifts and family, and lets the outer world fend...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Dec 30, 2004

An FPS for the thinking man

"Metroid Prime 2: Echoes," a first-person shooter from Nintendo for the GameCube, is both fun and a pain at the same time. It keeps you on your toes, even when it makes you perform the same tasks over and over again.

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