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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 23, 2005

Miro's best critic shows with stars of Surrealism

"Drifting Objects of Dreams: The Collection of Shuzo Takiguchi" is an exhibition which features the diversity of this famous Japanese artist and a host of collaborators. Though it started in the West, the Surrealist movement was expansive and noone, not even its founder-cum-leader Andre Breton, had a...
EDITORIALS
Feb 21, 2005

New airport tilts toward Asia

With the opening of Central Japan International Airport (Chubu airport) last week, Japan's aviation industry entered a new age. The new terminal will serve as a gateway to the 2005 World Exposition (Aichi Expo), which opens next month. Chubu airport is a new symbol of Nagoya, a vigorous commercial and...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Feb 20, 2005

Sit down and be counted!

One chilly Friday morning last month, high-school teacher Noriyuki Ishida had probably the most stressful experience of his 35-year career.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Feb 20, 2005

Tears and fears on the road from 'normality'

Everyone loves a hero, and the media loves creating them. So it is hardly a surprise that Alastair Humphreys' five-year round-the-world bicycle odyssey has been largely portrayed as a charitable undertaking.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Feb 20, 2005

Picture this domestic drama

One fine day in the middle of the night, the head of the Tonomura household in Kobe informed his wife and two grown-up daughters that he was in debt to the tune of more than 10 million yen.
Features / WEEK 3
Feb 20, 2005

Operation Evacuation

Not only are they a biodiversity disaster, but the millions of sugi (cedars) planted as official policy in the postwar years to yield cheap timber -- but which are now more expensive to harvest than the cost of imports -- have become a serious health hazard across Japan.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Feb 18, 2005

Outcry over Arsenal's all-foreign squad is misguided

LONDON -- Arsenal became L'Arsenal or El Arsenal last Monday after Arsene Wenger chose an all-foreign squad of 16 for the 5-1 win over Crystal Palace.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 17, 2005

Centrair chief brimming with confidence

Central Japan International Airport, opening today near Nagoya, will serve as a key center for the exchange of people, commodities and information between Japan and the rest of the world, said Yukihisa Hirano, president of the new airport's operating company.
Japan Times
Features
Feb 13, 2005

Go! Go! Kingyo!

If you go down to Roppongi tonight, you're sure of a few surprises. Not least, in Tokyo's favorite party zone renowned for its glitz and sleaze, you're guaranteed a world tour of ethnic restaurants, along with enough bars, dance clubs and strip joints to satisfy every taste.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Feb 10, 2005

Jungle crow

* Japanese name: Hashibuto-garasu * Scientific name: Corvus macrorhynchos * Description: The Jungle crow is a large, black, fearsome-looking bird with a wingspan of up to 104 cm and a body length of 50 cm. It weighs up to 650 grams and lives up to 19 years. It has a close relative, the Carrion...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Feb 9, 2005

Feminist life actually: singing in the pain of Japan

The word "feminist" has been stripped of the luster it had back in the 1970s, and few Japanese women are more aware of this than Michiko Kasahara. Widely regarded as one of Japan's leading feminist curators, Kasahara was responsible for groundbreaking exhibitions such as "Gender: Beyond Memory" at the...
BUSINESS
Feb 8, 2005

Nippon Shinpan, UFJ to adopt JCB credit card software

Nippon Shinpan Co. and UFJ Card Co. said Monday they have agreed to adopt JCB's computer software to control key functions in their credit card operations, possibly by the end of fiscal 2008.
COMMENTARY
Feb 6, 2005

Boundary that won't stretch

LONDON -- Recent ceremonies at Auschwitz to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation by Russian forces of Nazi Germany's main death camp have rightly made us think about man's inhumanity to man and ponder how such horrific acts could have taken place. The Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jewish race...
Japan Times
Features
Feb 6, 2005

Calls for change as WHS status threatens one of Japan's gems

The breathtaking mountain landscape of the Kii Peninsula, and its ancient temples, monasteries and shrines have captivated the Japanese people for more than 1,000 years.
Japan Times
Features
Feb 6, 2005

Drawing on experience

At age 82, Shigeru Mizuki (above) is undoubtedly among the most popular -- and certainly one of the longest-standing -- cartoon artists in Japan. There is probably no Japanese adult who is not familiar with his name, or who has not at least glanced at the voluminous comics/animation series "Ge-ge-ge...
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2005

JAL to buy 30 Boeing 737s; Airbus aced out

Japan Airlines Corp. said Friday it will sign a contract with Boeing Co. of the United States to buy 30 737 jetliners, with an option for 10 more, foiling a bid by Europe's Airbus consortium to break into the U.S.-dominated market.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Feb 4, 2005

Ancient Asakusa still central to community

The day in Asakusa begins with the tolling of the Senso-ji bell at 6 a.m. The temple bell, located behind two bronze bodhisattva statues dating back to 1678, is one of the nine official Time Bells of Edo, established in 1692.
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
BUSINESS
Feb 2, 2005

Toyota unveils remodeled Vitz compact

Toyota Motor Corp. on Tuesday unveiled its fully remodeled Vitz compact.
Japan Times
Features
Jan 30, 2005

'Curiosity' at the core of days packed with lots to chew on

Atsuko Tanuma's day begins at 5 a.m. It's a routine she has followed for 17 years, since she started preparing lunch-boxes for her first son when he began kindergarten at the age of 4.
Japan Times
Features
Jan 30, 2005

Counselor counters the blues through chanson and jazz

Junko Umihara turned up a bit late for our interview at a cafe in Tokyo's Hiroo district one afternoon recently. She had been with a patient at her Umihara Mental Clinic in nearby Minato Ward, she said, "and counseling took a bit longer than scheduled."
Japan Times
Features
Jan 30, 2005

'Secret' writer joins Diet drama

There are lawyers-turned-politicians. There are bureaucrats-turned-politicians. There are professors-turned-politicians . . . sports players-turned-politicians . . . actors-turned-politicians . . . and so on.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jan 30, 2005

TBS's "The Heart of Valentine is French Chocolate" and more

This week, TV Asahi's business documentary series, "The Dawn of Gaia" (Tue., 10 p.m.), looks at the past, present and future of automobile navigation systems, which have become an indispensable part of motoring in Japan.
Japan Times
Features
Jan 30, 2005

One life that bridges many realms

Exchanging business cards and checking out what's written on them is a good way to start a conversation, but Ryo Kasuga has so many different job descriptions that you'd hardly know where to start. Not only is he a Buddhist priest, but he's an opera singer and an astronomer who runs a planetarium as...
EDITORIALS
Jan 28, 2005

Better use of talented people

Ms. Chong Hyang Gyun, a second-generation South Korean resident who is a public-health nurse for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, has been fighting a legal battle the past decade to take up a managerial post. The 54-year-old civil servant has argued that the metro government's rejection of her request...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 28, 2005

Otherworldly Okinawan capital

Automatic doors open, you step through and the sleek monorail whisks you from the spanking-new air terminal to the profuse lights of the dense urban center. Except for having exchanged wintry weather for the almost-perpetual balmy summer of Okinawa, arrival in Naha at night can seem mightily like the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 26, 2005

Time to reflect on transition

Japan is in the midst of a "Korea boom." It seems that the smiling face of Bae Yong Joon is everywhere, and almost 10,000 (mostly) female fans greeted the superstar Korean actor when he arrived at Narita airport last November. Perhaps sparked by 2002's jointly hosted soccer World Cup, films, fashion,...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 26, 2005

Digital machines replacing conventional photo booths

Coin-operated digital photo booths that offer high-quality passport and other photos are spreading.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 26, 2005

Sub Pop's second coming

In the late '80s and early '90s, Seattle and its music scene became the center of the pop culture universe. Sub Pop, the small label founded by sometime journalist Bruce Pavitt and nurtured with his partner Jonathan Poneman was its primary documenter.
Japan Times
Features
Jan 23, 2005

The riddle of rongorongo

The earliest documented reference to rongorongo was made by a French missionary, Eugene Eyraud, who wrote in 1864 that he thought "the primitive script a custom which [the islanders] preserve without searching for the meaning."

Longform

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