Search - features

 
 
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."
Features
Jan 23, 2005

Island voices

The Mayor Pedro Pablo Edmunds Paoa, or "Petero" as he is known, has been mayor of Hanga Roa, Rapa Nui's only settlement, for 12 years, and won re-election last November. He has an open-door policy at his office on Hanga Roa's main street, and welcomed this writer dropping by to talk about the preservation...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2005

Recognize pair as abductees: kin

Relatives of two people who disappeared in the 1960s and '70s urged the government Monday to officially recognize them as having been abducted to North Korea.
Features / WEEK 3
Jan 16, 2005

Water from everywhere, and so many drops to drink

Sure, water is tasty. Water is healthy. And recently, bottled water seems to have been deluging the shelves of Japan's shops, as more people turn away from their taps and toward thirst-quenching labels from home and abroad.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Jan 16, 2005

Seek the Hemingway within at a concrete-jungle pond

"It was light. We stood by the pond. The fish were biting."
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Jan 16, 2005

A cheapskate let loose in Tokyo paradise of print

Jinbocho in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward is Japan's treasure trove of used books.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Jan 16, 2005

Wota lota love

The 90-minute event on the eighth floor of an electronics shop in Tokyo's Akihabara district one recent Sunday afternoon was unlike anything you'd expect to encounter in the bubble-gum world of Japanese teen fashion.
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2005

South Asia to get tsunami warning system

leader when it comes to predicting tsunamis based on simulations," Inoue said. According to Tatsuo Kuwayama, head of the Meteorological Agency's tsunami research section, 100,000 tsunami patterns have been calculated based on such things as magnitude and fault direction for earthquakes that could occur...
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2005

Politicians record CD for bone marrow drive

A pop band featuring four Liberal Democratic Party politicians has recorded a CD to raise funds for bone marrow donations.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 14, 2005

Kobe: picturesque city by the sea

As last month's terrible tsunami off Sumatra and the subsequent tidal waves showed only too well, the shiftings of the earth's crust can lead to horrific natural calamities. Sitting atop one of the world's geological hot spots, Japan is of course no stranger to these phenomena. And the ever-present threat...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jan 13, 2005

Japanese white-eye

* Japanese name: Mejiro * Scientific name: Zosterops japonicus * Description: The white-eye is a small, delicate bird, with an olive-green upper body, wings and head, and a gray to pale-brown belly. The distinguishing feature is the bright-white eye ring made of feathers (the Japanese name means...
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 / Stage
Jan 5, 2005

Momix: taking it to the top

Moses Pendleton remembers well his first taste of live performance. He was an elementary school kid when his father -- a dairy farmer in northern Vermont -- hired his young son to show off his prized Holstein cows at the county fair. "My job was to walk the animals around and make them look good in order...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Dec 30, 2004

What is behind 'shocking' Hokkaido bid for World Heritage Site status?

Recently I was lucky enough to visit no fewer than six World Heritage Sites (WHS) in northern India. An astonishing cultural, ethnic and biological diversity is well represented in India's array of national parks (NP) and WHS, and, my goodness, they have a huge wow factor.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.