Search - world

 
 
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 27, 2002

At last, a family cartoon playing it for real

Since virtually everyone has grown up in one, "family" is one of the few dramatic themes that can safely be called universal, even if no two families can ever be the same. Nevertheless, the popular arts, television in particular, are filled with families who are meant to represent all families.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 27, 2002

Trucks' pulling power to haul in visitors

The 36th Tokyo Motor Show, which gets into gear at Chiba's Makuhari Messe complex this week, will be showcasing some 105 commercial-vehicle companies from seven countries including, for the first time, South Korea.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Oct 27, 2002

Romantics, reporter go far away, so close

In Japan, there's a commonly held romantic notion that people who really want to pursue certain kinds of ambitions have to go abroad to do so. Only by immersing oneself in an environment that offers no distractions from the goal can one truly master a discipline.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 27, 2002

An unflinching look at the face of suffering

FEAR AND SANCTUARY: Burmese Refugees in Thailand, by Hazel J. Lang. Cornell Southeast Asia Publications: Ithaca, New York, 2002, 240 pp., $24 (paper) An army column enters a small farming village without warning. The soldiers have been taught that everyone there is a potential enemy. Should any villagers...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Oct 26, 2002

Leiko Oshima

"Since the cradle," said Leiko Oshima, "I was destined to browse the world in search of cosmopolitan truth. I can't help being a 'thinking reed' as I live in the country of Pascal and Sartre."
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Oct 25, 2002

Shared research yields ideas for schooling

When we first enrolled our son in Japanese school, there were occasions when he came home earlier than I'd expected. The first time, I happened to be at home. "Why were you dismissed early?" I asked my son. "I don't know," he shrugged. "The teacher said something, but I didn't understand."
SOCCER / World cup
Oct 24, 2002

Toyota Cup tickets on sale Oct. 27

Ticket for the Toyota Cup match on Dec. 3 between European champion Real Madrid of Spain and South American champion Olimpia of Paraguay will begin at 10 a.m. on Oct. 27 at major ticket outlets, organizers announced Wednesday in Tokyo.
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Oct 24, 2002

Namco puts up a fight

In 1990, fighting games really came into their own, as Capcom's "Street Fighter II" lit up video arcades like they hadn't been in nearly a decade.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Oct 23, 2002

Deedees: "D.D.R.P."

It's not Ryo, it's Rio, and the name doesn't really suit him. It's sounds a little too exotic for a squat Japanese bloke covered with scary tattoos and sporting a skinhead haircut.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Oct 21, 2002

Contributing to the spread of democracy

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- In a recent editorial, the Financial Times admonished the European Union and its member states, "(for) having consistently failed to grasp the broad historic significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall nearly 13 years ago." It is in fact an awesome event, the significance of...
COMMENTARY
Oct 21, 2002

It's not what Bush says but how he says it

HONOLULU -- The controversy swirling around President George W. Bush's foreign policy is remarkable for two things. The first is the consensus regarding its content. Observers generally agree that the Bush foreign policy is muscular, unilateralist and dominated by political realists who practice power...
COMMENTARY
Oct 21, 2002

Confessions from North Korea

SEOUL/PUSAN -- They say that a little bit of confession is good for the soul, but North Korea's sudden burst of religion is creating a moral dilemma for Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul. First, Pyongyang decides to come clean on the kidnapping of Japanese citizens, admitting to Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 20, 2002

Liberated from language

IDEOGRAMS IN CHINA, by Henri Michaux. Translated by Gustaf Sobin, with an afterword by Richard Sieburth. New York: New Directions, 2002, 58 pp. with selected ideograms, $9.95 (paper) Poet Ezra Pound, following the lead of scholar Ernest Fenollosa, once said that Chinese was the ideal medium for poetry,...
EDITORIALS
Oct 19, 2002

Stunning news from North Korea

The world has puzzled over the significance of the almost complete news blackout that followed the visit of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly to North Korea earlier this month. Now we know the reason: North Korea admitted that it had a nuclear weapons development program, a violation of the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 19, 2002

Crime writer racily exposes seamy side of Japan

It's a bit confusing when an author is called Guy Stanley but his card reads Stan Guy in English and Gai Stanri in katakana on the back.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 18, 2002

Let's hear it for the big wa in a small country

Although we seem to have built an entire culture based on loathing of all things Japanese and admiration of all things foreign, scratch the surface of our inferiority complex and you'll find a streak of patriotism somewhere.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Oct 18, 2002

Conducting a whole tradition of music

When symphony conductor Stefan Nedyalkov first visited Tokyo as a child in 1977, he had a premonition. He awoke in his hotel room one morning, convinced that he would return to Japan someday and live here. He was 11 years old at the time and a member of the children's choir of Bulgarian National Radio....
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Oct 18, 2002

Insuring your health; ensuring your privacy

Health concerns Health continues to be a regular source of your questions. The issue was really brought home to me the other day when, following a 10-hour flight, with no sleep, I got up to give a speech and couldn't speak nor remember what I was supposed to stay.
COMMENTARY
Oct 17, 2002

Face down lobbies, factions

LONDON -- Why can't Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi carry out his promised reforms of the Japanese economy? Some may argue that he never really intended to reform the system and that his promises were all sham designed as a political boost. I don't agree, although I do question whether he and his close...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Oct 17, 2002

Prince

The artist formerly known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince has suddenly embarked on a world tour and will be in Japan in mid-November. You should be excited, though no one can blame you if you're not. Having spent most of the '90s trying to figure out what to call him as he dropped one multidisc...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Oct 17, 2002

A proud town founded on ferries

The Ara River rises in the Chichibu Mountains of Saitama Prefecture, from where it flows southeast for some 140 km to reach the capital and discharge itself into Tokyo Bay. As its name (which means "rough") implies, it used to be a violent river, swelling after heavy rains and raging across the wide...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 17, 2002

'Tis a pity she's the leading actress

Contemporary theater in Japan existed as something akin to an underground cult in the 1960s and '70s. In the '80s, with bubble money swilling around everywhere, many of these youthful, looselyknit groups came in from the cultural margins and formed theater companies. Led by experimental directors such...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Oct 17, 2002

Japan image that resonates

Ichitaro Nakanoshima likes nothing better than to spend the late morning watching videos of old musicals like "Singin' in the Rain."
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 17, 2002

Searching within ourselves for the vaccine against HIV

It is 2005, in what was formerly the state of California. After a massive earthquake, the golden state has been divided into two: So. Cal and No. Cal. Scrawled and sprayed on walls and wreckage is the name of the people's savior: J.D. Shapely.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 16, 2002

Savoring and saving China's art

Japan's history is replete with examples of the assimilation of art and artifacts from China, yet in many cases the cultural traditions that produced them have disappeared in China itself. Often, the best clues to further our understanding of these lost artistic traditions lie in examining artifacts...
MORE SPORTS
Oct 13, 2002

Joanie's in town, and she's ready to kick some butt

Joanie Laurer lists herself as 5'10". She looks more like 6'4" in the flesh. Built like a brick lighthouse, former World Wrestling Federation (WWF) star "Chyna" cuts an imposing figure as she greets me at the door to her hotel room.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Oct 13, 2002

Ni-mono is a many-splendored comfort food

When we first eat outside of the family kitchen, we realize that there is a whole different world of flavors out there. Most of the time, however, the flavors we end up longing for are the comforting tastes of the hearth that nurtured us. It's funny that even when we encounter the same dish, in new versions...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 13, 2002

Japanese will have babies when living is easy

In the middle of September, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry released a set of countermeasures to address the declining birthrate, which Chikara Sakaguchi -- the head of the ministry -- has said will "sink Japan" if it remains as low as it is.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Oct 13, 2002

Crowd aside, Department-H parties are never a drag

Gogh Imaizumi, a skilled cartoonist, left his hometown, Sapporo, at age 20 with the dream of becoming an illustrator. He took with him these words of advice from his mother: "Whatever you do, don't be a nuisance to anyone."

Longform

Pedestrians commute through Shibuya Station in central Tokyo, an area that is almost never devoid of people.
As the rest of Japan shrinks, Tokyo grows