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CULTURE / Film
May 23, 2001

Women under the confluence

Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her Rating: * * * 1/2 Director: Rodrigo Garcia Running time: 110 minutes Language: EnglishNow playing as the late show at Bunkamura Le Cinema in Shibuya "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her" is a sleek omnibus film, with five separate but loosely interwoven...
BUSINESS
May 21, 2001

Blazing policy paths in Kasumigaseki

It's a little before 9 a.m., and Masahiko Aoki is discussing complex adaptive systems and path dependency. It's an odd conversation even though the topics are familiar ones for Aoki, a professor of economics at Stanford University and an author of several standard texts on the Japanese economy.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 13, 2001

Death and the maidens

TBS's "Sekai Fushigi Hakken," currently the longest-running quiz show on commercial TV, was also one of the first series to combine education and entertainment in a way that didn't compromise either. Whereas the previous record-holder, "Naruhodo the World," which went off the air several years ago, presented...
JAPAN
May 12, 2001

Foreign Ministry officials begin sniping at Tanaka

With Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka flexing her muscles over the ministry's personnel affairs, bureaucrats have begun a counterattack, questioning her diplomatic judgment.
CULTURE / Art
May 9, 2001

Lines that trace a restless life

There is a French maxim that says "Style is the man." If there was ever an embodiment of that phrase, it was the French poet, novelist, playwright, filmmaker and artist Jean Cocteau. Considered one of the most creative talents of the 20th century, Cocteau's prodigious creativity is being currently showcased...
JAPAN
May 1, 2001

'Rose of Versailles' comic to be made an Italian opera

A hit 1970s comic book about tragic love in 18th-century France that spawned its own musical is to become an opera, the author of "Berusaiyu no Bara" ("The Rose of Versailles") said in a recent interview with Kyodo News.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Apr 30, 2001

One man's fight for the unvarnished truth

My historian friend Richard Minear tells me that Saburo Ienaga has been nominated for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He then follows up on this news by sending me Ienaga's autobiography, which he has translated, "Japan's Past, Japan's Future: One Historian's Odyssey" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001).
CULTURE / Books
Apr 29, 2001

Oral history exposes Japan's wartime enslavement of POWs

UNJUST ENRICHMENT: How Japan's Companies Built Postwar Fortunes Using American POWs, by Linda Goetz Holmes. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2001, 202 pp., $24.95. During World War II, nearly 50,000 U.S. soldiers and civilians became prisoners of the Japanese. Approximately half of this total "were...
JAPAN
Apr 28, 2001

Lists for spring awards are unveiled

Actor Go Kato, actress Yaeko Mizutani and physicist Yoji Tozuka are among 23 recipients of this spring's Medal with Purple Ribbon, which is awarded for contributions to the arts and academia, the government said Friday.
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Apr 27, 2001

I know! Let's put on a show in the barn!

Peals of laughter erupt in the audience as the performers onstage go through their routines. It's not every day that the residents of Kitagawa, a village outside of Kochi, have the opportunity to see a musical performed entirely in the local Tosa dialect, and they're relishing every minute of it -- especially...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 26, 2001

Vaccine theory of HIV debunked

A tempest that has been raging in the outwardly dignified world of academia is set to die down with the publication today of three papers in Nature and one in Science. The story -- about the origin of AIDS -- is one of intrigue, mystery and death. Mostly, however, it is about death.
CULTURE / Film
Apr 25, 2001

All the trimmings

To convince consumers they should update their precious video collections to DVD, movie companies often add enticing extras that can't be found elsewhere. It's a marketing gimmick, but film buffs win, too. Here are five movies that look better on DVD:
CULTURE / Books
Apr 22, 2001

Okinawan writers provide a breath of fresh air

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE: Modern Japanese Literature from Okinawa, edited by Michael Molasky and Steve Rabson. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 362 pp., $27.95 (paper). Okinawa consists of just .6 percent of the total landmass of Japan and contributes 1 percent to the population, according to the introduction...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 19, 2001

Intelligent elephant mamas never forget

Elephants form some of the most intimate social relationships seen outside primates. The female-led society provides a high level of care to its members: Little elephants are bathed and carried over obstacles, and mothers frequently touch their young with their trunks. If disturbed, calves and the matriarch...
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2001

Japan faces dilemma over Kyoto Protocol

Japan should start focusing more diplomatic attention on Russia if it wants to put the Kyoto Protocol climate change agreement into force -- with or without the United States.
JAPAN / History
Apr 16, 2001

MacArthur's honor guard returns

About 40 members of the Gen. MacArthur Honor Guard Association visiting Tokyo to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his departure from Japan paid respects to Japan's war dead Sunday at Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery for the War Dead in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.
COMMUNITY
Apr 15, 2001

A yen for thrift

There was a time when Japan prided itself on its thriftiness. Hard times after World War II produced the need to save money and cut every corner. Children were taught that each grain of rice was sacred and not to be wasted. Sardines and mackerel were standard fare, beef reserved only for special occasions....
LIFE / Travel
Apr 3, 2001

Escape to the Victorian age in the town time forgot

SIDMOUTH, England -- If one holds the sepia-tinted postcard and stands in the same spot where the photographer stood at the start of the last century, one is stunned by the changes to the facades of the hotels and shops that line Sidmouth's seafront. There are virtually none.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 1, 2001

Takoyaki wars shift to Tokyo

There was a time when takoyaki (octopus dumplings) were dismissed by Tokyoites as festival fare or a snack for kids. In recent years, though, takoyaki has found fans outside its birthplace of Osaka and joined the ranks of other Kansai-Kanto crossovers such as okonomiyaki and Yoshimoto-style comedy (think...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 27, 2001

Farewell to the rabbit hutch

THE JAPANESE DREAM HOUSE: How Technology and Tradition are Shaping New Home Design, by Azby Brown and Joseph Cali. Tokyo/New York: Kodansha International, 2001, pp. 132, profusely illustrated with Japanese-language translation insert, 6,000 yen. This big, beautiful, well-designed book tells and shows...
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Mar 21, 2001

Bookmarks old and new

www.newkoyo.com The New Koyo Hotel is doing for Tokyo what Kao Sahn Road has done for Bangkok. Beware of an influx of budget travelers. A gaijin zoo is springing up north of Ueno, and the temporary inhabitants are being attracted by room rates that start at 2,500 yen. The Web site is packed with other...
CULTURE / Books
Mar 20, 2001

Shanghai, the heart of China

NEW SHANGHAI: The Rocky Rebirth of China's Legendary City, by Pamela Yatsko. Wiley, 2001, 298 pp., 2,300 yen (paper). Few doubt that Shanghai is the nerve center of China's second "Great Leap Forward." This metropolis -- long considered the most cosmopolitan of all Asian cities -- is the cornerstone...
CULTURE / Books
Mar 15, 2001

Taking the long view on history

EAST ASIA AT THE CENTER: Four Thousand Years of Engagement with the World, by Warren I. Cohen. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, 516 pp. You don't have to believe in the Asian Century or any other form of that nonsense to admit that Western understanding of Asia is woefully inadequate. The intellectual...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 10, 2001

I'm a loser bunny . . . so why doncha pay me?

On a busy sidewalk in Harajuku, a man dressed in a suit sits drinking from a hip flask of Scotch, surrounded by five pink, fluffy rabbits.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 9, 2001

Thais make an enemy out of Myanmar

No one knows who put a bomb on a Thai Airways jet scheduled to carry Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to Chiang Mai, but respected media outlets such as the Matichon newspaper and the Bangkok Post have hinted that the bombing may have something to do with drugs from Myanmar.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Mar 7, 2001

Climb rain forests to the clouds

If you've climbed Mount Kinabalu in Sabah Province, Malaysian Borneo, under the impression that you were heroically scaling the highest peak in Southeast Asia, I have bad news.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 2, 2001

Fear, obsession hold back Japan-China ties

In recent years, Japan-China relations have been marked by almost incessant friction over issues ranging from historical questions to more mundane problems.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 27, 2001

Soar with Madame Butterfly

MADAME BUTTERFLY: Japonisme, Puccini, and the Search for the Real Cho-Cho-San, by Jan van Rij. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2001, 192 pp., 24 b/w photos, drawings, map, $24.95 (casebound). Giacomo Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" has become more than just a pretty piece of music. It has turned into something...

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.