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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Mar 16, 2002

Conspiracy behind itty-bitty kitty tails

There is one question about Japan that even the Japanese cannot answer: What has happened to all the cats' tails? I have never seen a kitten without a tail, but adult stray cats in Japan seldom have tails. Although many Japanese have offered theories, no one seems to really know the answer.
BUSINESS
Mar 16, 2002

Hitachi develops liquid-cooled PC

Hitachi Ltd. has unveiled what it calls the world's first liquid-cooled notebook personal computer.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 16, 2002

Researching business ops for African-Americans

They are packed and at the ready at the Westin Hotel in Tokyo's Yebisu Garden Place. Ready to return home to America. Ready to give me the remaining few minutes of their precious time before boarding the bus for the airport. Talk about a rush.
SOCCER / World cup
Mar 16, 2002

JAWOC announces final round of ticket sales

The Japanese World Cup Organizing Committee on Friday announced it will launch the third and final round of ticket sales for residents in Japan by phone on March 22.
SOCCER / World cup
Mar 15, 2002

Italy vs. Kashima

Italy will play against the J. League champion Kashima Antlers on May 26 at National Stadium in Tokyo in a World Cup warmup game, the Japan Football Association said Thursday.
BUSINESS / ON THE FRONT LINE
Mar 15, 2002

Bull run may wane if stock-propping fails

A buying frenzy sent Tokyo share prices forging ahead in recent weeks, lifting the key Nikkei average back above the 11,000 level.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Mar 15, 2002

There ain't no mountains high enough

During Golden Week of 1999, 26-year-old Tom Fearnehough and six friends skied down Mount Fuji. A Japanese man had attempted the same feat the year before and plummeted 2,000 meters to his death. Fearnehough and his friends, however, were better prepared.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 14, 2002

Premier raises peace hopes in Sri Lanka

There is now hope, however faint, of peace in Sri Lanka after almost two decades of bloody ethnic conflict between the majority Buddhist Sinhalas and the minority Tamils, who are fighting for a separate homeland in the northern and eastern parts of the small island.
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2002

Toshiba, Mitsubishi in new 3G deal

Toshiba Corp. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. announced Wednesday they will jointly develop a third generation dual-mode mobile phone platform that will allow users of rival technology to use their handsets around the world.
COMMENTARY
Mar 14, 2002

A demand-starved economy

What do you do if you are Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the "structural reform" policies you have been advocating with tight lips and a steely gaze are now hit by the deflation you have caused? Simple. You do an about-face and tell the world with tight lips and a steely gaze that you are now absolutely...
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2002

Air France eyes '05 Nagoya return

The general manager of the Japanese office of Air France said Wednesday that the airline may resume its flights from Nagoya in 2005, the year in which a new international airport is scheduled to open and a world exposition will be held in Aichi Prefecture.
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2002

Kansai businesses on China mission

OSAKA -- Business groups in the Kansai region said Wednesday they will send a mission to China on Sunday to discuss economic changes with government leaders.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENS FOR ALL
Mar 14, 2002

Garden jewels in the Tofukuji Temple crown

Tofukuji Temple is one of Kyoto's most magnificent jewels and is one of the city's 17 UNESCO-designated World Heritage sites.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Mar 14, 2002

You win some and you lose some . . .

Ten years ago, on March 12, 1992, this column began its life on these pages. Though it's still "green," when compared with colleagues who have graced The Japan Times for several decades, Our Planet Earth has now appeared more than 245 times.
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 13, 2002

Forsooth, 'tis surely no great Shakes

"Shakespeare shakes you. The spear of his imagination shakes you, and the story shakes you," said Mark Rylance, artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, in an interview for The Japan Times last October.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 13, 2002

An adopted son of the circus

It was a small advertisement in the paper that led Koichi Yano to one of Canada's leading circus companies, Montreal-based Cirque Eloize. It was 1996, he was in Canada helping his sister settle in and was still under the spell of a recent performance by renowned circus company Cirque du Soleil, also...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 13, 2002

What names, things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me

William Shakespeare
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 13, 2002

In the nihongo words of the Bard . . .

Kazuko Matsuoka is the Shakespeare translator whose work directors and actors in Japan most like to use. A 59-year-old Tokyo resident, she is the translator appointed for the Saitama Arts Theater's project of staging Shakespeare's complete works. To date, she has translated 11 of the plays, and is now...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 13, 2002

The power and the glory of the Prado

It was the age of Spain's Inquisition and its Age of Gold. King Felipe II, who ascended the throne in 1556, lost an "invincible" armada to the fleet of Protestant England, but he also built the breathtaking palace of El Escorial near Madrid. In swift succession, he married four wives from the four great...
COMMENTARY
Mar 12, 2002

Asia changed little by 9-11

HONOLULU -- While the way Americans look at the world may have fundamentally changed since Sept. 11, the basic Asian issues confronting U.S. decision-makers remain largely unchanged. A look at regional concerns shows more similarities than differences to those that existed before Sept. 11.
BUSINESS
Mar 12, 2002

WTO should review rules of investment: Hiranuma

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma on Monday told the next director general of the World Trade Organization that investment rules should be negotiated during the recently launched new round of international trade talks.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 11, 2002

International community must pressure Sharon

AL-BIREH, West Bank -- The first Palestinian refugee camps were a product of the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. When Israel militarily occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in 1967, a second wave of Palestinian refugees was created. Today, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon...
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 11, 2002

Sluggish Jubilo goes top

Jubilo Iwata overcame a sluggish performance to rally over shorthanded Tokyo Verdy 1969 3-2, thanks to Toshiya Fujita's 85th-minute penalty on Sunday at Tokyo Stadium.
COMMENTARY
Mar 10, 2002

Modern delusions of equality

LONDON -- Ask a total stranger about his or her sex life and, though he may be taken aback, he is likely to take it in stride. For what's so secret about sex? Ask a total stranger about his or her income, and she is likely to biff you for your impudence. Money is all secrets and lies.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 10, 2002

Caught between two parallel worlds: growing up under the Raj

OUT OF INDIA: A Raj Childhood, by Michael Foss. London: Michael O'Mara Books, 2001, 181 pp., xC820 (cloth) The Raj began in 1818 when the Rajput states of central and northern India and much else of the country came under British "protection," an occupation that ended only in 1948. Many accounts exist...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 10, 2002

'Genji': the long and the shorter of it

The Tale of Genji, by Murasaki Shikibu, translated by Royall Tyler. Viking, 2001, 1,174 pp., $60 (cloth) In the February 2002 issue of the monthly journal Eureka, Fusae Kawazoe gives a rundown of translations of Murasaki Shikibu's "The Tale of Genji" -- not only into foreign languages, but into modern...
COMMUNITY
Mar 10, 2002

Swing your (same sex) partner round and round

The shouts of the caller are heard continuously over the country and western music on the sound system. His words, like magic, control the movements of the dancers on the floor. The dancers are arranged in groups of four couples -- leads and their partners, just as in all square-dancing groups. But in...
COMMUNITY
Mar 10, 2002

Shall we sizzle?

At first glance, Koji Kanazawa looks like any other desk-beagle: neatly pressed gray pants, white shirt and bland tie topped off with a bashful, almost apologetic bow.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 10, 2002

Il Pentito: Anyway you slice, it's real Roma

The first thing you see when you walk through the door of Il Pentito is the oven. It's a monolithic, red-brick structure, like a relic from some Industrial Revolution foundry. A massive, dominating presence, it seems to take up half the premises, an impression reinforced by the way the tables are crammed...
CULTURE / Music
Mar 10, 2002

They're simply the bomb

When Ozomatli played on the closing night of Fuji Rock Festival 2000, they emptied out the Red Marquee. The hundreds of safety-pin punks, rag-head ragamuffins, permanent-press mods and glow-stick ravers had disappeared -- last seen following the band. Like a soccer team of drum-toting Pied Pipers, Ozomatli...

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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