Search - collection

 
 
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 24, 2001

Finding nature by design

JAPANESE DESIGN: A Collection. Photographs and text by Kenneth Straiton. Forward by Peter Grilli. Tokyo: Tuttle Shokai, 1999, 160 pp., copiously illustrated, 3,800 yen. Traditionally the Japanese are a patterned people who live in a patterned country, a land where the exemplar still exists, where there...
COMMENTARY
Apr 18, 2001

The crew's home; now what?

HONOLULU -- The release of the crew of the American EP-3E reconnaissance plane from Chinese "protective custody" may have defused the crisis but hardly represents the end of this affair. Meetings are now under way between U.S. and Chinese officials to deal with the aftereffects. While both sides agree...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 1, 2001

Ohkura brings kabuki to life

KABUKI TODAY: The Art and Tradition. Photographs by Shunji Ohkura, text by Iwao Kamimura, translated by Kirsten McIvor. Introduction by Donald Keene. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2001, 194 pp., profusely illustrated. 5,800 yen. This lavish volume, as extravagant as the kabuki itself, is devoted to...
CULTURE / Books
Mar 27, 2001

Poetry for every mood and season

RYOKAN: Selected Tanka, Haiku, translated by Sanford Goldstein, Shigeo Mizuguchi & Fujisato Kitajima. Kokodo, 2000, pp. 218, 2 ,000 yen. LOVE HAIKU: Masajo Suzuki's Lifetime of Love: Translations by Lee Gurga & Emiko Miyashita. Brooks Books, 2000, pp. 112, 1,600 yen. UTSUMUKU SEINEN /LOOKING DOWN:...
COMMUNITY
Feb 8, 2001

Adults fuel freebie figure boom

Until several years ago, grownups collecting freebie figures from candy or snack boxes would have been labeled otaku -- geeks. Now they're practically normal.
BUSINESS
Jan 27, 2001

RCC adviser quits in debt scandal

Kohei Nakabo, adviser to Resolution and Collection Corp., has resigned and a senior managing director and four others of the debt-collection vehicle have been punished over an improper collection deal in 1998, RCC chief Akio Kioi said Friday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 8, 2001

Tomorrow today in Tokyo

TOKYO X. Photographs by Shunji Ohkura. Afterword translated by Ralph McCarthy, captions translated by Shii Ichiba, envoi by Giles Murray. Tokyo: Kodansha Intl., 2000, 216 pp., 251 plates with endpapers, 3,800 yen. In the afterword to this remarkable collection of pictures, the photographer says that...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 9, 2000

Nishiki-e outshine Chinese prints

"The Birth of Nishiki-e," the current exhibition at the Ota Memorial Museum of Art, claims to be an attempt to explore Chinese influence on ukiyo-e, Japanese print art.
COMMUNITY
Dec 7, 2000

Menswear fashions cut from a different cloth

Menswear was, as usual, relegated to the back seat in the recent Tokyo collections, and only a handful of designers showed any. Given the quality of male models used on the runways, however, this was probably in the designers' best interests.
COMMUNITY
Nov 16, 2000

Inspirations for the new millennium

The recent Tokyo collections, for spring/summer 2001, brought together over 50 designers for two weeks of shows.
COMMUNITY
Nov 16, 2000

Tencel magic at the NY collections

At the 2001 New York spring/summer collections in September, Japanese fashion designers Ichiro Seta and Takashi Kataoka showed their designs as part of the Tencel collection, and succeeded in demonstrating the versatility of the new fiber.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 31, 2000

Covering the fine arts: Frank Stella speaks

Frank Stella As part of the celebration of the art collection at the U.S. ambassador's residence, Ambassador Foley invited celebrated artist Frank Stella to take part in the reception and media tour. The day after the media tour, The Japan Times interviewed Stella at the residence. Following are excerpts...
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Aug 23, 2000

Rare cacti thriving in Kansai subtropics

The cactus and succulent house at Amagasaki Botanic Garden is a virtual gene bank of rare and endangered plants. AMAGASAKI, Hyogo Pref. -- Once the site of a factory, Kami-Sakabe Nishi Park is a compact botanical garden with an interesting collection of plants, set in the heart of a large industrial...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 8, 2000

Think global, act local; or is it think local, act global?

LANDSCAPES AND COMMUNITIES ON THE PACIFIC RIM: From Asia to the Pacific Northwest, edited by Karen K. Gaul and Jackie Hiltz. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2000, 254 pp., $24.95 (paper). Lives are complex, and if this era of globalization has taught us anything, it is that this complexity extends beyond local...
JAPAN
Jun 4, 2000

Seiji Ozawa photo book yanked from bookstores

The sales agency for the Japanese edition of a collection of photographs of world-renowned conductor Seiji Ozawa has begun pulling the book from store shelves after discovering it was published without Ozawa's permission.
CULTURE / Books / POETRY MIGNETTE
Apr 16, 2000

The silken soul of modern poetry in Japan

At the Power of the Spoken Word reading at Ben's Cafe last month, Yasuo Fujitomi, John Solt, Masafumi Suzuki and Misako Yarita read from their works. Scholar and poet Fujitomi read from poems published in his CD of the highmoonoon spoken literature series, "whatnever" (3,500 yen), a sophisticated production...
COMMUNITY
Apr 6, 2000

Sisters doing it for themselves at any age

Seiko Kuboi stops at the end of the catwalk and poses with hand on hip, showing off her gold lame-edged jacket, long black skirt and black bolero hat. The crowd goes wild. "Whoo-hoo! Looking good! Great hat!" they scream in raucous appreciation.
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2000

National Diet Library goes online

Hiroyuki Taya, a senior staff librarian at the National Diet Library, realized the power of the Internet when the nation's largest library recently launched a new service to open part of its collection to online users.
COMMUNITY
Jan 12, 2000

Camellias and camels on Izu Oshima

Izu Oshima has another special attraction: the camellia park. The whole park has an area of 327 hectares, including the camellia garden, a small zoo and a campground known as Umi no Furusato Mura, situated close to the Goze River, all managed by the Tokyo Parks Department.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 31, 1999

Shakespeare comes as you like it in Japan

SHAKESPEARE AND THE JAPANESE STAGE, edited by Takashi Sasayama, J.R. Mulryne and Margaret Shewring. Cambridge University Press, 1998, 357 pp., 45 British Pounds. More than 50 years ago I went to my first Japanese staging of Shakespeare. It was "Hamlet," in Tokyo, and what I remember best is that when...
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Jun 9, 1999

The hills are alive with alpine plants

I had been looking forward to visiting Hokkaido ever since I came to Japan in September 1990. People were always telling me how lovely Hokkaido is, especially during the summer: Its wide open spaces are reminiscent of the countryside in Ireland or England.
COMMUNITY
May 23, 1999

Collector's 1,800 lighters like old flames, not for discard pile

KYOTO -- To the average person, a cigarette lighter is just a 100 yen convenience store item to be tossed in the garbage when the fuel runs out.
CULTURE / Art
Apr 17, 1999

Life lessons in pottery and prints

KOBE -- Traditional Japanese art aficionados in Kansai will have a rare chance to learn the finer points of both Bizen pottery and ukiyo-e woodblock prints through a double exhibit of John Wells' Bizen works and Peter Ujlaki's ukiyo-e collection at the Community House and Information Center (CHIC) on...
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Apr 10, 1999

A keen ear for the voice of the clay

Japanese ceramists often talk of the materials they use as having spirits and souls. A kiln, for instance, has its own kami, and the clay has a voice that if listened to carefully will reveal a shape that has lain dormant for centuries.
JAPAN
Jan 22, 1997

Museum to get rare swallowtail butterfly specimens

OSAKA -- The widow of Kaoru Sumiyoshi on Jan. 24 will present 6,086 butterfly specimens left by her husband, who was known for his research on swallowtails, to the Osaka Municipal Natural History Museum.Sumiyoshi was a former professor at Hyogo Education University and passed away in September 1995...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Jun 17, 2023

Japanese fashion can no longer afford to play hard to get

Is Japan’s air of aloof mystique still enough to convince foreign audiences to invest in Japanese fashion?
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 18, 2023

Life and leisure in the fast lane: Japan's motorsports tourism push

Japan may be famous for its high-speed trains, but what if its cars were just as much of a tourist draw?
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 3, 2023

Chinese spy balloon flying over the United States, Pentagon says

The old-fashioned intelligence collection method recalls lengths to which Beijing and Washington have been willing to go to spy on each other amid increased tensions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 28, 2023

Translations and books about Japan for your 2023 reading list

From Osamu Dazai to Yu Miri, the year ahead promises of trove of books about Japan and newly translated literature.

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan