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CULTURE / Books
Feb 16, 2000

The essence of Japanese film

FROM BOOK TO SCREEN: Modern Japanese Literature in Film. By Keiko I. McDonald. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000, 326 pp., with b/w photos. $62.95 (cloth); $25.95 (paper) Keiko McDonald's 1994 "Japanese Classical Theater in Films" (Associated University Presses) has become an indispensable text. Anyone...
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2000

Battle over Constitution begins

Breaking a postwar taboo, politicians started a full-scale parliamentary discussion Wednesday on whether to rewrite parts of the nation's hitherto untouchable Constitution. In the first session of an Upper House Constitution study panel, parties remained sharply divided over the premise of the panel...
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 16, 2000

Rambling after migrating bramblings

The many seed-bearing plants of the temperate region, the grasses and the herbs, the trees and the shrubs, produce an enormous volume of seed each year. Typically of the natural world, a vast amount of effort is rewarded by very few successes. In the game of chance that is life, relatively few seeds...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 16, 2000

Will Indonesia survive Suharto?

INDONESIA BEYOND SUHARTO, edited by Donald Emmerson. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1999, 395 pp., $26.95 (paper). Can Indonesia succeed in returning the troops to the barracks? Can it afford not to? Recent rumors of an impending coup against President Abdurrahman Wahid, moves by the president against some...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 15, 2000

Fear and loathing of Las Vegas

I wake up and I'm in bed with a broken wine glass, a forgotten fag that has left a deep black scar on the futon and a hangover the length, breadth and depth of Death Valley; but what worries me most is that the sheets are covered in blood and the smell of burning flesh is wafting over me . . .
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2000

Japan keeps expo on track despite BIE's concerns

Despite environmental concerns about Japan's proposed 2005 world exposition, a top official on Monday said Aichi Prefecture is expected to register its plan at the general assembly of the Paris-based International Bureau of Expositions (BIE) in May. "The important thing is for us to continue efforts...
EDITORIALS
Feb 13, 2000

When old age starts at 35

"That is no country for old men," the poet W.B. Yeats wrote more than 70 years ago, referring wistfully to the country of the young. He was not so old when he wrote it, either, barely in his 60s, but he knew that his age automatically excluded him from much that interested him -- chiefly heedless sensuality...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 13, 2000

Installation artist explores the void of all

Visualize three individuals -- one man and two women -- sitting on three chairs in an otherwise empty room. This space is painted white and measures 8 meters long by 4 meters wide by 3 meters high.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 12, 2000

Banging the pot for tradition

Copper cookware has several merits that other materials lack. Since copper conducts heat rapidly, it takes less time to cook. Professional chefs usually use a copper frying pan when making tempura because the oil heats evenly without hot spots. It is also believed that, due to the metal's sterilizing...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 12, 2000

The right kind of justice for East Timor

The quest for justice in East Timor gathered momentum last week with the submission of reports from two separate investigations into the rampage that occurred last September after the province voted for independence. But the stir raises profound questions of how to deal with transitional justice, pitting...
COMMUNITY
Feb 11, 2000

Words and eras to build character

Kanji is also prone to fashion. During the Meiji Era, the mods were chu (loyalty), kun (lord), ai (love) and koku (nation). Politics were condensed into four characters: fukokukyohei (rich nation, strong army). Kind of taps right into the psyche of the period, doesn't it. And the Taisho Era which marked...
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2000

WTO rules Canada must fix car duties

The Secretariat of the World Trade Organization recommended Friday that Canada correct its measures granting import-duty exemptions to exclusive car traders under its auto accord with the United States. The recommendation was issued in a final panel report released in Geneva, the Ministry of International...
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2000

BOJ's ultraeasy-credit policy a double-edged sword

As the Bank of Japan carries its zero-interest rate policy into the second year, there is no sign that the policy the BOJ itself calls abnormal will end anytime soon.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2000

Turnout low at Founding Day ceremony

Diet members and foreign dignitaries on Friday attended a ceremony to celebrate National Founding Day at the Hibiya Public Hall in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward. Yet, despite the efforts of organizing officials to emphasize the historical significance of the ceremony, the occasion was marked more by the prevalence...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 10, 2000

Back streets in not-so-far towns

One of the great joys of sake tippling, especially after having searched the town for a while, is finding a new gem of a place. Just when you think you've seen just about any manifestation a sake pub could take, you stumble on something charming and warm, wondering how it could have escaped your attention...
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2000

Ivanov reaffirms direction on Japan-Russia peace quest

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and visiting Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, reaffirmed Thursday that Japan and Russia will enhance ties to advance their peace treaty negotiations.
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2000

Japan wants WTO dispute panel to take steel case

The government said Thursday it will ask the World Trade Organization later this month to set up a settlement panel to resolve the dispute with Washington over Japan's steel exports, trade chief Takashi Fukaya said. The formal request will be made at the next meeting of the WTO's Dispute Settlement...
EDITORIALS
Feb 9, 2000

Austria calls Europe's bluff

The formation of a coalition government in Austria that includes the rightwing Freedom Party headed by Mr. Joerg Haider is a potential nightmare for Europe. The prospect of an extremist party joining the Cabinet in Vienna has forced other members of the European Union to examine their own past. It has...
COMMUNITY
Feb 9, 2000

Down by the waterside in Mizumoto Park

Even in Tokyo there is such a place: a park with large open spaces, where a whole family can enjoy picnics, barbecues, camping, flowers and beautiful trees, catch fish and watch birds. Look no further than Mizumoto Park.
LIFE / Travel
Feb 9, 2000

New Zealand lunkers rise to flies

Few places in the world rival the South Island of New Zealand either for superb fly fishing or for stunning scenery, and the Ahuriri River in the Canterbury District is the sort of place every fly-fisherman who hasn't been wants to go to, and where those who have been long to return.
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2000

Sumo: the final gender frontier?

Staff writer With the nation's first female governor taking office in Osaka, an old question is re-emerging: Are women to remain banned from stepping into the sacred sumo ring? Fusae Ota, who won the Osaka gubernatorial election Sunday, is taking aim at that glass ceiling with her eagerness to personally...
EDITORIALS
Feb 8, 2000

Osaka sends a message to the coalition

Mrs. Fusae Ota, a former official of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, won in Sunday's gubernatorial election of Osaka Prefecture, riding on the strength of the joint support of major political parties. The media have highlighted the fact that she is the nation's first female prefectural...
BUSINESS
Feb 8, 2000

Tech rally not enough to hit 30,000 target

Market players were elated to see the benchmark Nikkei average climb past the 20,000 level briefly Friday, a formidable rising resistance line since 1992.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 8, 2000

Music of An-Chang Project best-kept secret of Okiniwa

The new album by Jun Yasuba's A-Chang Project, "Harara Rude," should be heralded as a major new album of Okinawan music. However, Yasuba is at present unknown to even Okinawan music aficionados. It took her two years to sell 500 of the first An-Chang Project albums, "Yarayo-Uta no Sahanji," and at present,...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 8, 2000

A great tradition resurrected

SEX AND THE FLOATING WORLD: Erotic Images in Japan 1700-1820, by Timon Screech. London: Reaktion Books, 1999, 320 pp., 156 illustrations, 36 color, 16.95 British pounds. Though there has been much scholarly research of the ukiyo-e, woodblock prints from premodern Japan, one sizable genre within this...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2000

The Nanjing number game

So the book titled "The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II," by -year-old Chinese-American writer Iris Chang has the Japanese critics stirred up. Everyone from the former Japanese ambassador in Washington and Japan's powerful conservative commentators down to the rightwing academics...
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2000

Collaborative stock index in the cards for spring

The Tokyo Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange, Deutsche Boerse AG and Standard & Poor's are planning to introduce an international index in an attempt to squelch increasing competition from smaller bourses. A global index jointly operated by the world's major stock exchanges is unprecedented. By...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 6, 2000

Tokyo's musical riches are many, mighty and marvelous

The year end is filled with performances of the beloved Beethoven Ninth, known familiarly as the "Choral" symphony, prized for its message of hope in the lofty poetry of Schiller's "Ode to Joy."
MORE SPORTS
Feb 6, 2000

Hingis vs. Testud in Toray final

After cruising past world No. 11 Anna Kournikova in Friday's quarterfinals, top-seeded Martina Hingis was forced to play competitive tennis on Saturday against Chanda Rubin of the U.S. The Swiss star responded with a 7-6 (7-2), 6-4 victory over Rubin to reach the final of the Toray Pan Pacific Open tennis...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 6, 2000

Philip Harper

To be billed as Japan's only foreign sake brewer conveys a claim unusually intriguing. Even the man in question, Philip Harper, expresses some surprise at the way things have gone for him as he gets close to achieving the status of master brewer in Japan.

Longform

Ayumi Matsuki, a priestess at Yoshiwara Shrine, shows off some "o-mamori" charms. She says visitors to the shrine have increased since the NHK drama “Unbound” began airing this month.
Tracing Tsutaya Juzaburo, Edo’s media maverick