Search - people

 
 
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2003

When hemlines start rising, don't sell short

NEW YORK -- Short skirts are in the news again. Hemlines are rising and, if you believe in statistical correlation, whenever hemlines go up, so do profits and business activity. No one has a logical explanation for this phenomenon, but it has held true for the past 30 years.
COMMENTARY
Aug 4, 2003

Pyongyang: victim of hawkish irrationality

Irrational, unpredictable, insane. These are just some of the epithets our media commentators have been using lately to describe North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il. But Shinzo Abe, Japan's hawkish deputy chief Cabinet secretary and chief architect of Japan's current hardline policies to North Korea, has...
EDITORIALS
Aug 3, 2003

Season of mellow mindlessness

It's August, which means that, technically, we are well into summer's decline. The days are getting shorter, and September is next up on the calendar. But that is not how it feels. September seems as far off as New Year's.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 3, 2003

Out of time

At the age of 18 I fled suburbia, tripping into the dusty corrupting enlightenment of the bloody Vietnam War, like an Alice in an evil wonderland, never to return. Simply put, I was sent to Vietnam to defend a lie, to destroy those (the totalitarian commie "them") who dared oppose the "greatest nation"...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 3, 2003

Becoming down to earth

ISAMU NOGUCHI AND MODERN JAPANESE CERAMICS: A Close Embrace of the Earth, by Louise Allison Cort and Bert Winther-Tamaki, with contributions by Bruce J. Altshuler and Niimi Ryu. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 2003; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. 240 pp., 81 color photographs, 78...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 3, 2003

Visitors to stay -- for the time being

GLOBAL JAPAN: The experience of Japan's new immigrant and overseas communities, edited by Roger Goodman, Ceri Peach, Ayumi Takenaka and Paul White. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, 241 pp., £65, (cloth). Many in Japan have been slow to accept the fact that international labor migration does...
COMMUNITY
Aug 3, 2003

Greg's compassion with a camera was thousands of words

Big and burly, Greg Davis could walk into our club wearing his customary boots, windbreaker, open-necked shirt and wide grin, and we would be transported to some dusty Central Asian dictatorship or clawing Cambodian jungle -- a remembrance that the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan started off as...
MORE SPORTS
Aug 2, 2003

Buccaneers set for first game since victory in Super Bowl

The Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers officially showed up before Japanese fans for the first time since their arrival on Wednesday when they had an open practice session Friday morning at Tokyo Dome.
EDITORIALS
Aug 2, 2003

Mounting pressures to revalue yuan

International pressure is mounting on China to let its currency appreciate. Beijing seems to have no choice but to respond one way or another. The prevailing belief in the United States and Europe as well as in Japan is that the yuan is undervalued in light of China's rapidly increasing economic strength....
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 2, 2003

A day at the beach -- Japanese style!

Today, we're going on a trip. Are you ready? OK, here's a list of things we'll need: a large vinyl ground sheet, portable picnic tables, a tent, boxed lunches, a cooler for the beer and a thermos for the cold tea. Have you guessed where we're going yet? No, not camping. A few more hints. We'll also need...
MORE SPORTS
Aug 1, 2003

Buccaneers, Jets ready to rumble in American Bowl

Defensive tackle Warren Sapp of the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers has only been in Japan for a day but already likes what he sees.
EDITORIALS
Aug 1, 2003

More trouble in Manila

As more information emerges about last weekend's failed mutiny in the Philippines, old fears about the stability of the country have resurfaced. The peaceful conclusion of the episode is to be applauded, but charges that the rebellion was a cover for a coup d'etat raised again the specter of instability....
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 31, 2003

When in doubt, just blame it on the wind

The Japanese have traditionally described their island country as being governed by the forces of mizu (water) -- what, with all this rain falling for what seems like 360 days of the year, but our grandmothers say kaze (wind) is the other ruling force that tends to be overlooked. Mizu will wash everything...
BUSINESS
Jul 31, 2003

China under more pressure to revalue the yuan

Japan and the United States are stepping up calls on China to revalue the yuan, charging that while growing economically, it is spreading deflation and trade deficits by exporting goods at an unfairly low exchange rate.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 31, 2003

Residents of SARS-hit areas targeted in tourism drive

Japan is now welcoming residents of the once SARS-infected areas of Taiwan and Hong Kong to its shores in a bid to revive its tourism industry.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jul 30, 2003

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists

New Jersey native Ted Leo, who learned his trade in the East Coast hardcore scene of the late '80s, has been toiling as an indie idol in the Washington D.C. underground for more than a decade, first fronting Chisel, which prefigured the current mod-punk revival, and then the Sin Eaters, a power-pop band...
JAPAN
Jul 30, 2003

Koizumi says reformers to make up new Cabinet

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi defied his foes Tuesday, stating that if he wins re-election in the Sept. 20 LDP presidential poll, the subsequent Cabinet he forms will be made up of individuals who support his policies.
JAPAN
Jul 29, 2003

Koizumi appears set to stay on by default

With the extended 190-day Diet session having closed Monday, lawmakers' attention is shifting to the Liberal Democratic Party's presidential election on Sept. 20, the new Cabinet that will immediately follow it and the expected House of Representatives poll in November.
JAPAN
Jul 29, 2003

Suzuki aide gets suspended term in Kunashiri bid-rigging case

A former aide to arrested Lower House member Muneo Suzuki was handed a suspended 16-month prison term Monday for interfering in the bidding for a state-funded project on Kunashiri Island and conspiring with Suzuki to hide 100 million yen in donations.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / FRONT-RUNNERS
Jul 29, 2003

Winds of change mean big profits for Eco Power

When Eco Power Co. President Toshio Katano joined the firm in 1998 from its parent, Ebara Corp., a Tokyo-based industrial machinery manufacturer, he doubted whether the nation's largest wind power firm would turn a profit.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2003

Political reformers of Japan unite!

The new buzzword in Japanese politics these days is "manifesto." The Japanese language does not use capital letters, but if it did, you can be sure "manifesto" would be written with a capital M to convey the weighty tone with which it is pronounced by those who believe it is the answer to Japan's political...

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building