Search - 2002

 
 
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 4, 2002

Shock of the new: modernism as a cultural force

TOPOGRAPHIES OF JAPANESE MODERNISM. By Seiji M. Lippit. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, 301 pp., $22.50 (paper) Among the many results of the 19th-century "opening" of Japan to the West was a truly massive internalization of foreign culture, one which is now so advanced that concepts such...
JAPAN
Aug 3, 2002

Roadside land prices drop for 10th straight year

The average price of land facing main streets dropped for the 10th straight year in 2001, falling 6.5 percent to 129,000 yen per sq. meter, the National Tax Agency said Friday.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 2, 2002

QB spot wide open for new-look 'Skins

OSAKA -- It's true that big-name starters will likely play only one or two series and spend the majority of their time on the sidelines with a cap on during most preseason games.
LIFE / Language
Aug 2, 2002

Marrying your sweetheart and moving in with his mom

On the day I married my husband, I married his family, too. I moved next door to my in-laws on the family plot in Tokyo. Now, I live there with my husband and daughter; my parents-in-law; my husband's uncle, aunt and their three daughters; two dogs; a cat; and a goldfish named Mikey.
BUSINESS
Aug 2, 2002

Koizumi, ministers unite on austerity

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi agreed Thursday with his key economic ministers to compile an austere budget for the next fiscal year, which begins in April 2003, ministers said.
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2002

Yahoo Japan aims to double payroll

Yahoo Japan Corp., which operates Japan's top Internet search engine, said Wednesday it plans to hire 200 or more employees on an annual basis in an effort to implement its aggressive business expansion plan.
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2002

Domestic shipments of DVD units jump 84%

Domestic shipments of DVD machines jumped 84.4 percent in June from a year earlier to 264,000 units, an industry association said Wednesday.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 1, 2002

Isles trampled in white elephant stampede

Japan's islands have long been a source of tearful TV documentaries that focus on aging populations and families abandoned by children who have left for the cities.
BUSINESS
Jul 31, 2002

Sumitomo Mitsui plans to establish holding company

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. announced Tuesday it will set up a financial holding company in early December and place itself and three affiliates under the company's umbrella to increase group flexibility and efficiency.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 31, 2002

New and improved Pops!

How can anyone market one of the world's great orchestras in an era when orchestral music is growing ever less essential to the cultural fabric and the recording industry itself is ailing?
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 30, 2002

New law may raise prospects for homeless

In the Kamagasaki day-laborer district of Osaka, news about the soon-to-be passed bill to provide aid for the nation's homeless has been greeted with a mixture of hope and indifference.
BUSINESS
Jul 30, 2002

Honda sees group net profits grow 20% to 107.6 billion yen

Honda Motor Co. said Monday its group net profit rose 20.4 percent to a record 107.6 billion yen in the April-June quarter from a year earlier on strong sales and a weaker yen.
JAPAN
Jul 29, 2002

Yamasaki cool to extra budget, delay in deposit refund limit

A top Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker said Sunday it is premature to quickly decide whether to compile a supplementary budget for fiscal 2002.
BUSINESS / ANOTHER LOOK
Jul 29, 2002

What businesses need to learn to become world-class players

The 2002 FIFA World Cup recently held in both Japan and the Republic of Korea was also the first held in Asia. It kept an estimated worldwide audience in excess of 1 billion riveted to match broadcasts for almost a month with the kind of exciting plays only world-class players can produce.
MORE SPORTS
Jul 29, 2002

Spain sweeps Japan in Kirin Cup hoops

Jordi Trias scored 10 points for Spain in a 12-2 run to start the fourth quarter Sunday to put Japan's national team away, as the hosts finished the three-game Kirin Cup Basketball 2002 with a 89-67 defeat.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 28, 2002

Putting her house in order

In Japan, the vast majority of legal adoptions -- more than 90 percent -- are of adults and are usually carried out for inheritance or family succession purposes. A house with only daughters, say, will adopt a grown man who can maintain the family business and family name.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 28, 2002

A mother lode of beauty and horror

THE STONE OF HEAVEN: The Secret History of Imperial Green Jade, by Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark. Orion, 2002, 352 pp., 8.99 British pounds (paper) This book is one of a newly emerging genre: history told from the viewpoint of a single item. Other studies have already looked at subjects that ranged...
COMMUNITY
Jul 28, 2002

Into the unknown Sea of Okhotsk

The Bering Sea, 1999. A wave-dashed shore ahead; leaden skies above. The way the rough sea was lifting and pitching and rolling our ship was not promising. I could just make out a bleak and deserted beach backed by lush knee-high vegetation, with a low, steep bank beyond. Somewhere there, 250 years ago,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 28, 2002

Taking a shortcut to enlightenment

THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING BUDDHISM, by Gary Gach. Alpha Books, 2002, 408 pp., $18.95 (paper) Half a billion people in the world consider themselves Buddhists, and millions of Westerners have embraced the religion and its tenets. For the uninitiated, and even for some initiates, Buddhism...
JAPAN
Jul 27, 2002

Toxin imperils Iran pistachio imports

Health minister Chikara Sakaguchi said Friday that imports of Iranian pistachio nuts may be outlawed because they contain a carcinogenic toxin.
BUSINESS
Jul 27, 2002

Panel recommends minimum wage be left the same in '02

The minimum wage should be left intact in fiscal 2002, an advisory panel to the labor minister proposed Friday.
BUSINESS / ON THE FRONT LINE
Jul 26, 2002

Bargains rife until rebound

The Nikkei average on the Tokyo Stock Exchange will probably not move substantially below 10,000 for now.
BUSINESS
Jul 25, 2002

First-half trade surplus up 57%

Japan's trade surplus in the first half of 2002 jumped 56.8 percent from a year earlier to 4.99 trillion yen, marking its first rise in 3 1/2 years, according to a preliminary report released Wednesday by the Finance Ministry.
JAPAN
Jul 25, 2002

Theme parks fail to buoy domestic leisure market

Japan's leisure market shrank 2.3 percent in 2001 to 83.07 trillion yen, the third consecutive year of contraction, a semipublic institute said Wednesday in an annual report.
COMMENTARY
Jul 24, 2002

Chinese media's coverage of U.S. proves balanced

HONG KONG -- A study of the Chinese media, commissioned by a bipartisan American congressional panel -- the U.S. China Security Review Commission -- has found that the controlled Chinese press, in its reporting on the United States, appears to be relatively balanced overall.
SOCCER / World cup
Jul 23, 2002

Zico takes charge, offers his vision

Former Brazil international and Kashima technical director Zico formally signed on with the Japan Football Association on Monday to coach the national team.
CULTURE / Music
Jul 23, 2002

Organ fest comes to a close

The last performance of the International Organ Festival 2002 will be held at Kurashiki Sakuyo University's Seitokuden Hall in Okayama Prefecture on July 28.
BUSINESS
Jul 22, 2002

Education key to boosting Japan's competitiveness

The Switzerland-based Institute for Management and Development releases an annual report on the international competitiveness of major countries.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 21, 2002

A rollicking romp through ancient Edo

THE PILLOW BOOK OF LADY WISTERIA, by Laura Joh Rowland. St. Martin's Minotaur: New York, 2002,292 pp., $24.95 (cloth) While sports fans' attention is focused on Ichiro Suzuki of Seattle Mariners baseball fame, the exploits of Ichiro Sano, the Tokugawa shogunate's "Most Honorable Investigator of Events,...

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?