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JAPAN
Jan 27, 2004

Middle-aged are filling temp agency labor niche

Although the employment situation remains severe for older job seekers in search of full-time work, temporary employment services for the middle-aged are attracting increasing attention.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 27, 2004

Rural life's slow death

Matsunoyama town has almost everything its residents could want: spellbinding scenery, gorgeous terraced rice paddies cloaking the hillsides, splendid new roads and magnificent public facilities.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jan 27, 2004

Which do you prefer: town or country?

John Avery Banker, 30
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2004

Trade, tourism thrive on DPRK border

LONDON -- I spent the first two weeks of this year on a whistle-stop tour of Northeast China -- an area once known as Manchuria. The term Northeast China usually means the three provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jan 24, 2004

Hogwarts School on Shiraishi Island

I don't know about you, but for me, last year was rife with bad luck and evil. Then, eureka! I realized why. I had simply not taken the proper precautions. There are plenty of Japanese remedies for keeping away bad luck and evil that I had failed to implement. After last year, I have suddenly become...
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2004

Japanese food is healthiest, and chew it, Japanese doctors say

Doctors and specialists believe people should eat more traditional Japanese meals with rice as the main staple, to safeguard against lifestyle-related illnesses.
EDITORIALS
Jan 21, 2004

Reform key to Mr. Koizumi's future

In his policy speech to the Diet on Monday, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi spent a considerable amount of time trying to convince a public that is skeptical about sending Self-Defense Force troops to Iraq to provide humanitarian aid and assist with reconstruction. It is not clear whether he succeeded...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2004

Nearly 590,000 begin university tests

Nearly 590,000 university applicants on Saturday began sitting two-day national entrance exams across the country.
Events
Jan 18, 2004

KANSAI: Who & What

Osaka seminar to look into Belgian-Dutch ties: Flanders Center, a liaison office of the government of the Belgian region of Flanders, is offering five pairs of free tickets to a cultural seminar examining the friendship between Belgium and the Netherlands from 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 30 at the center in Tennoji...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 14, 2004

Taking responsibility pays off

25th Hour Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Spike Lee Running time: 136 minutes Language: English Opens Jan. 24 [See Japan Times movie listings] Think of Spike Lee and you'll probably think of a film he made in his fertile period of 1988-1992: "Do The Right Thing," "Jungle Fever,"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jan 14, 2004

New year musing of a 'pottery poet'

As this is the first Ceramic Scene of 2004, I'd like to wish all readers a Happy and Healthy New Year!
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / A GAIJIN'S TALE
Jan 13, 2004

Tenant trouble

My Japanese supervisor and I set out to select a new apartment for my African-American colleague who would soon be moving here to be my co-attorney in the office.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2004

Firms fear Seoul's easier rules on Japan's culture

South Korea's gradual lifting of its decades-old ban on the import of Japanese popular culture entered its fourth phase this month, paving the way for the legal circulation of Japanese CDs, game software and all nonanimated films.
CULTURE / Books / THE BOOK REPORT
Jan 8, 2004

Japanese books climbed walls, went back to the past in 2003

The particular combination of theme, packaging and timing that produces a best seller is always a mystery, and last year's top sellers in Japan presented even more of a puzzle than usual. What is it about "Baka no Kabe" by anatomy professor Takeshi Yoro that took it to the top of the chart soon after...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 31, 2003

A river of creativity runs through it

Art is breaking out all over Kamiyama in Tokushima Prefecture. Mysterious arrangements of rocks are appearing in the verdant hills of this northeastern Shikoku town. Small wooden huts -- equipped with artistic stamps and ink pads for visitors to document their passage -- are dotted about the town. An...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Dec 31, 2003

Looking back to find new beginnings

New Year's is about endings and beginnings. People we've lost, places we've discovered, what's gone and what's to come. Some thoughts as we cross over:
EDITORIALS
Dec 30, 2003

Fight against SARS begins at home

The New Year holiday is a season for travel. It is at this time, when many people and goods are moving across national borders, that an outbreak of infectious disease becomes more likely. This winter's first case of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) was confirmed in Taiwan on Dec. 17. This was...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 30, 2003

Mobile commerce market taking off

Taking the 15-minute walk from her home to her office in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, every morning, Noriko Kato, 29, looks at the tiny screen on her DoCoMo 505i mobile phone to check her e-mail and sometimes access her favorite shopping site, run by Netprice Ltd.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Dec 29, 2003

Cutting an ancient myth down to size

NEW YORK -- The myth of the Japanese sword, which Quentin Tarantino plays to the hilt in the film "Kill Bill," has several origins: There was a religious connection. The manufacture of the blade was linked to Shugendo, a form of nature-worship that held that rough physical training is essential to enlightenment....
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 28, 2003

Burning passion in Shirley Hazzard's 'Great Fire'

THE GREAT FIRE, by Shirley Hazzard. Virago Press, 2003, 320 pp., £15.99 (cloth). As much as we may enjoy the pot-boilers and penny-dreadfuls we pick up to keep us company on the beach or on the bus, the pleasures they afford always pale when placed next to the real thing: literature. Literature, we...
EDITORIALS
Dec 28, 2003

Behind the veil in France

Sometimes when we read about a political decision being taken in another country, the response seems both easy and obvious. Chechen independence, an Iraqi trial for toppled leader Saddam Hussein, approval of the Kyoto treaty to slow global warming, disapproval of the Israelis' land-gobbling border fence:...
JAPAN
Dec 27, 2003

Cloudy skies expected to greet 2004

With cloudy weather expected in many places across Japan at the year's end and at the outset of 2004, the chances of watching the sun come up on New Year's Day are slim, the Japan Meteorological Agency said Friday.
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Dec 25, 2003

Egypt game brought to life

Sphinx is an ancient but not unathletic Egyptian hero with gangly arms and a lion's tail. Tut, short for Tutankhamen, is a goofy prince turned into a mummy before his time by an evil brother -- but being a mummy has certain advantages.
EDITORIALS
Dec 23, 2003

The SDF 'is not going to war'

Japan's Self-Defense Forces are making final preparations for helping humanitarian and reconstruction work in Iraq. An advance party of air force personnel is expected to leave this week under an order issued last week by Defense Agency Director General Shigeru Ishiba. An air transport unit probably...
COMMENTARY
Dec 22, 2003

Courageous decision on Iraq

LONDON -- The Japanese government's decision to send members of the Self-Defense Forces to take part in humanitarian efforts in Iraq was a courageous one.
COMMENTARY
Dec 21, 2003

Devil of amity lurks in free trade details

SINGAPORE -- The decision at the Japan-ASEAN summit on Dec. 11-12 to create a new "special relationship" between the two may be historic, but the economic free-trade areas that will provide its foundation look like long shots. Japanese efforts are likely to be frustrated by the same political forces...

Longform

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