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Oct 15, 2000

Lapentti, Schalken book spots in Japan Open tennis final

With the top three seeds out of contention, it was left to the fourth seed, Ecuador's Nicolas Lapentti, to lead the way into the final of the Japan Open tennis tournament on Saturday, and the world No. 16 duly obliged with a clinical 6-3, 6-4 victory over Slovakia's Dominik Hrbaty.
CULTURE / Music
Oct 15, 2000

Student orchestras show off their skills on Tokyo's top stages

Two important music schools recently presented performances in Tokyo. Both were intent on providing their students an opportunity to perform in a world-class concert hall before a sophisticated concert audience. The differences between their performances were cultural rather than artistic.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Oct 12, 2000

Bunny thrives in Predators' den

Yujiro Nakajimaya, captain of the Kokudo Bunnies and a member of Japan's national team, is not your average Japanese professional hockey player. In four teenage years spent at Notre Dame College, a high school in Wilcox, Saskatchewan, the Hokkaido native gained more than just a fluent command of English....
JAPAN
Oct 8, 2000

Metro government targets 'illegal light oil' mix

The chances of drivers being pulled over on Tokyo's main arteries will increase in upcoming months, but drunk drivers and speed demons will not be roadside enforcers' main targets.
JAPAN
Oct 8, 2000

Tokyo poised to lift ban on exterior train ads

How can Tokyo buses and streetcars make more money without attracting more passengers? One answer: advertising.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 8, 2000

Can Arafat turn Mideast violence to good?

BEIRUT -- With a few exceptions, the Israelis contend that the bloody tumult in Israel and the occupied territory has been instigated and stage-managed by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as a means of strengthening his hand in the faltering peace process.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 7, 2000

Ten of the best from Australia

Australian Nicola Townsend's Nanpeidai apartment looks different from my last visit. The furniture is the same, but there is a subtle change in the atmosphere and light. Then I realize that it's the paintings. After a sell-out show of works from her native soil earlier this year, the independent curator...
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Oct 7, 2000

Tales of romance and bloodshed come alive in Shinnai song

Some of the performing arts of Japan are so spectacular that they grab your attention and immediately make you feel a part of the music. Taiko drumming is one; rhythm speaks directly to our bodies, and the beating of a stick on a drum has a physical appeal to all, regardless of language or culture.
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Oct 4, 2000

Quick -- while no one's looking

infiltration.org This isn't about corporate espionage but rather sightseeing in "places you're not supposed to go." One of the myriad subcultures exposing themselves to the rest of the world via the Internet is all about urban archaeology: crawling around slimy drain pipes, forgotten subway tunnels and...
OLYMPICS
Oct 2, 2000

Olympics end -- the party begins

SYDNEY -- The world's premier sporting carnival drew to a close in an extravaganza of sight and sound Sunday as the Olympic host city prepared to party the night away to bid farewell to the last Summer Games of the 20th Century.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 1, 2000

African artists hold display, classes to boost awareness

OSAKA -- Anthony Monda has been living here for six years and he cannot help but wonder at how little Japanese people know about Africa.
COMMUNITY
Oct 1, 2000

A life spent on the edge

It's not entirely clear which of his visits to Japan Jim Whittaker remembers the most. The latest, earlier this year, was to promote his autobiography and attend the opening of the first overseas branch of Recreation Equipment Inc., the outdoor goods cooperative he helped set up in Seattle in 1950.
CULTURE / Music
Sep 30, 2000

Koto player has tales to tell

Elizabeth Falconer, a former Japan Times hogaku columnist, lives in Seattle now, but in the many years she spent in Japan she steeped herself in Japanese culture, including winning a koto teacher's certificate from the late Tadao Sawai, one of the greatest koto masters of the 20th century. Since her...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 30, 2000

Vietnam proves a reluctant reformer

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Foreign investors have not been showing any confidence in Vietnam's Doi Moi (liberalization) program recently. Socialist market economics, Vietnamese-style, have not proved as attractive as the Chinese version. After the initial euphoria of the early 1990s, when foreign companies...
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Sep 28, 2000

Trendy slurping in Azabu-Juban

All things must pass -- especially, it seems, the good stuff. So a final farewell, then, to the old Azabu-Juban we used to know and love, with its funky, friendly mom 'n' pop stores, cheap nomiya and overpriced wine bars, and its faintly musty smells of onsen and kimchi.
LIFE / Travel
Sep 27, 2000

Japanese scientists question mineral-accretion technique

A Japanese researcher who conducted a project in Okinawa to explore the effectiveness of growing reefs via mineral accretion in 1989, says he remains unsure of the effectiveness of the technique.
LIFE / Travel
Sep 27, 2000

Cultivating coral gardens

IHURU, Maldives -- A sudden change in the weather sends staff at the resort on Ihuru Island grappling for the groins. Jetty-like piles of sand-bags that jut out from various parts of the island, these "groins" help lessen the effect of destructive tides. For the time being at least, they are Ihuru's...
OLYMPICS
Sep 25, 2000

Takahashi wins marathon gold in record time

SYDNEY -- Tiny Naoko Takahashi blitzed a big marathon field Sunday to win Japan's first-ever Olympic gold medal in women's athletics in a new Olympic best time.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Sep 25, 2000

CNIC report lights up the dark side of Japan's nuclear power industry

One year ago this week, a nuclear fuel processing plant in Tokai-mura, Ibaraki Prefecture, experienced a "criticality." That accident shattered once and for all the crumbling myth of safety that has encased Japan's nuclear power industry, and changed the way Japanese view nuclear power.
JAPAN
Sep 24, 2000

Research facility prompts fears of contamination

Residents of one of central Tokyo's most densely populated areas are complaining that the air they breathe may be being contaminated by innumerable pathogens escaping from the the building next door.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 24, 2000

Impressions made in paper take form

When the semioticist Roland Barthes came to Japan, he decided to do what many foreigners do, which is to base his impressions of Japan on exactly that, his impressions. His book "The Empire of Signs" is ostensibly about Japan, but the author acknowledged (with no shame) that it actually was a collection...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 24, 2000

Janet Thompson

Janet Thompson says that Tokyo International Players has such a sparkling reputation that people, not only those directly associated with TIP, always love to help. "It's wonderful," she said. "We needed secondhand furniture for 'Lend Me a Tenor,' and the company Kensington in Shirogane willingly supplied...
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Sep 23, 2000

Stopped in my flippin' tracks by a Shino tea bowl

I'm lucky enough to live only five minutes away from one of my favorite Mino potters -- and I don't even live near the Mino area. That's in Gifu Prefecture, whereas I reside in the potting wasteland of Numazu. I'm always asked about how I ended up here and I can only say that it was the will of something...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 21, 2000

MacArthur's audacious landing at Inchon astounded everyone -- except Mao

HONG KONG -- Sept. 15 was the 50th anniversary of the famous Inchon amphibious landing by U.S. forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur, which so decisively turned the tide of battle in the early stages of the Korean War.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Sep 20, 2000

I want my RTV

While on vacation in the States, I found myself watching the finale of "Survivor," the climax of a summer of reality TV. I could have turned it off. I could have returned to my book. But no. I had been (blissfully) ignorant of all that had gone on before, but that didn't matter. I watched both it and...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 19, 2000

Urban life's high cost in health

The bright lights of the city are drawing a record number of people in search of careers and excitement. But city life comes at a price. Recent studies have found that Japan's city dwellers are jeopardizing their lives and their offspring.

Longform

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