Search - study

 
 
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 2, 2000

Machiko Kobayashi

In "The Book of Tea," Okakura Kakuzo refers to the person "with no tea" in him, the one "insusceptible to the seriocomic interests of the personal drama." He mentions too the one "with too much tea" in him, "the untamed aesthete." Machiko Kobayashi, tea ceremony teacher and demonstrator, falls into neither...
MORE SPORTS
Jul 1, 2000

Japan needs foreign touch: Troussier

THE HAGUE -- Japan soccer coach Philippe Troussier may not know if he's coming or going when dealing with the Japan Football Association, but when it comes to his players and the team he has no doubts whatsoever.
JAPAN
Jun 29, 2000

Key to kids' learning English is fun approach and listening

A private advisory panel to Education Minister Hirofumi Nakasone set up to review and revise English-teaching methods in Japanese schools has recommended that entertaining methods be used to teach in elementary schools.
COMMUNITY
Jun 29, 2000

Making home a school away from school

A typical day at school for 12-year-old Sophie Kimura could be a social studies lesson which involves finding out what life is like in Illinois where her "e-pal" Dawn lives.
BUSINESS
Jun 29, 2000

Shinsei asks DIC to take Sogo loans

Shinsei Bank on Wednesday formally asked Deposit Insurance Corp. to take over 205 billion yen of its loans to embattled department store chain operator Sogo Co., bank officials said.
JAPAN
Jun 29, 2000

Tomen reviewing Sri Lanka mine deal

Tomen Corp. is reconsidering its planned investment in a huge phosphate mine in Eppawala, an ancient village in central Sri Lanka, according to members of a Japanese nongovernmental organization supporting residents who oppose the project.
JAPAN
Jun 28, 2000

JR set for summer steam locomotive tours

Steam locomotive engineers, a rare commodity in modern Japan, are currently gearing up for the summer by putting the finishing touches on their training.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 27, 2000

For domestic help, it's the same old world order

HOME AND HEGEMONY: Domestic Service and Identity Politics in South and Southeast Asia, edited by Kathleen M. Adams and Sara Dickey. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 2000, 307 pp., $49.50 (cloth). Dirty? Maybe. Degrading and dangerous? Certainly not what you'd expect to be part of a servant's...
EDITORIALS
Jun 26, 2000

How healthy is 'healthiest'?

How healthy is 'healthiest'?
COMMENTARY
Jun 26, 2000

English is not the answer

Earlier this year, the Forum on 21st Century Japan, a private panel to the late Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, proposed a national debate on whether English should be used in Japan as a second official language. That proposal has added fuel to the long-standing discussions on English education in this...
JAPAN
Jun 25, 2000

Good news: a week in the tropics energizes your brain

The brain functions of several middle-aged and elderly people from north and northeastern Japan become more active after they spend a week in Okinawa in the winter, according to a study conducted by a Tohoku University research institute.
CULTURE / Music
Jun 24, 2000

Breathing path to beauty and inner peace

KYOTO -- In 1973, a week or two after Brooklyn native Ronnie Seldin began playing the shakuhachi, his teacher asked him what he planned to do after he returned to the United States.
JAPAN
Jun 23, 2000

Mori states another opinion

Comments which some took to be Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's plans for educational reform were dismissed Thursday by Chief Cabinet Secretary Mikio Aoki as mere "personal opinions" not on the government's policy agenda.
JAPAN / ELECTION 2000: VOX POPULI
Jun 22, 2000

Kin want focus on youth crime

While economic recovery may be the focal issue for the June 25 election, Ruriko Take, head of the Association for Victims of Juvenile Crimes citizens group, believes juvenile issues should be given more attention as they concern the people who will lead society in the future.
JAPAN
Jun 20, 2000

Ex-Prime Minister Takeshita, 76, dies

Former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, who wielded enormous influence over Japanese politics long after scandal forced him to resign more than a decade ago, died of respiratory failure at 12:53 a.m. Monday at Kitasato Institute Hospital in Tokyo, his aides said. He was 76.
JAPAN
Jun 20, 2000

Health ministry to draft plan to help reduce malpractice

The Health and Welfare Ministry plans to draw up rules regarding how medical institutions handle unexpected patient deaths or injuries in an effort to curb increasing incidences of medical malpractice, ministry sources said.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 20, 2000

U.S. pays the price for its empire

BLOWBACK: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, by Chalmers Johnson. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2000, 268 pp., $26 (cloth). Is it time for the United States to withdraw from its empire? "America," "withdrawal," "empire": three words, three controversies. Tell me how you define these three...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 20, 2000

Po Chu-i's eternal pleasures

PO CHU-I: Selected Poems. Translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, 172 pp., unpriced. When he died at the age of 75 in 846, Po Chu-i left behind a legacy of some 2,800 poems. A civil servant, he early on wrote poetry critical of authority and was consequently demoted...
COMMUNITY
Jun 18, 2000

Learn a new language (and how!) in two weeks

Setsuko Iki may have retired in 1998 as a professor at Sanno Junior College in Tokyo, but she has not stopped working. As the leading Japanese authority on Suggestopaedia-Desuggestopaedia, systems of intensive language teaching initiated by Dr. Georgi Lozonov in Bulgaria in the 1960s and then developed...
JAPAN
Jun 17, 2000

Plan gives cash to local governments

OSAKA — A mediation plan unveiled Friday aimed at settling a dioxin contamination problem that occurred near an incinerator in Nose, Osaka Prefecture, would have the incinerator's maker and the plant operator pay a total of 750 million yen to local governments.
CULTURE / Art
Jun 17, 2000

Sculptures that capture the mysterious rhythms of nature

The press release for the sculptor Susumu Shingu's "Wind Caravan" project opens charmingly with a quote from Christina Rossetti: "Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I, but when the trees bow down their heads, the wind is blowing by."
BUSINESS
Jun 15, 2000

Hitachi to sell gene-analysis software

Hitachi Ltd. said Wednesday that it will exclusively market in the Asia-Pacific region gene-analysis software developed by a U.S. firm devoted to the life sciences.
BUSINESS
Jun 15, 2000

NTT calls for relaxing of law as prerequisite to bigger cuts

The law concerning the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. group should be revised to grant more freedom to its two local calling companies and the revision should be a prerequisite to any further cuts in the connection fees it charges other telecommunications firms, the NTT Corp. president said Wednesday....
JAPAN
Jun 15, 2000

Recognition of 'virtual' universities urged

Course credits and degrees provided by overseas Internet universities should be recognized in the same manner as academic qualifications obtained abroad, says a recommendation announced Wednesday by an advisory panel to the education minister.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 15, 2000

Thai villagers protest dam's legacy of destruction

BANGKOK -- The Moon River is the lifeline of Isan, bringing sustenance to the poorest, most populous part of Thailand. The World Bank identified the Moon, the greatest of the Mekong River's tributaries, as a suitable location for a giant dam, and proceeded to fund a hydropower project that is destroying...
JAPAN
Jun 14, 2000

Korean residents wary of reunifying homeland

OSAKA — Local Korean residents welcomed Tuesday's historic summit between the leaders of North and South Korea but cautioned that numerous hurdles remained to reunification.
ENVIRONMENT
Jun 14, 2000

Growing in the shadows and shady corners

Your condominium may have a north- or east-facing balcony, or the building next door may block out the sun for the best part of the day. Even if you are lucky enough to have your own garden, there will always be some corner that is shady. Finding plants that will thrive in these areas can be tricky,...
COMMUNITY
Jun 11, 2000

Cybird flies big plans for mobile Net future

Kazutomo Robert Hori It came as a very pleasant surprise when an old friend rang from Osaka to tell me that her son's business had taken off like a rocket. The last time I saw Robert was at his wedding seven years ago -- a spectacular if crazy event held on top of a mountain in Hiroshima Prefecture....
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2000

Makeup TOEFL exam scheduled for July 8

A popular English-proficiency test that was canceled nationwide Friday due to a problem with testing booklets has been tentatively rescheduled for July 8, the exam organizer said Saturday.

Longform

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