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COMMENTARY
Feb 11, 2003

Sacrifices for material gain

In the 1980s, Japanese economists used to boast of their country's economic prowess and deride U.S. economic decline. To be sure, the U.S. manufacturing industry in those years fell into a miserable condition, and the nation suffered from ever-expanding trade and budget deficits. Yet things began changing...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 11, 2003

ACCJ welcomes pledge to boost foreign investment

The Japanese government's recent pledge to encourage a doubling in foreign direct investment from overseas is a welcome and appropriate step to help resuscitate the flagging economy, according to the new president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 9, 2003

Titillating tales from China's perfumed city

SHANGHAI: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City, by Stella Dong. Perennial/HarperCollins, 2001, 318 pp., $15 (paper) Great cities deserve the attentions of writers who combine the historian's pursuit of accuracy with the willingness to be swayed by impressions, prejudices, anecdotes and flawed opinions....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 8, 2003

Faith Bach

From her home in Boston, Faith Bach says she always wanted to come to Japan. "I don't know why. These things just happen," she said. She was not encouraged by her parents, who "were not in any way interested in Japan." They had bequeathed her in childhood love and understanding of theater, providing...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2003

'10,000 yen painting' is an early van Gogh

An oil painting in Tokyo once valued at just 10,000 yen has been identified as an early work by Vincent van Gogh, it was revealed Friday.
COMMENTARY
Feb 6, 2003

Love beneath the headlines

LONDON -- France is in everybody's bad books. In Washington, France has been dismissed -- along with Germany -- as "Old Europe," paralyzed by traditional views and unable to come to terms with the security imperatives of the global age. In London, anti-French feeling has been building up in official...
JAPAN
Feb 6, 2003

Shinagawa rethinks primary school

The board of education in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, intends to introduce combined elementary and junior high schools in fiscal 2006 and reduce the number of years students receive elementary school-style education, board members said Wednesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 5, 2003

Artists in search of absolute painting

"We call together all young people and -- as young people who bear the future -- we want to acquire freedom for our hands and lives, against the well-established older forces. Everyone belongs to us who renders in an unfalsified way everything that compels him to be creative."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 5, 2003

Slip into Wonderland in a museum of marvels

The Koishikawa Annex of Tokyo University Museum is currently hosting an eye-catching exhibition, "Microcosmographia: Mark Dion's Chamber of Curiosities." The brainchild of New York-based contemporary artist Mark Dion, the show runs until March 2.
JAPAN
Feb 5, 2003

Japan grounds astronauts over shuttle fears

Japan's space agency has decided it will not allow any Japanese astronauts to participate in space shuttle missions until it has determined them to be safe, officials said Tuesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Feb 5, 2003

Baka Beyond: "Heart of the Forest"

Before we get into the new album by the world-beat collective, Baka Beyond, let's get something straight about the name. In Japan, "baka" may be what you call your boss behind his back, but this four-letter word also denotes the pygmy tribe indigenous to the rain forests near the Cameroon/Congo border....
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2003

Obituary: Soko Izumi

KYOTO -- Tea expert Soko Izumi, the younger brother of tea Grand Master Zabosai Sen Soshitsu XVI, died of kidney failure at a Kyoto hospital early Sunday, his family said. He was 44.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2003

Asian bridges via Okinawa

SINGAPORE -- Earlier this month a closed-door workshop and open public symposium focused on bridging the divisions within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and those between Japan and Okinawa as well as on strengthening the ASEAN-Japan partnership through governance, human security and community-building....
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2003

Professor mishandled 22 million yen in grants

A renowned medical professor at the University of Tokyo and his team mishandled more than 22 million yen of state subsidies, it was learned Saturday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 2, 2003

How the 'modern' code was cracked

The headless body of a woman in her 50s was laid on a straw mat inside a hut at Kotsukahara in Edo's Senju area. Born in Kyoto and nicknamed "Aochababa," sketchy court records indicate the woman had been convicted of killing her adopted children. She had been executed by beheading that very morning,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 1, 2003

Need a guide to Japan's flea markets? Here it is

Rather, here he is: Theodore Manning, whose book "Flea Markets of Japan: A Pocket Guide for Antique Buyers" was published last month. He no longer lives here, having returned last year to America after a 10-year stretch, so I call him in his new home base of Chicago and we talk by phone.
Japan Times
JAPAN / PREFECTURAL FARE
Feb 1, 2003

Hiroshima's long-neglected cuisine brought to the fore at Shinjuku store

Hiroshima Prefecture's natural beauty and abundance of marine life are almost always upstaged by the tragedy that befell its capital in 1945.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 1, 2003

Sakae Ishikawa

"Since my work is theoretical, I like to think I am part of the academic world," Sakae Ishikawa said. "Whether I can call myself a scholar or not is a delicate question."
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 31, 2003

Lifetime of missed chances

LONDON -- On Jan. 22, two of the world's leading powers celebrated the 40th anniversary of a remarkable reconciliation. At the historic Palace of Versailles, France's President Jacques Chirac and Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder toasted a treaty signed in 1963 by their visionary predecessors, Charles...
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2003

Plutonium extracted from spent fuel is 206 kg short

A tally of plutonium extracted at a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, since it began operating has come up 206 kg short, the government said Tuesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 29, 2003

The end of art history and the last laugh

Since 1984, the National Museum of Art, Osaka, and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, have been examining trends in contemporary art in a series of exhibitions titled "A Perspective on Contemporary Art." Pay a visit to the latest in the series, though, and you might be forgiven for wondering exactly...
BUSINESS / ON MANAGEMENT
Jan 28, 2003

Habit vs. mechanics: Going from good to great can necessitate a 'Tiger Woods' overhaul

Recently an executive returned from a trip with a story about the salesman he visited. Now in his late 50s, the fellow had been a proven performer since early in his career, hitting his numbers and accumulating bonuses at a prodigious clip. His sales approach was direct to the point of being confrontational,...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jan 27, 2003

Corporations cast a shadow on education

NEW YORK -- Did you know that Stanford University has a Yahoo! Chair of Information Management Systems?
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jan 26, 2003

Cleaning up Japan is one tall order

Thanks to improved nutrition, the height of the average Japanese person has increased considerably since World War II. Nevertheless, many Japanese, especially those over a certain age, despair over what they believe is their short stature.
Japan Times
JAPAN / PREFECTURAL FARE
Jan 25, 2003

Sake, sweets part of Shimane's spell

Once upon a time, there was a violent god named Susanoo-no-mikoto who challenged a giant serpent that had demanded the life of a young woman every year. The god killed the eight-headed Yamata-no-crochi, a dragonlike creature with eight tails, when it became drunk on the local Yashiori-no-sake.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 24, 2003

Mayor in desperate bid to keep job

The embattled mayor of Toyosato, Shiga Prefecture, visited the education ministry Thursday and asked the national government to designate a historical school building he recently tried to raze as a nationally important cultural property, ministry officials said.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 24, 2003

Shilingol: From the Mongol steppes to Sugamo

A chill gale of change is gusting through the sumo world, all the way from Central Asia. The demise of the Takanohana era does not, of course, mean we will stop eating chanko nabe. However, in honor of the incipient arrival of the Asashoryu dynasty, we felt impelled to set off in search of Shilingol,...
COMMENTARY
Jan 23, 2003

Restructure job stress levels

LONDON -- Stress seems to be the most common reason for absence from work. Stress at work is not a new phenomenon, but in the past it was often called something else, such as exhaustion. In the worst cases, it led to what was termed a nervous breakdown. Some of the tougher or macho bosses regarded such...

Longform

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