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COMMUNITY
Dec 2, 2001

Your click-and-go guide to the snow

Although 75 percent of Japan is mountainous, and there are 600 ski resorts nationwide, the process of arranging a ski holiday can often be full of trials and tribulations.
EDITORIALS
Nov 23, 2001

Another U.S. role in Afghanistan

The Taliban regime has collapsed. The citizens of Kabul apparently welcomed the incoming Northern Alliance troops and feted their "liberation" from five years of oppression.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Nov 22, 2001

Alien killers revel in 'cute pet' role

As a family, cats have successfully colonized the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia, with only Australia among the larger landmasses lacking native species. They range in size from the immense Siberian tiger to the diminutive black-footed cat of southern Africa, and take an equally diverse range of prey....
EDITORIALS
Nov 21, 2001

An ambiguous SDF dispatch plan

The Cabinet's approval last Friday of a basic Self-Defense Forces deployment plan, designed to provide noncombat support for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, opened the way for the first "wartime" mobilization of SDF troops overseas. The government emphasizes that the plan is within the framework...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Nov 20, 2001

Mysteries of the Matopos

The Matopos Hills near Bulaweyo have always had the reputation of being a little special, a little uncanny.
JAPAN
Nov 18, 2001

Japan files acceptance of U.N. terrorism pact

The Japanese government submitted a letter of acceptance of the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan at U.N. headquarters in New York at midnight Friday Japan time, government officials said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 4, 2001

It's a paradise for bikers in Japan

Maybe I'm losing it. With temperatures dropping and the first frost just around the corner, thoughts of winter sports and steaming cups of hot chocolate are starting to dance through most people's minds. But I've still got motorcycles wheelying through mine.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Oct 25, 2001

Serendipity in Hokkaido's autumnal air

It was just a bridge, not even a special bridge. The Heiwa Bridge spans the eastern end of Lake Tofutsu in northeastern Hokkaido. To the north there is a narrow neck of wooded land and then the Okhotsk Sea. To the south lies more woodland, then great expanses of farmland. It was just a bridge, but suddenly...
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Oct 12, 2001

Five-lined skink

Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 7, 2001

Soaking up history

In a quiet residential area of Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward, half hidden by a large maple tree, stands an impressive, castlelike wooden structure that is like a portal to another time. With old-fashioned kawara tiles on its pagoda-style roof, and its curliculed surrounding stone wall, the building is evocative...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 7, 2001

Failure on a grandiose scale

DOGS AND DEMONS: Tales From the Dark Side of Japan, by Alex Kerr. Hill and Wang, New York, 2001, 432 pp., $27.00 (cloth) Staff writer What has happened to Japan? Coming on the heels of the "lost decade," the January government reshuffle and a series of reforms that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi...
CULTURE / Music
Oct 3, 2001

The rebirth of cool

It's 30 minutes until showtime and the dark, cramped nightclub is already way past the fire chief's recommended maximum capacity. College students elbow their way through the wall of bodies toward the front, while gentlemen with salted beards and sports coats settle near the back with scotch and sodas....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 29, 2001

Online: Buddhist perspective on the new holy war

David Loy is a professor of philosophy and religion in the faculty of international studies at Bunkyo University in Chigasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture. He is American, and proud to be so. He is also a practicing Zen Buddhist.
LIFE / Travel
Sep 25, 2001

No, really, it's completely unspoiled!

Paradise in the South Pacific? Isn't that only ad copy for getaway resorts that put little beach umbrellas in the cocktails and charge prices the locals could only afford after a winning lottery ticket?
SOCCER / World cup
Sep 24, 2001

Pictograms counted on to bridge language gaps

As the country prepares to host the 2002 Soccer World Cup, a growing number of local authorities and transportation operators are employing visually oriented communication means called pictograms on streets and at public facilities.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 23, 2001

The city within

There are three things that stir the heart of every true Tokyoite: sento (public baths), mazelike roji (alleys) and matsuri (festivals). Over the last couple of decades, all three have been gradually fading from the city scene, though there are still pockets in the megalopolis where they can be found...
SOCCER / THE BALD TRUTH
Sep 18, 2001

Japan's taxi drivers will nip hooligans in the bud

If a bunch of terrorists can reduce the World Trade Center towers to rubble, imagine what they could do at next year's World Cup finals in Japan and South Korea. Unfortunately, this is not mere scare mongering.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 12, 2001

Artist sees hospital life through a glass darkly

From Parisian alcoholic Maurice Utrillo to Japan's own polka-dot diva Yayoi Kusama, I would guess that the list of artists who have actually lived in mental institutions is just about as long as the list of painters (Picasso, Dubuffet) who regularly hung around them looking for inspiration, searching...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Sep 9, 2001

For your regular viewing pleasure

Those who believe young people don't have proper peer models should check out TBS's "Sekai Ururun Taizai (World Sojourn)," which, every Sunday at 10 p.m., features a young celebrity traveling to a distant corner of the globe and living with a local family while learning a local skill or craft.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Aug 26, 2001

Sips of high-grade tranquillity

In parts of Asia, tea is more than a mere beverage: It is a social lubricant, a sacrament of complex rituals and a vital part of national identity. Throughout history, farmers and philosophers alike have treasured a steaming cup of cha. While there is some evidence of tea's health benefits, there is...
JAPAN
Aug 25, 2001

Ministry to boost child-care support for working moms

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry plans to earmark 700 billion yen for measures to boost child-care support for working parents within its fiscal 2002 budget request, according to ministry officials.
COMMUNITY
Aug 19, 2001

Tradition in transition

Art went private at the beginning of the 20th century. Back then Cubism's quest for a new visual language, abstract art's pursuit of purity of form, and Surrealism's sense of inwardness had little appeal to a public who viewed Modern Art as self-serving and difficult.
SOCCER / J. League / ON THE BALL
Aug 14, 2001

World Cup volunteers require effective training

The Japanese World Cup Organizing Committee recently announced the results of volunteer applications for next year's World Cup.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jul 29, 2001

Shochu appeal goes supersonic

FUKUOKA -- Kyushu folk are feeling quite tickled about something at the moment: a shochu boom in bars around Japan. The surging popularity of this once-lowbrow spirit, which originated in Kyushu, suggests that its old-fogy image may be disappearing for good and that lucrative times lie ahead for the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 8, 2001

In the pink

When Yokohama hosts the final and three other games in the soccer World Cup next June, foreign visitors will be spared a full-frontal view of the city's sleazier side by the waterfront, where a campaign to lessen any shock to their systems has been under way since last year.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 8, 2001

Love town where time stands still

OSAKA -- Osaka Mayor Takafumi Isomura repeatedly says he wants to turn the city into an international tourist destination. But camera-toting foreigners snapping pictures of Tobita, one of its oldest and most famous neighborhoods, are probably not what either he or the local business community have in...
EDITORIALS
Jul 1, 2001

Drivers' rights on the line

Hello, New York! You listening? Welcome to another small corner of the convoluted world of unenforceable legislation.
JAPAN
Jun 14, 2001

Six arrested in visa scam involving fake marriages

Police arrested six people Wednesday on suspicion of arranging bogus marriages to help Chinese nationals stay in Japan to work, police said.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 10, 2001

Japan, America and women's place

THE ROAD WINDS UPHILL ALL THE WAY: Gender, Work, and Family in the United States and Japan, by Myra H. Strober and Agnes Miling Kaneko Chan. The MIT Press, 2001, $21.95. The image of Japanese women walking several steps behind their "master" husbands is alive and well in the American popular imagination....

Longform

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