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BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jun 3, 2002

Balance of payments and intervention signal danger for economic reforms

Japan's international balance of payments for fiscal 2001, released by the Finance Ministry on May 15, highlighted a year-on-year fall in the trade and current account surpluses. But it also revealed a 24.4 percent increase in the nation's income surplus to a record-high 8.68 trillion yen.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 2, 2002

Looking behind life-or-death situations

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the murder of eight young children at the Ikeda Elementary School in Osaka. Shortly after that, a young man killed a child in a Kyoto schoolyard before killing himself when faced with arrest, thus reinforcing the fear among the general public that Japan's schools...
JAPAN
Jun 2, 2002

Kickoff! Games start in Japan

The soccer World Cup opening matches kicked off in Japan on Saturday. Jubilant soccer fans and supporters from around the world flocked to the stadiums to watch the Ireland-Cameroon game in Niigata and the Germany-Saudi Arabia match later in the day in Sapporo.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MUSEUM MUSINGS
Jun 1, 2002

Venue lets budding, talented artists bring their works out of the closet

"Yomenanohana," or kalimeris "yomena," is a weed that flowers unnoticed in the fields, and for Kyoko Mita, it is the perfect name for a museum for unknown artists.
COMMENTARY / World
May 31, 2002

Measuring China's pulse online

The spread of the Internet in China is turning out to be a boon for China watchers in Japan. The Web now serves as an outlet for news not found in newspapers or on television but that can be deemed important and valuable. It also offers an opportunity to learn about the real feelings Chinese people have...
JAPAN
May 31, 2002

Prosecutors seek prison for Nakao

Prosecutors on Thursday sought a 3 1/2-year prison term for former construction minister Eiichi Nakao, claiming he took 60 million yen in bribes from Wakachiku Construction Co. while he was a Cabinet member in 1996.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CLOSE NEIGHBORS
May 31, 2002

Tourism offers one path to better understanding

The pamphlets lined up at tourist centers scream, "Experience the real Korean-style aesthetic treatment and make your skin smooth!" "Spend three full days in Seoul sightseeing and shopping!"
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 30, 2002

Finding the neurons that say: 'let's just do it'

Ever wondered why some people are full of "get up and go" and why others drag their heels? Why some kids at school charge enthusiastically around the running track, while others prefer to go for a smoke behind the bike sheds? If work published in Science this week fulfills its promise, there might soon...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 30, 2002

Concrete -- modern Japan's blockhead obsession

They invented it, didn't they?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 29, 2002

Star's role derails Streetcar classic

Demons inhabit the live-performance stage. Nobody can judge the success of a production until after the curtain has risen and fallen. This is what gives drama -- and musical and dance performances -- their peculiar zest. And when the director of a production is a titan of the international theater world,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 29, 2002

Master at the cutting edge of art

Japan is often seen as a blend of the advanced and the archaic. But this combination is nothing new, as a visit to an exhibition of swords now on at the Nezu Museum in Tokyo's Omotesando district makes clear.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 28, 2002

Runway now in land holdouts' backyard

NARITA, Chiba Pref. -- Crops rustling in the wind appear to be trembling because of the jetliner taxiing nearby, its fin visible above the walls surrounding the farm.
MORE SPORTS
May 28, 2002

Japan's cricketers get a lesson from a master

For those with no knowledge of the game of cricket --imagine a player with Ichiro Suzuki's eye for the ball, speed and throwing arm, throw in Barry Bonds' power and Carl Ripken Jr.'s mental and physical toughness and you will come up with Dean Mervyn Jones. Jones was arguably the most popular cricketer...
COMMENTARY / World
May 27, 2002

Learn to write better by reading the experts

"My dear Professor," reads a note I received about two weeks ago, "I've found your Japan Times editorial-page commentary most interesting. You say writing good English is more craft than art -- a craft that anyone can learn. But I don't think it's always the case." In the first place, continues the three-paragraph...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 26, 2002

Victor Segalen: searching out the strange to find a way home

VICTOR SEGALEN AND THE AESTHETICS OF DIVERSITY: Journeys Between Cultures, by Charles Forsdick. Oxford University Press, 2000, 242 pp., 40 pounds (cloth) In 1919, 41-year-old Victor Segalen was found dead in a Breton forest, a copy of Shakespeare beside him, the pages opened to "Hamlet." Thus ended the...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 23, 2002

When it comes to giving money, just go with the flow

In answer to the reader in Mita-ku enraged with having to 'pay out' money for so many of the activities that at home she takes as freely granted (parties, weddings, funerals), best remember perhaps that everything has its price.
COMMENTARY / World / GUEST FORUM
May 23, 2002

Marines on Okinawa are worth keeping

Thirty years after reversion to Japan, the U.S. Marine bases on Okinawa remain a contentious issue. Periodic calls for their reduction or elimination may be good politics, and offer academics and other commentators the satisfaction that they are taking a "progressive" stance on the issue.
BUSINESS
May 23, 2002

Tokyo Gas posted 80 billion yen profit in fiscal '01

Tokyo Gas Co. said Wednesday its group pretax profits rose 20.6 percent to 80.63 billion yen in the business year to March 31 on strong gas sales and cost-cutting efforts.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 22, 2002

The star-spangled chawan

With lines of silver breaking through a black laquer surface, the tenmoku pottery of Koji Kamada conjures images of the unknown universe. Visitors to an exhibition at Akasaka Yu Gallery celebrating Kamada's 30-year career have a rare opportunity to see masterpieces made by Japan's leading tenmoku potter....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 22, 2002

Generous with their talents

Nestled among the markets, cafes and residential manshon of northern Nogizaka in Tokyo's Minato Ward is a tiny studio theater called Studio Akasaka Playbox.
SOCCER / J. League / ON THE BALL
May 21, 2002

Fans getting feisty at World Cup ticket no show

With the World Cup getting ever closer, soccer fans are getting increasingly worried about the whereabouts of their tickets.
JAPAN / WEEKEND WISDOM
May 19, 2002

Maverick metal molder happy solving big boys' problems

Masayuki Okano is living proof that building a better mousetrap gets the world to beat a path to your door.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 15, 2002

Weird science, but great art

It's the old quantity-versus-quality problem. Though there are only a couple of private contemporary-art museums in Tokyo (the Watari-Um and the Hara), their shows are almost always good and focus on providing authoritative coverage of some of the domestic and international art scenes' most important...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 15, 2002

Still treading the boards after 1,100 years

To commemorate the 1,100th anniversary of the death of Sugawara no Michizane, the celebrated Heian-Period scholar-politician, the National Theater is presenting "Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami (Sugawara Certifies a Disowned Disciple to Perpetuate His Line of Calligraphy)." One of three bunraku masterpieces...
JAPAN
May 14, 2002

Sex-determining gene of fish detected

A group of researchers has detected a gene in a Japanese freshwater fish that determines male sex, according to the group's thesis published Monday in Nature magazine.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 12, 2002

The complete picture

The late Hiroshi Teshigahara was not only the "iemoto" (head) of the Sogetsu school of ikebana and a noted traditional potter, he was also a film director of international fame, best known for his 1964 picture "Woman in the Dunes." The sumptuously designed DVD collection "Teshigara Hiroshi no Sekai"...
COMMUNITY
May 12, 2002

Born to ride -- and to win

Veteran jockey Yukio Okabe is a legend in Japanese racing, perhaps best-known for his partnership with Triple Crown winner Symboli Rudolf. At 53, he is Japan's most senior rider, and has won awards in 27 of his 34 years as a jockey. As national racing's record-holder for number of rides, with more than...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 10, 2002

Condom makers jazz up contraception

The country's 60 billion yen condom industry has taken the offensive lately in a withering market, promoting a batch of new products designed to woo youths who are increasingly sexually active but reluctant to use protection.

Longform

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