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COMMUNITY / How-tos
Mar 8, 2000

Where it counts

People would often like to take their vacations in Japan to learn more of the history and culture, but when they start checking, they discover the price is too high and end up in other Asian countries that offer multi-bargains. A reader has heard of the new low fares soon to be available within Japan...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 6, 2000

Diplomacy without guideposts

Ten years after the Cold War ended, we are moving toward the 21st century. In the past decade, the international community has been trying to catch up with fast changes and to establish a viable theory for creating a new order. However, drastic changes in the world have made it impossible for human wisdom...
CULTURE / Music
Mar 5, 2000

Dynamo Chung generates musical electricity with French National

Orchestre National de France
CULTURE / Art
Mar 4, 2000

Ota Memorial Museum of Art marks 20th anniversary

To mark its 20th anniversary, the Ota Memorial Museum of Art in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward is holding a series of special ukiyo-e exhibitions through April 26.
EDITORIALS
Mar 3, 2000

'But it couldn't happen here'

There is no refuge from the senseless gun violence that plagues the United States. Homes, offices, places of worship, city streets and even schools -- no place is safe. This week, there was an especially horrifying episode: the shooting of one first-grader by another. The details tell a tragic story,...
CULTURE / Music
Mar 3, 2000

Don't believe the hype, just cue up the record

You can tell because it's become a staple of boy bands and television commercials, selling everything from hair dryers to soft drinks. Even the least offensive manifestations of hip hop's mainstream acceptance, Dragon Ash, has all the substance of white bread.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 29, 2000

Afghanistan drags Pakistan down with it

ISLAMABAD -- More than 20 years after Soviet troops marched into Afghanistan in support of the last communist coup, the central Asian country's turmoil is unending. Descriptions such as "extreme impoverishment," "a lost generation" and "the ultimate pariah state" are just some of the ways that Afghanistan...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 29, 2000

Japanese politics are gray, not green

GREEN POLITICS IN JAPAN, by Lam Peng Er. Routledge, March 1999, 232 pp., $90. The next 100 years have been dubbed the century of the environment. While this pronouncement may be a bit premature, even inflated, it reflects the swelling interest in environmental issues. From global warming and dioxins,...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 29, 2000

Asia's real entrepreneurs shine

THE NEW ASIAN CORPORATION: Managing for the Future in Post-Crisis Asia, by Michael Hamlin. Jossey-Bass, 1999, $21.95. There are few more compelling subjects than the future of the Asian corporation.
EDITORIALS
Feb 27, 2000

The imitable Jeeves

Correct us if we are wrong, but we seem to have detected a certain half-veiled annoyance recently on the part of a British literary agency named A.P. Watt. The trouble is, these Watt chaps' duties include looking after the estate of the late, great comic novelist P.G. Wodehouse, creator of the supposedly...
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2000

New century proposals seen as more than unlikely dreams

Staff writer Recent ambitious proposals by the Commission on Japan's Goals in the 21st Century may be eye-catching but are unlikely to be achieved, according to skeptics. Those people, however, are wrong, according to commission head Hayao Kawai, who also serves as director general of the Education...
LIFE / Travel
Feb 23, 2000

Heaven in Beppu's hot spring hells

The Lonely Planet's Japan edition pans it, but the onsen (hot spring) town of Beppu in Oita Prefecture provides a fun glimpse of somewhat dated Japanese sightseeing rituals -- and of course, with perhaps the most diverse array of hot springs in Kyushu, it has some great places to take a dip.
COMMENTARY
Feb 20, 2000

Infrastructure key to growth

As the Asian economies rebound from their 1997-1998 lows, we hear much less about the alleged collapse of something called "Asian values" and its crony capitalism. Which is good, since there never was such a thing as "Asian values" in the first place.
COMMUNITY
Feb 19, 2000

Fukuoka heats up with Iberoamerican festival

OSAKA -- Fukuoka is the place to be this weekend for those who love all things Latin, as Ianimate 2000, a celebration of Latin American dance, music and art, takes place on Saturday.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 18, 2000

The journey begins in Calexico

Concept albums are notoriously fiendish undertakings. Most often they are an embarrassment, the sort of thing that artists blush about and PR reps write off as youthful indulgence.
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2000

Early start on spoken English seen as 'advantage'

Last of two partsStaff writer Many public elementary schools are expected to start teaching English in April when the trial period begins for "comprehensive studies," a new curriculum under the Education Ministry's revised teaching guidelines, that take effect in 2002. From the third grade, schools...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 13, 2000

Nicola Cerrone

The warmth and blue skies of Italy and the sunshine and freshness of Australia make a winning combination. These elements come together in Nicola Cerrone, young, winsome and friendly.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 13, 2000

Installation artist explores the void of all

Visualize three individuals -- one man and two women -- sitting on three chairs in an otherwise empty room. This space is painted white and measures 8 meters long by 4 meters wide by 3 meters high.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 12, 2000

The right kind of justice for East Timor

The quest for justice in East Timor gathered momentum last week with the submission of reports from two separate investigations into the rampage that occurred last September after the province voted for independence. But the stir raises profound questions of how to deal with transitional justice, pitting...
EDITORIALS
Feb 10, 2000

The IRA must break the stalemate

The Northern Ireland peace process is in danger of breaking down. The Irish Republican Army's fierce resistance to surrendering any of its weapons has forced Protestant politicians to question the group's commitment to peace. In the absence of genuine good will between the parties to the conflict, gestures...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 10, 2000

Japan ill-served by its whitewash of wartime crimes

At the dawn of the new millennium, many nations continue to grapple with the historic and moral implications of World War II. In Berlin, the German government broke ground for a new Holocaust Memorial, and in Stockholm 40 heads of state joined with historians, educators and Jewish survivors of the Nazi...
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 7, 2000

Craning for a look at a natural monument

TSURUI VILLAGE, Hokkaido -- The meandering local bus takes over an hour to reach this quiet hamlet of dairy farms in southeastern Hokkaido. For out-of-town passengers, the approach to Tsurui comes as something of a shock. Those black-and-white creatures stepping delicately across the pasture most definitely...
JAPAN
Jan 28, 2000

World Cup goal is to show off improved ties, new envoy says

Staff writer The 2002 World Cup soccer finals will be a test for Japan and South Korea, joint hosts of the tournament, to demonstrate their enhanced partnership in recent years, according to Japan's new ambassador to South Korea. Terusuke Terada, 61, former ambassador to the Korean Peninsula Energy...
COMMUNITY
Jan 26, 2000

Bright lanterns, big New Year

Chinese New Year is always explosive, and that has nothing to do with Y2K. It is a three-day whirl of festivities, dancing dragons and lions, prayers, fiery lanterns, "lucky money" for children and mountains of exquisite dishes.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 26, 2000

The menu's a long fellow at Coffee House Poem

As "the new millennium" approached, there were endless arguments over whether we actually had cause to celebrate. The "Is it 2000 or 2001?" debate continues, but certainly no one would dispute that the number 100 represents a long life, a perfect score or the number of coffees available on the menu at...
EDITORIALS
Jan 25, 2000

A challenge for the next century

The coming months will probably see one policy proposal after another, both official and private, for Japan in the 21st century, in the wake of a challenging report last week from a private advisory council to Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. A review of Japan's options titled "Japan's Goals for the 21st...
CULTURE / Music
Jan 25, 2000

One up from the real roots: no hoke from this folk singer

The most compelling, expressive and soulful instrument of all is the human voice. Outside the world of Western music, there are many vocalists who have the ability to capture a certain indefinable sense of yearning. Voices with a fiery beauty and explosive power; intimate, haunting, ageless, mysterious....
CULTURE / Books
Jan 25, 2000

Women pay for Asia's successes

WOMEN IN THE NEW ASIA, by Yayori Matsui. London: Zed Books, 1999, 194 pp., $19.95 (paper). THE SEX SECTOR: The Economic and Social Bases of Prostitution in Southeast Asia, edited by Linda Lean Lim. Geneva: International Labor Office, 1998, 232 pp., SFR35. Yayori Matsui, author of "Women in the New...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 24, 2000

Taiwan turns table on terrible temblor

In the early hours of Sept. 21, 1999, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck Taiwan. Within 45 seconds, over 2,000 people lost their lives and property damage amounted to billions of dollars. Fortunately, the epicenter was not in a densely populated metropolitan area, for the loss of life and property would...
BUSINESS
Jan 24, 2000

A new economic theory for a new millennium

The arrival of the new millennium offers us an opportunity to consider matters from a longer term point of view. While it is impossible to predict the events of the coming 1,000 years -- pause to consider that of today's seven leading industrialized coun- tries, only Japan, France and Britain existed...

Longform

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