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LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Sep 7, 2001

Pedaling along the Silk Road

Justin Jeffrey and his wife, Miyuki, have set off on a journey of epic proportions. On bicycles laden with camping equipment and summer and winter clothes, they are traveling overland from Sapporo to London. Their journey is taking them through some of the most spectacular and challenging terrain in...
JAPAN
Sep 5, 2001

Tanaka plans to visit Ehime Maru team

Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka will pay a weekend visit to Honolulu on her way back from San Francisco to encourage the salvage crew attempting to move the Ehime Maru, the Japanese fisheries training vessel sunk by a U.S. submarine in February, according to ministry officials.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Sep 5, 2001

Space Shower

Space Shower TV, the homegrown version of music television, has been instrumental in promoting what might be best called Japanese pop, as opposed to J-pop. These groups may not make the upper reaches of the chart -- they are either too raw or too offbeat -- but they are also too accessible or too popular...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Sep 5, 2001

The Strokes: 'Is This It'

Let's put our hands up and admit it, right. We are all sick of the aging rap-rock racket of Limp Bizkit and their ilk, the punk-lite of Blink-182, etc. and the overblown histrionics of mainstream British rock. We need a feisty new band to kick down the door, spray the establishment with aural bullets...
BUSINESS
Sep 3, 2001

Markets suffer Koizumi's silence

A sense of frustration is beginning to set in. Every indication points to a marked deterioration in economic outlook in the months ahead.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 2, 2001

More than words can say

WORDS IN CONTENT: A Japanese Perspective on Language and Culture, by Takao Suzuki, translated by Akira Miura Our eyes, says Takao Suzuki, author of this sociolinguistic text, "do not see things objectively and impartially like cameras. Our perceptions are always subject to cultural selection." Indeed,...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 2, 2001

Looking ahead to a reunified Korea

KOREA'S FUTURE AND THE GREAT POWERS, edited by Nicholas Eberstadt and Richard J. Ellings. University of Washington Press, 2001, 361 pp., $22.95 (paperback). Think what you will about North Korea's Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, but the man has a gift for theater. He captivated much of the planet when he...
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2001

Disaster drills staged across Japan

Disaster drills were held across the country on Saturday, the 78th anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake which reduced most of Tokyo and Yokohama to rubble and left more than 140,000 people dead or missing.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 1, 2001

In Dog Heaven, pee on the Pearly Gates

There is much talk these days about the first tourists to the moon and Mars. Everyone wants to be the first to go. Except me. I'm not interested in going to the moon or Mars. I have a hankering to go someplace much farther away and much more exciting. I want to be the first person to go to Dog Heaven....
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Aug 29, 2001

A bearded Gore and the shrinking surplus

WASHINGTON -- At long last, Al Gore has reappeared! He is pursuing the political training school program that he had floated in a more full-blown way last spring. Al, sporting a full beard, is working with his fellow Tennessee loser, Republican presidential wannabe Lamar Alexander, training young people...
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2001

Robot project seeks to give industry boost

The government has announced plans to launch a project to foster the robot industry, viewed as a possible dynamo for economic growth, with subsidies and related legislative measures in fiscal 2002.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Aug 27, 2001

U.S. wants justice for all -- except itself

NEW YORK -- On Aug. 2, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia convicted Bosnian Serb Gen. Radislav Krstic of genocide. But even before the verdict, the Bush administration had made clear its opposition to the effort to create an International Criminal Court, which would broaden...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 26, 2001

Hope for the best . . .and prepare for the worst

Think about how difficult it would be if all our lifelines -- water, gas and electricity -- were suddenly cut off. In the event of a major earthquake, we would have to do more than just ponder these hardships. And it would go on for longer than you might think. After the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 26, 2001

Hell on earth in '23

"The pillars of the house made groaning sounds and began to crack. An earthquake! The wall clock stopped, and the electric fan went flying." That was how Hisamatsu Yamato, then an 18-year-old living in Tokyo's Honjo district, recalled the moment.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 26, 2001

Showing, not telling: the birth of pure film

WRITING IN LIGHT: The Silent Scenario and the Japanese Pure Film Movement, by Joanne Bernardi. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001, 355 pp., 100 illustrations. $39.95 (cloth); $19.95 (paperback) Film evolved differently in different cultures. In the West the cinema was perceived as a new form...
BUSINESS
Aug 24, 2001

APEC aid schemes face cuts

Budgetary constraints may force Japan to cut back its four aid programs for small and midsize enterprises in the APEC region, a government official said Thursday.
JAPAN
Aug 24, 2001

Security alliance redefined after end of Cold War

Staff writer In August 1990, when then Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu telephoned U.S. President George Bush to offer a $1 billion contribution to the U.S.-led multinational forces in the Persian Gulf, Bush offered a disappointed-sounding "Thank you" before hanging up.
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2001

Mourning enters space, cyberspace

New kinds of mortuary services are emerging in Japan to reflect diversifying values, ranging from virtual graves on the Internet to the transferal of ashes into space.
SOCCER / THE BALD TRUTH
Aug 21, 2001

Clowns at the circus of soccer

I was buttering my muffins the other morning when my Australian mate Nezbo called. So obviously I had to tell him how crap the Aussies are at soccer, didn't I?
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2001

Nakatani climbs Fuji to warm ties with U.S.

Defense Agency chief Gen Nakatani on Sunday climbed Mount Fuji, Japan's highest peak, along with about 40 U.S. servicemen stationed in Okinawa in an effort to improve relations between Japan and the United States.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 19, 2001

Environmental destruction dooms us all

"Environmental security" has three different meanings. First, it can be used to explain conflict. Resources can be causes, tools, or targets of warfare. Disputes over water can cause conflict between nations. Upstream states can use water as a tool of warfare by manipulating shared river basins to inflict...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 19, 2001

Activists in the name of art

FUKUOKA -- "Art doesn't have to last forever -- otherwise it's like a topic that's discussed to death," says Takahiro Ogata, an architect involved in Fukuoka's annual Tomyo Watching event. The organizers, nonprofit organization Museum City Project, have kept Fukuoka's citizens on their toes since 1978...

Longform

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