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COMMENTARY / World
Sep 8, 2002

Let time bridge the China-Taiwan gap

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- Recent complications with regard to visits, or planned visits, by Taiwanese politicians to Indonesia and Thailand serve as new reminders of a most sensitive lingering East Asian issue. The purpose of this article is not to deal with the pluses and minuses of the visits but to...
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Sep 8, 2002

Jubilo smash Antlers

KASHIMA, Ibaraki Pref. -- Norihiro Nishi and Naohiro Takahara struck in the second half to give Jubilo Iwata a 2-1 win over the Kashima Antlers in J. League Division One second stage action on Saturday night.
EDITORIALS
Sep 8, 2002

Bye-bye, Betamax

A t the tail end of August, a brief obituary ran in business pages around the world: The Betamax VCR format was dead. Sony had just announced that it would stop manufacturing its Betamax video-recording machines by year's end and concentrate instead on DVD and other new technologies.
JAPAN
Sep 8, 2002

Tepco put reactors back on line despite reports of over 20 faults

Tokyo Electric Power Co. put reactors at its two nuclear power plants in Fukushima Prefecture back on line this summer without conducting inspections, even after the company received reports of possible problems, informed sources said Saturday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Sep 8, 2002

A rose by any other name

One of life's great pleasures is drinking a wine that is exactly right for that particular moment. As summer slowly winds to a close, many of us are in pursuit of one last weekend picnic or open-air meal on the balcony. Chilled soups, chicken, pasta and salads are naturals, but what to drink? Although...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 8, 2002

Back to the old house to raise our spirits

Japan likes to present itself as the world's shining example of rapid economic development, the "postwar miracle." The government's extensive overseas development aid is more than just the gesture of noblesse oblige expected of the world's No. 2 economic power. It is an assertion of everything that is...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Sep 8, 2002

Tsukasa sings the blues, etc.

Word of mouth is still the best way to find cool new bars. The downside, though, is that such tips are usually accompanied by verbal directions. A customer at Gosse (reviewed last week) told me about a hip-hop bar called Tina near Meguro Station. It sounded easy enough to find, but after scanning every...
CULTURE / Music
Sep 8, 2002

So this trumpeter goes to a club . . .

With three releases over the last four years, Norwegian trumpet player Nils Petter Molvaer and his group have developed a unique hybrid sound that has proved to be an underground success not only in Europe, but also in the United States and Japan.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Sep 8, 2002

Judicial biases shape the American way

NEW YORK -- The first time I knew that Japan's Supreme Court was not really supreme but just another political arm of the state was when it ruled on the Sunagawa Incident. In December 1959, it reversed the Tokyo District Court's ruling that the Japan-U.S. Mutual Security Treaty was unconstitutional.
JAPAN
Sep 8, 2002

Public backs road entity privatization

A majority of the people polled by Kyodo News support privatization of the nation's four public road entities but oppose a total freeze on construction of highways that would not be commercially viable.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Sep 8, 2002

Tokyo Jazz 2002: The hybrid of a new generation

Though Herbie Hancock may not have the fancy footwork of the heroes who usually play Tokyo Stadium, as director of Tokyo Jazz 2002, he still managed to draw over 37,000 people to the soccer pitch the weekend of Aug. 24. This attendance alone would rank the festival, the first in a planned annual series,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 8, 2002

A woman's life behind the wheel

Taxi driver Yoko Yamaoka finished working at 5 this morning. Tomorrow she will get up at 5 in the morning and start the day's shift at 8. She usually works on a rotation of three days on and two days off.
COMMUNITY
Sep 8, 2002

Hey Taxi!

An arm stuck out from the sidewalk and Hideaki pulled up his cab, let the customer in . . . and immediately sensed trouble.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 8, 2002

The Japanese attachment to umbilical cords

In James Joyce's "Ulysses," the hero Stephen Dedalus imagines making a telephone call to Eden using an umbilical cord as a cable. The humor of the scene derives from the wry disregard that most Westerners have for this most curious of temporary appendages, this ultimate reason for the belly-button.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 8, 2002

Ethical dilemma in war of 'self-defense'

NEW YORK -- The recent unjustified killings of Palestinian civilians -- several children among them -- have not only raised the anger of the Palestinian population but also some of Israeli civilians. More importantly, those brutal killings endanger the withdrawal negotiations and threaten to condemn...
BASEBALL / MLB
Sep 8, 2002

'Wave win by going station-to-station

TOKOROZAWA, Saitama Pref. -- Orix BlueWave manager Hiromichi Ishige had the numbers crunched in his head. Team batting average against Seibu this year: a shabby .200. Lions' top reliever Shinji Mori's ERA against his squad this year: a perfect 0.00.
COMMUNITY
Sep 8, 2002

London's black-cab elite

My Tokyo taxi driver loses the ability to speak for a second or two, then gushes: "They're simply the best. They're professionals. They do that test . . ."
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Sep 8, 2002

Tataki : a tasty starter created in a flash

After the hors d'oeuvre course is served, the first dish presented in a traditional Japanese meal is most often a course of raw fish or other meat. The general term for this course is o-tsukuri. The root of the word, tsukuru, means to make, create or — if you read into the meaning — to arrange.
JAPAN
Sep 8, 2002

Marubeni hit for back taxes on income scam

OSAKA -- Tax authorities have ordered major trading house Marubeni Corp. to pay 1.2 billion yen in back taxes, it was learned Saturday.
JAPAN
Sep 8, 2002

NGO, Taliban agreed on Afghan DMZ before Sept. 11

A Japanese nongovernmental organization had agreed with Afghanistan's former Taliban regime to set up a demilitarized zone in the country before the Sept. 11 terror attacks, it was learned Saturday.
COMMENTARY
Sep 8, 2002

Flawed jamboree had value

LONDON -- The vast jamboree at the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg involved a huge amount of partying and junketing. The costs of travel and accommodations for delegations of ministers and officials were huge. Was it worthwhile?
CULTURE / Books
Sep 8, 2002

Is life but a walk in the park?

The latest winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for promising new writers of literary fiction, Shu'ichi Yoshida (born 1968), is being lauded for his light touch in portraying the loneliness and isolation of urban life today. At the Akutagawa Prize press conference, Yoshida said that he wanted to...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Sep 8, 2002

The 21st-century Yujiro Ishihara's brother

Several years ago, the production company that used to be headed by the late heartthrob Yujiro Ishihara staged a contest to find the "Yujiro Ishihara of the 21st Century." Among the aspiring young actors who entered the contest was Kotaro Koizumi, whose politician father was not yet prime minister. Kotaro...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Sep 8, 2002

Toutouan: Three hours of pure bliss

Toutouan lies inside Tokyo -- but only just. You will find it far from the throbbing heart of the city, on the western fringes of the greater metropolis, not so far from where the Tama River flows.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 8, 2002

Across continents by cab

For most people, all it takes to get from Tokyo to London these days is an air ticket and a 12-hour flight. But for taxi drivers Takemasa Irie and his son, Takeshige, the journey was much longer and far more grueling, and jet lag was nowhere on their long list of concerns. They were going to drive all...

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’