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COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2001

Exploitation of children takes terrible toll

Agnes Chan, ambassador of the Japan Committee for UNICEF, as well as a popular TV personality and pop singer, visited the Philippines from June 2 to 6 on a fact-finding mission for the UNICEF Japan group to see for herself the plight of children there, especially conditions surrounding the commercial...
BASEBALL / MLB
Jul 23, 2001

Petagine ignites 23-hit attack as CL All-Stars square series

YOKOHAMA -- Pitching a professional baseball game in Yokohama Stadium has always been Daisuke Matsuzaka's dream. It came true on Sunday night during Game 2 of the 2001 Sanyo All-Star Series. By the third inning, however, it turned into a nightmare.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jul 23, 2001

'Little' Matsui has big night for PL

FUKUOKA -- In the first All-Star Game of the post-Ichiro era, the Pacific League stars didn't miss a beat as they routed their Central League counterparts 7-1 before a crowd of 32,000 at the Fukuoka Dome on Saturday night in the opener of the 2001 Sanyo All-Star Series.
SOCCER / J. League
Jul 23, 2001

Grampus star 'Pixy' goes out a winner

Nagoya Grampus Eight star Dragan "Pixy" Stojkovic celebrated his final game at the end of a 20-year professional soccer career with a 3-0 win over Tokyo Verdy 1969 on Saturday night, the final day of the J. League Division One first stage, at Tokyo Stadium.
COMMENTARY
Jul 23, 2001

A textbook lesson for Japan's leaders

HONOLULU -- The controversy over middle school textbooks continues to damage relations between Japan and South Korea. Last week, the Seoul government announced that it was canceling military exchanges and the introduction of Japanese cultural products in retaliation for Tokyo's failure to meet South...
COMMENTARY
Jul 22, 2001

Bush places the country on autopilot

NEW ORLEANS -- The nation is reeling in the aftermath of a startling revelation from the White House: For the first time in its history, the United States is functioning entirely without an executive branch.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Jul 22, 2001

CCP is going nowhere fast

When the International Olympic Committee awarded Beijing the 2008 Summer Games, the decision was widely publicized as a move that would promote reforms in China, improve its human rights situation and eventually open China to the world. This is not unlike the rationale for awarding the 1980 Summer Games...
COMMUNITY
Jul 22, 2001

When we had heroes

They were voices in the silence, stars in the night they showed the way and they showed what was right
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 22, 2001

Reaching higher than the sun

The determined individualism and unique artistic vision of Taro Okamoto (1911-1996), a leader in Japan's 1960s-'70s avant-garde art scene, continues to be a source of inspiration to many people today.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2001

Foreign Ministry troubles exact a high toll

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- It is with hesitation that I write about the current imbroglio involving the Foreign Ministry. First, this is a matter for the Japanese to sort out. Second, suspicions of partiality may arise, given my diplomatic background. But in spite of these valid points, I humbly put forward...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 22, 2001

Thanks to 'doken kokka,' are Japan's best decades behind it?

THE EMPTINESS OF JAPANESE AFFLUENCE, by Gavan McCormack. Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 2001 (2nd edition), 311 pp., $27.95 (paperback). What went wrong? A decade ago few would have predicted the sustained malaise that has gripped Japan since the early 1990s.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jul 22, 2001

Breaking up (all that fat) is so very hard to do

While my stomach is not particularly gregarious, neither would one call it meek.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 22, 2001

The kimono celebrated

KIMONO. Text and photos by Paul van Riel, introduction and comments by Liza Dalby. Leiden: Hotel Publishing, 144 pp., color photos, $49.95. Folklorist Kunio Yanagita long ago said that "clothing is the most direct indication of a people's general frame of mind." If this is so, what then is one to...
EDITORIALS
Jul 22, 2001

What price a dog's life?

In Los Angeles earlier this month, a legal case that had drawn worldwide publicity finally ended when a superior court judge threw the book at the man everybody loved to hate: Andrew Burnett, convicted in June of animal cruelty for grabbing a woman's dog from her car after a minor accident and tossing...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Jul 22, 2001

Gifts from the 'god of sake'

Throughout the history of sake brewing, there has been a handful of individuals who have had a huge impact on the craft in the form of technical developments or discoveries. One such benefactor of brewing was Professor Kin'ichi Noshiro of Kumamoto.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Jul 22, 2001

This one goes out to all the grrls

For 121/2 years, I lived within a 10-minute walk of Shinjuku Ni-chome. "Ni-chome," as most habitues refer to it, is synonymous with gay, even though every neighborhood in Tokyo has an area called Ni-chome, which, roughly translated, means "Sector 2." One should even be careful not to refer to an escapade...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 22, 2001

It's not always easy to see yourself as others do

On the face of it, the current controversy over Japanese history textbooks is just one more example of Japan not facing up to its militaristic past. On a deeper level, however, Korea's decision to forgo further liberalization of Japanese cultural imports until the offending texts are revised underscores...
COMMUNITY
Jul 22, 2001

The times they were a-changing

The 1960s and '70s were not only the decades of heroes. A look back on news and incidents shows us how rapidly society was changing. Here are some examples.
COMMENTARY
Jul 22, 2001

Yet another example of victor's justice

Victor's justice is a two-edged sword. The attempt to bring former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before a war-crimes tribunal in The Hague may satisfy the West's urge to find a bogeyman to justify its own irresponsible behavior toward the former Yugoslavia. But it is unlikely to impress those...
BASEBALL / MLB
Jul 22, 2001

Orix pitcher has leukemia

Orix BlueWave pitcher Shuichi Iwashita has been hospitalized in Kobe with acute leukemia, the Pacific League team announced Friday. Iwashita, in his second year with Orix, had a medical checkup after complaining of fatigue and suffering a continuous fever since the beginning of this month. The 28-year-old...
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Jul 22, 2001

Gently add mom's miso, while stirring in humility

Last week while the kami-san was ringing up a customer's bill, I happened to glance down at the scrawled notepad where she keeps track of a table's order — a list of all the food and drink consumed.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jul 22, 2001

Bourbon Street comes to town

If seen on the street, minus their sousaphones and trombones, the guys from the Black Bottom Brass Band would look like any of the other slightly hip types that wander around Shibuya or America-mura. A guess about their musical tastes would probably run toward some obscure DJ or indie rock's flavor of...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 22, 2001

Fighting the good fight for all

In the pantheon of Japan's fictional action heroes, it would be hard to find one better known or loved than Ultraman.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 22, 2001

Dead-end lives in the suburbs of Tokyo

LIFE IN THE CUL-DE-SAC, by Senji Kuroi. Translated by Philip Gabriel. Berkeley, Calif.: Stone Bridge Press, 2001, 231 pp., $12.95. To read this version of "Life in the Cul-de-Sac" is to experience two conflicting emotions. On the one hand, there is admiration for the storyteller, as the dozen linked...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 22, 2001

The song remains . . .

One of the biggest smash hit songs of the year, bellowed in karaoke rooms across the nation, is "Ashita ga Arusa."
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 22, 2001

Tarento find beauty is only cosmetically deep

Tonight at 11:30, TBS's documentary series, "World Heritage," will cover the Hiroshima Peace Dome, which has symbolized the atomic bombing since 1945, when it partially withstood the blast that flattened the entire city around it. The dome has been maintained in its damaged state for 56 years as a monument...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 22, 2001

Cheers and tears for souvenirs

Akihisa Shirota, 36, clearly remembers the evening of Oct. 14, 1974.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 22, 2001

A many-splendored world of tofu

Tofu is cooling, tofu is healthy and, best of all, tofu is cheap. And suddenly this sultry summer season, tofu is also totally trendy. Just like Shigezo Syoutou, in fact. Such is its popularity, it took us three attempts to snare a reservation at this laid-back basement dining-bar, despite the location...
EDITORIALS
Jul 21, 2001

A foundation for Africa's renewal

The Organization of African Unity, created nearly four decades ago as a symbol for the new Africa, is about to enter the history books. It will be replaced by the African Union, perhaps as early as next year, to achieve a new mission: developing a region plagued by conflict, AIDS and poverty. It remains...

Longform

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