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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
May 30, 2002

Puzzling over monkeys' many ways of life

It was a faint and far-off sound, barely audible, like the distant rumbling of thunder. Something about it triggered memories, and I asked skipper Mike to cut our outboard motor. Even with the engine off and my hands cupped behind my ears, head turning like a radar dish, I was still not absolutely sure....
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...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
May 20, 2002

Nilima Seth

"Divine!" Nilima Seth stood in front of a noh mask on her wall. "Don't you feel the vibes?" she asked, reverence in her tone. "What does it say to you?"
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 19, 2002

Repent of Western ways to see the light

A BURDEN OF FLOWERS, by Natsuki Ikezawa. Kodansha International, 2001, 239 pp., 2,400 yen (cloth) A story of two Japanese siblings' rejection of Western values, one eloquent on the dangers of being "too Cartesian in your thinking, too tied up in Western rationalism," is hardly an obvious candidate for...
ENVIRONMENT
May 19, 2002

How deep does our knowledge go?

The group of animals we call cetaceans represent but two-thirds of the orders of "whales" that have ever existed.
JAPAN
May 18, 2002

Equal status of part-time, full-time staff seen as key

Japan is looking to the Netherlands, which has successfully implemented a number of work sharing programs, for ways to deal with its record levels of unemployment.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 18, 2002

Work sharing solves Netherlands' economic woes

THE HAGUE -- As Japan remains mired in an economic slump, the idea of work sharing is increasingly attracting the attention of the government, labor unions and business organizations as a way to handle the record level of more than 5 percent unemployment.
EDITORIALS
May 5, 2002

The wrinkles in Botox

Is it just us, or do others have the same reaction to media stories about the mounting popularity of Botox, the toxo-cosmetic touted as death to wrinkles: People are injecting what into their faces?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / CLOSE-UP
May 5, 2002

Thoughts of an accidental politician

Kyosen Ohashi was born in Tokyo in 1934 and studied journalism at Waseda University. He enjoyed a long career as a respected jazz critic and TV presenter, before quitting the entertainment world in 1990.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 5, 2002

Live and learn and learn

Swimming. Piano. English conversation.
JAPAN
Apr 30, 2002

Japanese cheerleader back for second season with NFL team

When Ai Yasuda was named to the San Francisco 49ers' Gold Rush cheerleading squad for the second straight year, she realized that although the door may not be wide, it is always open.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MUSEUM MUSINGS
Apr 27, 2002

Craftsmen keep alive hair ornaments that were all the rage in Edo Period

The display of fine Japanese hair ornaments at Tsumami-Kanzashi Museum in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward illustrates a small world of plums, cherry blossoms, chrysanthemums, chestnuts, bees and phoenixes created with pieces of colorful silk.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 25, 2002

Former Soviet dissident: U.S. overconfidence poses danger

MOSCOW -- Roi Medvedev, a Russian historian, was born in 1925 in Tbilisi, Georgia. After graduating from Leningrad University, he joined the Soviet Communist Party in 1956 and became a researcher at the Education Academy. In 1969 he was purged from the party following the publication of his book "Let...
COMMUNITY
Apr 21, 2002

Abode of the gods

An indentation on the peak of Sri Pada, a mountain in central Sri Lanka, is reputed by some to have been made when Buddha first set foot on Earth. The mountain is also said to be the place where butterflies go to die. Another legend has it that the world's highest mountains, the Himalayas, are inhabited...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 17, 2002

All we know of heaven and need of hell

There may indeed be "more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of" in human philosophy, as Hamlet told faithful Horatio, but when it comes to hell, the human imagination needs little prompting. From Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" to the Bible itself, hell and its tempting concomitant, sin, have...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 17, 2002

As time goes by

From cityscapes to country roads, Edward Levinson captures even the smallest movements of nature through the eye of his pinhole camera.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 4, 2002

Sea lampreys excited by eau de liver bile

The sea lamprey is a parasitic, eel-like fish with a fearsome, tooth-covered "oral disk" instead of a regular mouth. When attacking, the lamprey rears its head, and clamps its oral disk onto the skin of other fish. With its grasping tongue, it feeds on blood and body fluids for an average of 76 hours,...
Japan Times
Events
Apr 2, 2002

Museum displays home articles of 'typical' family from Seoul

SUITA, Osaka Pref. -- South Korea may never have felt closer to Japan than it has this year. Not only are the two nations cohosting the World Cup later this year, but a three-day tour to Seoul nowadays costs less than 30,000 yen, and Korean food is popular across Japan.
BUSINESS
Mar 28, 2002

MMC president-to-be leaves no stone unturned

When he arrived in Tokyo more than a year ago from the Railsystem Unit of the DaimlerChrysler Group, Rolf Eckrodt, vice president and chief operating officer of Mitsubishi Motors Corp., gave each MMC executive a piece of the Berlin Wall encased in clear plastic.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Mar 24, 2002

Yankee chicken, go home!

"Down with President Bush's thighs!" says Moscow. "We've eaten enough of them and they're no good. We're not going to cook them again."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 23, 2002

Personal agenda with Taisho feminist literature

Woken earlier in the day, Anne Sokolsky was so sleepy she assumed me to be a Japanese woman speaking bad English rather than the other way around. A rocky start dispelled by the wide-awake vivacity with which she approached me at Tokyo's Yotsuya Station midafternoon.
COMMENTARY
Mar 14, 2002

A demand-starved economy

What do you do if you are Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the "structural reform" policies you have been advocating with tight lips and a steely gaze are now hit by the deflation you have caused? Simple. You do an about-face and tell the world with tight lips and a steely gaze that you are now absolutely...
COMMENTARY
Mar 11, 2002

Reform takes back seat to economic values

HONOLULU -- Despite the hype, Japan's antideflation package has failed once again to impress the critics. This failure is remarkable given the international attention that has focused on the proposal, the vote of no-confidence that had been delivered by the markets and the pressure applied by the U.S....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Mar 3, 2002

Ken Noguchi: Climb (and clean) every mountain

When Ken Noguchi reached the summit of Mount Everest in 1999, at the age of 25 he became the youngest person to have scaled the highest peaks on all seven continents. Born to a Japanese father and Egyptian mother, he grew up moving around the globe. His love affair with the dizzy heights of high-altitude...
JAPAN / WEEKEND WISDOM
Feb 24, 2002

Skeptical astrophysicist constructs 'green' home his own way

KYOTO -- For most people, tearing down a perfectly good house to build a new one may not seem all that environmentally friendly.
COMMUNITY
Feb 24, 2002

Overseas and under pressure

For people moving to a foreign country, the simplest daily activities can become a nightmare.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 23, 2002

Martha Stewart does a Japanese house

Today I will give Martha Stewart a tour of my house.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 20, 2002

Onward klezmer voyager

Like people, music travels. How else could a handful of Japanese musicians have come to embrace klezmer, a centuries-old Eastern European folk music historically associated with traditional Jewish weddings?
COMMENTARY
Feb 13, 2002

Wrong cure for Japan's economic ills

So U.S. President George W. Bush has decided the future of Asia depends on overcoming Japan's puzzling, decade-long economic stagnation. But do he or his advisers understand what is really wrong with that economy?

Longform

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