Search - things-to-do

 
 
EDITORIALS
Aug 18, 2004

How will postal privatization help?

Japan's postal savings system, along with mail and insurance services, is to be privatized over a 10-year period beginning in 2007, according to the guidelines drawn up by the government's Economic and Fiscal Policy Council earlier this month. The question is how to transform the system into a viable...
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2004

Mihama accident latest in long string of nuclear plant woes

OSAKA -- In early 1999, a group of German nuclear scientists and engineers had just returned to Osaka after visiting nuclear power facilities in Fukui Prefecture. Sitting in a bar in the Hotel New Otani, they were deeply disturbed.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2004

Old, young attend war ceremony

Michiko Okamura said it feels like yesterday.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 16, 2004

A fairy tale warning for financial giants

Oscar Wilde is the spinner of some of the finest tales in literary history. He wrote for a very wide-ranging public, including children. His fairy tales are truly fine. It is a characteristic of Wilde's fantasy tales for children that they contain profound insights into the very real world of adult folly...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 16, 2004

Sun rapidly setting on German paradise

WASHINGTON -- My summertime in Germany with family and friends gave me the warmth and many pleasures of the visitor. On the level of the economy, unfortunately, my visit provided me with the pains of the outside spectator who sees things unfold with the distinct impression that the prognosis is not good....
CULTURE / Music
Aug 15, 2004

Free spirit moves between jazz and classical

Jazz pianist Makoto Ozone has spent the last 20 years moving between Japan and the United States, so it is perhaps no surprise that his most recent release, New Spirit, moves comfortably between two musical worlds classical and jazz. Though Ozone could rest on a remarkable career in jazz, becoming one...
CULTURE / Music
Aug 15, 2004

Recorded: Rogue Wave: "Out of the Shadow"

Rogue Wave"Out of the Shadow" (Subpop) Indie-pop outfit, Rogue Wave, should consider themselves lucky. Ever since the Subpop label re-released their overlooked debut, Out of the Shadow, the gushing reviews keep pouring forth. Critics compare them to everyone from the Beach Boys to Elliot Smith. That's...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 14, 2004

Just a lighter shade of bland

Hello. My name is Tom Dillon and I'm a tofu-holic.
OLYMPICS
Aug 13, 2004

Judoka Tani, Inoue out to repeat feats

There are few things as certain as Japan's expected domination in judo as it aims to claim the lion's share of medals in the competition at this summer's Athens Olympics.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 11, 2004

This charming man hits wrong note

Kikansha Sensei Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Ryuichi Hiroki Running time: 123 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] When I taught at a boys high school in the early 1980s, I would, without fail, catch a bad chest cold in the winter and...
JAPAN
Aug 11, 2004

Kepco cost-cuts proved fatal: protesters

OSAKA -- Antinuclear activists in Fukui and Osaka prefectures said Tuesday the accident the day before at the Mihama atomic plant was due to Kansai Electric Power Co.'s attempts to cut costs and will negatively effect the utility's plans to burn MOX fuel in the reactor.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 9, 2004

Ozawa show gives no straight answers

When the Mori Art Museum opened its doors almost a year ago, media attention naturally focused on its prime location atop the Roppongi Hills complex (with a dazzling panoramic view of Tokyo), the debut exhibition "Happiness," and the talented and affable British gallery director, David Elliott. Less...
Japan Times
Features
Aug 8, 2004

The art of seeing

Photographer Jun Akiyama is taking ostrich strides down a Tokyo sidewalk, snapping pictures on a flimsy-looking tourist camera. Click! A child's curious glance is frozen in grainy black-and-white. Click! Akiyama catches a moment of anxiety on an old woman's face.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Aug 8, 2004

Happy Democrats suffer some nostalgia

WASHINGTON -- A lot of Democrats arrived home from the 44th national convention of their party happy that the performance of their new nominee exceeded their expectations and that the entire presentation was positive and error-free.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 8, 2004

All of Japan between two covers

JAPAN ENCYCLOPEDIA, by Louis Frederic, translated by Kathe Roth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002, 1102 pp., 48 illus., 14 maps, $59.95 (cloth). This large, beautiful and indispensable volume is a translation of "Le Japan: Dictionnaire et Civilisation," published in 1996, the year of the author's...
JAPAN
Aug 7, 2004

Asahi news reporter axed for breaching promise with secret source

The daily Asahi Shimbun has forced a 46-year-old reporter to leave the company for secretly recording a conversation with a news source and giving a copy of the recording to another source.
JAPAN
Aug 6, 2004

Mayor seeks U.S. base housing tradeoff

Yokohama Mayor Hiroshi Nakata told the Defense Agency on Thursday that he might accept construction of additional U.S. military housing units in Kanagawa Prefecture if the United States reduces the number to be built and returns more facilities to Japan.
JAPAN
Aug 6, 2004

Mayor seeks U.S. base housing tradeoff

Yokohama Mayor Hiroshi Nakata told the Defense Agency on Thursday that he might accept construction of additional U.S. military housing units in Kanagawa Prefecture if the United States reduces the number to be built and returns more facilities to Japan.
JAPAN
Aug 5, 2004

DPJ bill to kill pension reform meets its expected Diet fate

The House of Representatives welfare committee on Wednesday voted down an opposition-sponsored bill designed to repeal pension reform legislation enacted in June.
JAPAN
Aug 5, 2004

DPJ bill to kill pension reform meets its expected Diet fate

The House of Representatives welfare committee on Wednesday voted down an opposition-sponsored bill designed to repeal pension reform legislation enacted in June.
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Aug 5, 2004

"The Silver Spoon of Solomon Snow," "Granny Torrelli Makes Soup"

"The Silver Spoon of Solomon Snow," Kaye Umansky, Puffin Books; 2004; 224 pp. "Picture it." With that short command to her readers, author Kaye Umansky opens her latest novel and dispatches you on a real joyride of an adventure. In short, here's what you're in for -- a comic tale of: Solomon "Solly"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 4, 2004

Parental advisory: hormonal overdose highly probable

La Bande du Drugstore Rating: * * * (out of 5) Director: Francois Armanet Running time: 94 minutes Language: French Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Love is never having to say I love you, goes the tone of "La Bande du Drugstore," a love story in which the couple meet...
JAPAN
Aug 4, 2004

Don't assume China's soccer boos are political: Hosoda

The recent heckling of Japanese by Chinese fans at the Asian Cup soccer tournament should not be linked to political issues between the two nations, the government said Tuesday, trying to calm tempers in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY
Aug 4, 2004

Despite errors, Iraqis are now better off

LONDON -- Is Iraq getting better or worse? One side thinks things are settling down under the new Iraqi government and that, while security is still very bad, the prospect is opening for a democratic Iraq that is prosperous and benign, and exerts a positive and stabilizing influence on the whole of a...
JAPAN
Aug 3, 2004

350 attend Asia-Pacific conference

About 350 alumni of the East-West Center from 23 countries attended the opening Monday of a three-day international conference in Tokyo organized by the Hawaii-based research and education institution.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Aug 3, 2004

Is your diet healthy in Japan?

Alexander Mande Student, 25 I think it's very, very good. Even eating day-old sushi is fresher than what I can get at home in Germany, except I don't like natto.
COMMENTARY
Aug 2, 2004

Global warming remains the deadliest foe

LONDON -- Perhaps philosophers have a name for it -- this modern phenomenon of continuing to enjoy life in a way that we know is leading to destruction because we feel that there is nothing we can do about it anyway.
EDITORIALS
Aug 1, 2004

Priorities at Camp Cropper

Somewhere near Baghdad International Airport is a U.S.-run prison with the stern designation "High Value Detention Site" and the jaunty name of Camp Cropper. It was in the news last week following reports of a visit by Iraq's new minister for human rights, Bakhtiar Amin, to the prison's most highly valued...

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat