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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 4, 2004

My unlikely valentine

Love Actually Rating: * * * (out of 5) Director: Richard Curtis Running time: 135 minutes Language: English Opens Feb. 7 [See Japan Times movie listings] Love, love, love. Given how movies are pretty indiscriminating when it comes to strewing that word around, there's a positive recklessness...
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2004

Language panel says children need more talk, less TV

Less television and more conversation at home are important first steps in improving children's language proficiency, a council tasked with discussing how to improve young people's command of Japanese said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY
Feb 4, 2004

The not-so cordial entente

LONDON -- 2004 marks the 100th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale -- the accord between Britain and France of 1904 that marked a new era of friendship, the ending of numerous disputes and, as it turned out, intimate military alliance in two world wars.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2004

Opposition boycotts Upper House

The opposition parties continued Monday their boycott of all Diet debate following the ruling coalition's approval of the Self-Defense Forces dispatch to Iraq, effectively putting House of Councilors deliberations on hold.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2004

Asylum seeker holds onto hope

On Jan. 23, the day after his book came out, 21-year-old Ali Jane received a surprise phone call from his mother back home in Afghanistan, telling him she and his two older sisters were safe in Kabul.
JAPAN / TALKING SHOP
Feb 2, 2004

Celebrated female exec makes case for telling it straight

To get your point across in the United States, you have to stand up for yourself -- whether you are a man or a woman.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 1, 2004

A testament to the love of Gainsbourg

A week before her concert appearance in Tokyo, I call Jane Birkin. That's Jane -- heavy breathing on the raunchy 1969 Serge Gainsbourg classic, "Je t'aime . . . moi non plus" -- Birkin.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jan 31, 2004

Tiny hot carpets and long frozen delays

For those of you rolling your eyes at the prospect of reading my annual column whining about the lack of central heating in Japan, wait. This one, I promise, will be different. Because things are changing in Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2004

Ikeda, known for work in Peru hostage standoff, dies

Former Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda, who led efforts to resolve the 1996-1997 hostage standoff at the Japanese ambassador's residence in Peru, died of rectal cancer early Wednesday morning at a Tokyo hospital, his family said. He was 66.
BUSINESS
Jan 29, 2004

Oddly, Japan keeps tariffs intact as it gropes for beef

Japan's suspension of U.S. beef imports has created a strange contradiction: As the government searches for alternate sources of beef, it imposes tariffs that help keep overseas beef out.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 28, 2004

On a not-so-sentimental journey to 1947

Born in Osaka in 1958, Junji Sakamoto has set many of his 13 feature films, including his award-winning 1989 debut "Dotsuitarunen," in his native Kansai. He arrived for our interview at the Takanawa Prince Hotel looking dapper in a retro-style suit that he later told me had been worn by an actor friend...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2004

Trade, tourism thrive on DPRK border

LONDON -- I spent the first two weeks of this year on a whistle-stop tour of Northeast China -- an area once known as Manchuria. The term Northeast China usually means the three provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 25, 2004

Bob Log III

He may never show his face, but Bob Log III is by no means shy. With his head concealed by a motorcycle helmet hooked to a telephone receiver and his gut squeezed into a low-cut, blue spandex jumpsuit, Log looks more like Evel Knievel in a Dadaist porn flick than a one-man band belting out the Delta...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 25, 2004

Embracing the beauty and the beast

The Chicago band Califone and Tucson-based singer-songwriter Howe Gelb will be coming to Japan next month to do a club tour together. Both artists record for the same Chicago indie, Thrill Jockey, which has a licensing deal with the Japanese company Headz, and they both happen to have time to kill in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 25, 2004

Dani Siciliano: "Likes"

Dani Siciliano's voice is such a classic jazz instrument that one expects her to break into an improvised scat at any moment. Yes, her voice is somewhat thinner and higher than that of Ella Fitzgerald or June Christy, but she shares the same stylish phrasing. Siciliano doesn't so much sing lyrics as...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jan 24, 2004

All will be decided on Top League's final day

It's often said you shouldn't leave things to the last minute, but the Japan Rugby Football Union will be delighted that its new competition, the Top League, has gone right down to the wire.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jan 22, 2004

Pistons respond as Brown adjusts

NEW YORK -- Larry Brown's teams historically struggle at the outset of his rule. It takes time for the players to figure out what he wants.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2004

Typical wife beater: 40-year-old boozer

The typical perpetrator of domestic violence in Japan is a 40-year-old male who drinks regularly and has a six-year history of assaulting family members, according to a recent Justice Ministry study.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jan 21, 2004

'Daimajin' quits Mariners

Kazuhiro Sasaki said Tuesday he has decided to leave the Seattle Mariners to stay home in Japan with his family.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 21, 2004

Fiction made real

I met with Kazuo Kuroki following the premiere of "Utsukushii Natsu Kirishima (Kirishima 1945)" at the Fukuoka International Film Festival in 2002. A native of Ebino, Miyazaki Prefecture, where the film was shot, Kuroki looked content with the warm response he had received from the Kyushu audience. Smartly...
BUSINESS
Jan 21, 2004

Kiwis offer to ship more beef if tariff is lifted by Japan

SYDNEY (Kyodo) New Zealand can increase beef exports to Japan if the Japanese government reassesses its tariff, New Zealand's beef marketing body said Tuesday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jan 20, 2004

Having any trouble in your crosscultural relationship?

Masako Iwamoto Translator, 29
COMMENTARY
Jan 19, 2004

Okinawans await assurance of lighter military presence

HONOLULU -- During a visit to Okinawa, which has long borne a disproportionate share of the U.S. military presence in Japan, I was peppered with questions about the impact of planned redeployments. Okinawans have high hopes that the moves will lighten their burden. I could not reassure them.
EDITORIALS
Jan 18, 2004

Europe's tower of Babel

A funny thing happened on the linguistic fringes of the European Union earlier this month. A group of demonstrators had gathered outside Dublin Castle in Ireland, where talks on an EU constitution were being held, to demand that the EU officially recognize the Irish language. Then Ireland's minister...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 18, 2004

'Losing dog' believers are barking up the wrong tree

In last week's column I mentioned that the media now likes to divide people and things into winners and losers (kachigumi, makegumi). This device is mainly used for economic-related matters, but it has trickled down into other social spheres.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 18, 2004

Millions in quest for 'miracle cures'

Cocoa isn't exactly the No. 1 drink of choice in Japan, but late in 1995 you would have been hard pressed to find any at all in stores. That wasn't because of a contamination scare or anything -- but because shoppers were clamoring to get their hands on the stuff.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 18, 2004

It takes a demon to bring out the saint

LONELY WOMAN, by Takako Takahashi, translated by Maryellen Toman Mori. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, 192 pp., $24.50, (paper). "A female demon is no mere fanciful creature," writes Takako Takahashi in this newly translated work. "An ordinary woman can turn into a demon in an instant. She...
JAPAN
Jan 17, 2004

Tokyo questions agenda behind Pyongyang overtures

Unofficial North Korean overtures that may pave the way for Pyongyang allowing the families of five repatriated Japanese abductees to reunite in Japan have fueled expectations and doubts in equal measure here.
MORE SPORTS / NBA REPORT
Jan 17, 2004

Wilkens not the right coach for Knicks

NEW YORK -- So, for a change, the New York Daily News was correct; Don Chaney was, indeed, replaced on the Knicks' sidelines by a former coach of the Cavaliers and Hawks who's represented by Atlanta-based Lonnie Cooper (as is Isiah Thomas) . . . except it's not Mike Fratello, it's Lenny Wilkens.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2004

Hope for Indo-Pakistani peace

Some years ago, I was visiting Samarkand in Uzbekistan, from where the Mughal Dynasty came down to the subcontinent. The only other person from South Asia in the group was a senior Pakistani military officer. We soon realized we had more in common with each other than any other members of the group because...

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