Victoria James - The Japan Times

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Victoria James

For Victoria James's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

Japan Times

Features

Jan 23, 2005

Women to the fore in study of statues

At midday on March 29, 1914, a yacht named Mana, flying the British colors, dropped anchor in the tiny inlet of Cook's Bay, Hanga Roa. On board was an anthropologist who would carry out the first systematic survey of the Easter Island statues, and who would also record the last memories of a dying generation that had witnessed the rituals of the Birdman cult.

Japan Times

Features

Jan 23, 2005

The riddle of rongorongo

The earliest documented reference to rongorongo was made by a French missionary, Eugene Eyraud, who wrote in 1864 that he thought "the primitive script a custom which [the islanders] preserve without searching for the meaning."

Features

Jan 23, 2005

The Mayor Pedro Pablo Edmunds Paoa, or "Petero" as he is known, has been mayor of Hanga Roa, Rapa Nui's only settlement, for 12 years, and won re-election last November. He has an open-door policy at his office on Hanga Roa's main street, and welcomed this writer dropping by to talk about the preservation of Rapa Nui's cultural heritage.

CULTURE / Stage

Nov 10, 2004

Shakespeare's lovers seduce audiences

"The most wooden performances ever," wrote one London critic of the latest Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production. "Superb!"

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Oct 27, 2004

Artistic encounters of the oriental kind

LONDON -- Three figures sit round a clover-shape table: a bearded and slippered Chinese sage, a periwigged European, and a Japanese aristocrat whose kimono bears his ancient family crest. The sage, arms crossed, gazes impassively into space; the samurai is cuddled up close to the Westerner, casting a guarded glance at his Asian neighbor. You could say it has been like that ever since.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jun 13, 2004

An 'outsider' finds insight into Japan's bad-loan crisis

Just 33 years old when she headed the Tokyo Bureau of the Financial Times, Gillian Tett took an unusual route to the heart of Japan's business world.

Features

May 16, 2004

A guide by any other name

We don't know when she was born, or when she died -- was it April 9, 1812, at age 25, or perhaps Dec. 20, 1884, aged nearly 100? We don't even know her real name, but the Shoshone woman who accompanied Lewis, Clark and the Corps of Discovery has a fair claim to being the most celebrated woman of color in the history of the United States.

Features

May 16, 2004

On the trail of manifest destiny

Two hundred years ago this week, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and their Corps of Discovery set out to explore the American West. Sunday TIMEOUT asks what the expedition, its leaders and the Shoshone woman who was their guide still mean to us today

CULTURE / Film

May 5, 2004

Live from Golgotha

The first piece of sacred spam hit my inbox during the runup to the opening of "The Passion of The Christ" in the United States. Forwarded by an earnest member of the Anglican-Episcopalian church I attend in central Tokyo, the e-mail asked recipients to pray for the success of the movie, to give thanks for miracles wrought at preview screenings, and, natch, to go see the film -- and to tell 10 friends to do likewise.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

May 5, 2004

A colorful realm of the senses

"I do not believe in imitation," says Kazi Ghiyasuddin. "When I see something, my senses react. I want to portray that reaction through colors."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Apr 21, 2004

A balancing act of inspiration

"Othello" director Gregory Doran, 45, has been hailed by London critics as "the redeemer of the RSC." He joined the company in 1987 as an actor, but soon turned to directing and often works in collaboration with his partner, Antony Sher. Last year he received Britain's top theater honor, an Olivier Award, for his season of "Jacobethan" drama.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Apr 21, 2004

Artist and model, framed

The girl with a pearl earring, whoever she may be, is safely at home in the Netherlands. There, she's the centerpiece of the Mauritshuis collection in The Hague, although her identity is as much of a mystery as ever -- art history favored one of Vermeer's daughters, until Tracey Chevalier wrote her best-selling novel about an unconsummated romance between the artist and his maid.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Stage

Apr 21, 2004

A look on the dark side of life

Sir Antony Sher was born near Cape Town, South Africa, in 1949. He moved to Britain in 1968 to attend drama school. His breakthrough performance was as Richard III for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1984-5. Since then he has received many acting honors and was knighted in 2000.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Apr 7, 2004

Monumental is beautiful

The young woman seated in front of McDonald's, her massive haunches spread wide underneath her, looks at first glance like a cautionary tale on the perils of fast food. It would have taken a McBreakfast, a McLunch and a McDinner every day from birth to get her this big -- all of them super-size, just as she is.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Mar 31, 2004

The glory that was Rome, set in stone

Ancient Romans knew all about personality cults. Successful gladiators were the Beckhams and Ichiros of their day, celebrated in graffiti scrawled on city walls. Emperors from the time of Augustus (27 B.C.-A.D. 14) took it all one step further, with an official "cult" of the imperial personage that saw statues of rulers installed in dedicated temples known as sabasteia. The more ambitious among them (or perhaps the more unstable) sought to replace the empire's pre-existing religions, and in A.D. 41 all hell broke loose when the mad Emperor Caligula gave orders that a statue of himself be erected in the sacred precinct of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Mar 10, 2004

Two sides to every epoque

They called it the Belle Epo^que, the "Beautiful Age": France's brief period of grace after concluding peace with Prussia in 1871 and before the horrors of World War I turned her pastures into killing fields in 1914.

Japan Times

Features

Mar 7, 2004

We've seen the future of wine, and she's called Bridget Jones

Was it really only 1995 when Bridget Jones chainsmoked her way through the first of many glasses of Chardonnay?

Japan Times

CULTURE / Art

Feb 18, 2004

We just can't get enough

With Valentine's Day just past, let's pay tribute to one of the most enduring love affairs of our time -- that between Japan's gallery-going public and France's Impressionist artists. It's the Real Thing.

Japan Times

COMMUNITY

Nov 30, 2003

Whatever turns you on

The leather-clad guy in the line next to me had a gynecologist's speculum hanging round his neck -- and the accessories didn't get any more normal once I was inside the Sadistic Circus, an all-night fetish event held in Roppongi's Spiral club Nov. 23.

Japan Times

COMMUNITY

Nov 23, 2003

The earliest chatterbot programs ever written say more about the human condition than they do about the nature of computer intelligence. The first, ELIZA -- or Dr. Eliza, as "she" was known -- had the persona of a Rogerian psychotherapist. Her successor, perhaps the inspiration for Marvin, the "paranoid android" of Douglas Adams' anarchic "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" novels, was named PARRY and was programmed to display the behavioral hallmarks of a paranoid schizophrenic.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.

Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

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