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Pierre Fuller
For Pierre Fuller's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
CULTURE / Books
Mar 31, 2002
China's free-enterprise apostle
MODEL REBELS: The Rise and Fall of China's Richest Village, by Bruce Gilley. University of California, 2001, 219 pp., $45.00 (cloth)/$15.95 (paper) It could have been a Forbes cover story: In 1978, a destitute Chinese village doomed to crop failure siphons off state irrigation funds to buy a crude steel strip mill. Within a year, the village earns more than all its profits since the 1949 revolution combined. By 1990, with 200 subsidiary companies and revenues of $110 million, it has become China's richest village, producing 3 percent of the country's entire steel output.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 17, 2002
Let the masses consume
CHINA'S CENTURY: The Awakening of the Next Economic Powerhouse, edited by Lawrence J. Brahm. John Wiley & Sons, 2001, 421 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Pick up an international paper published before Sept. 11, and China is either on the front page or generously featured inside. Not anymore. The rising giant of East Asia was swept from the media's mind last year faster than you could say "Osama bin Laden," and has been upstaged by the terror wars, which provide more urgent and exciting reading than, say, global centers of economic might shifting at glacial speed. This means a major architect of tomorrow's world -- China -- rises in the shadows, out of sight, and, as the saying goes, out of mind.
CULTURE / Music
May 20, 2001
You gotta fight for your right to freedom
Adam Yauch, MCA of the Beastie Boys, has come a long way since 1986's "License to Ill," the obnoxious, wildly juvenile album that launched the careers of the punk-turned-hip-hop trio from New York. And not just musically. He's become one of the voices of a worldwide political movement, one heard in Tokyo for the second time last Sunday with the staging of the eighth Tibetan Freedom Concert.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 1, 2001
Schilling reels in a decade of film
CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE FILM, by Mark Schilling. Weatherhill, 1999, 399 pp., $24.95 (paper). Americans flock to subtitled films the way the Swedes flock to church. That is, hardly ever. So when Asian films make their way into the theaters of U.S. shopping malls, it is no small feat.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 15, 2001
Thai women, twice victimized
OWED JUSTICE: Thai Women Trafficked into Debt Bondage in Japan. Human Rights Watch, 227 pp., unpriced. For many women, the journey begins in northern Thailand, where refugees and hill-tribesmen languish in poverty and statelessness. The favored prey of sex-trade recruiters, these undocumented Thai residents can only migrate for work through illegal channels, easily falling into the hands of traffickers. Thousands end up in Japan.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 24, 2000
Palestinian families at a scholarly remove
POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND THE PALESTINIAN FAMILY: Implications for Mental Health and Well-Being, by Vivian Khamis, Haworth Press, 144 pp., $20. The appearance of a book on the impact of political violence on Palestinian families could hardly be timelier. Deaths caused by the present unrest in Israel and Palestine already number over 300, mostly Palestinian, in what is arguably one of the most written-about conflicts of the late 20th century. A book aiming to offer something new on the subject could easily bring readers into the lives of families affected by the trials of over 33 years of military occupation. Unfortunately, this is hardly such a book.
LIFE / Travel
Dec 24, 2000
Do they know it's Christmas in Xian?
In the cradle of Chinese civilization, Christmas -- in all its commercial fury -- has taken Xi'an city by storm. Today, in this one-time imperial seat now famed for its terra-cotta warriors, storefronts blink Christmas red and green, Santa Claus poses for photos in supermarkets, employees don festive red caps and even the roaming garbage trucks sound a continuous synthesized variation of "Jingle Bells." Put simply, Santa and his cheer-wagon are everywhere.

Longform

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