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Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 8, 2003

Web suicide sites have officials worried

The pattern has become eerily familiar. After forging a pact with strangers over the Internet, young people get together to carry out a carefully planned task -- suicide.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / CLOSE-UP
Jul 6, 2003

The straight shooter

Nobuyoshi Araki was born in Tokyo in 1940 and was given his first camera by his father in junior high. He studied photography and film at Chiba University and went into commercial photography soon after graduating. Four decades and over 250 photo publications later, the 63-year-old artist stands a long...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 29, 2003

The poetry and power of rock 'n' roll

For an artist as personal as Patti Smith, who once told an interviewer that it wasn't difficult to leave "the limelight and the applause" at the height of her popularity as a rock singer to become a full-time wife and mother, she certainly seems to derive a great deal of spiritual sustenance from direct...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 1, 2003

Big Issue Kansai magazine to help homeless help themselves

OSAKA -- Hoping to imitate the success of its British namesake, a company was recently set up here to publish a magazine called Big Issue Kansai, which will help homeless people earn money by selling the paper on the street.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 11, 2003

Bailing the banks while letting the debtors die

Reportedly, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has decided to address suicide, which has becomes something of an epidemic over the past decade as the economy continues its skid into the void.
COMMENTARY / World
May 9, 2003

The silent birth of a killer virus

BEIJING -- Is it the "big one" -- the indestructible one? Perhaps not. Either way, China's inability to tell the truth has made it a threat to all of us.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / CLOSE-UP
May 4, 2003

Alice Walker: Love makes her world go round

Alice Walker is best known as the author of "The Color Purple," her 1983 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the lives of African-American women in the Deep South early in the 20th century -- which Steven Spielberg made into a film in 1985 starring Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 13, 2003

Chinese deserve grown-up party leaders

SEOUL -- The leaders of the Chinese Communist Party want the world to believe that the government they control is fit to be accepted as a full-fledged mature member of the global community. But is it? There have to be some doubts.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 11, 2003

Futility felt by journalist drives him to show war's true face

Hearing U.S. bombs find their targets and feeling the ground shake under his Baghdad hotel, Kosuke Tsuneoka was struck by the futility of his plan to serve as a "human shield" and stop the war.
JAPAN
Apr 4, 2003

Racket in public places is fraying nerves

Sounds abound in Tokyo, from the blaring advertisements in busy shopping areas like Shinjuku to the stream of announcements on trains.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mar 20, 2003

Happiness and how to achieve it

We are all in search of it, and while some have it, many don't. The pursuit of it was even written into the American Declaration of Independence. We're talking about happiness, surely an ancient and universal human desire, a desire that arose in our brains when we arose on the Ethiopian savanna. But...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 12, 2003

Charlie Watts: The beat goes (40 years) on

Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, 61, has sunk into a deep leather chair in a huge hotel room in Toronto. In the corner hundreds of jazz CDs cover the walls. The table is strewn with old snapshots. Watts coughs and straightens his brown jacket.
Japan Times
SUMO
Mar 7, 2003

Takanohana getting grip on life off the dohyo

Recently retired yokozuna Takanohana was the idol of the sumo world during the 1990s and his departure from the sport earlier this year leaves many wondering how it will carry on.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / CLOSE-UP
Mar 2, 2003

Weighing in on the 'real Japan'

Murray Sayle, 76, likes to tell how he was delivered by the same doctor as Australian Prime Minister John Howard; how he lived a few streets away from him and went to the same high school, and then the same university.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 16, 2003

When you need a hand ...

Married with two children, 46-year-old Kumiko Mashima thinks her life is just about perfect. She met her loving husband through an omiai -- a formal introduction arranged by a go-between with a view to marriage -- and they both adore their daughters. But before she found her way into her husband's arms,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 8, 2003

Music of the saints

Someone once said that the best way to start building a jazz collection would be to buy a couple albums from each decade that Miles Davis was recording and, after that, choose a sideman from each of these selections and buy one of his solo albums. The same could be said of John Zorn and his collaborators,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / CLOSE-UP
Jan 5, 2003

All the world's this scion's stage

Despite a daunting work schedule, and the added demands of this holiday season, Mansai Nomura made it -- albeit sleepy faced, but at the appointed hour -- to this interview in the coffee lounge of the Waseda Rihga Royal Hotel in Tokyo.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 8, 2002

On the night side of life

The last trains have long gone and the stations are shuttered.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / CLOSE-UP
Dec 1, 2002

Writer on the borderline

Haruki Murakami is Japan's most important and internationally acclaimed living writer. "Norwegian Wood," his fourth novel, has sold more than 2 million copies since it was published in 1987. His latest, "Kafka on the Shore," has sold more than 200,000 copies since its publication in September, and has...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 1, 2002

New ways to kei-mmunicate

"The day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid on to houses just like water or gas -- and friends will converse with each other without leaving home."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2002

Danger of inaction deepening: writers

If a frog is placed in a bucket of hot water, it will immediately sense the danger and jump out. If the same frog is placed in a bucket of cold water that is gradually heated, it will not realize the danger until it is too late. Today, a group of financial journalists from Britain agreed, Japan is that...
JAPAN
Nov 12, 2002

Fading concern over HIV poses threat

Alarmed by a rapid surge in people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, health officials and experts say warnings about the importance of prevention are no longer being heard.
JAPAN
Sep 27, 2002

Seniors' Net clubs give elderly way to reach out, enhance life

With more than 40 percent of Japanese now using the Internet, an increasing number of elderly people have found a new way of enjoying life by opening their own home pages or establishing Net clubs for seniors.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 22, 2002

Happy doing it her way -- whatever the 'bashers' say

Yumi Sekine, 41, a nurse by profession, began training 12 years ago and has reached levels beyond those of any other female bodybuilders competing in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 22, 2002

Pecs, posing and living sculpture

"The main thing I want people to understand is that bodybuilding is the real thing. Bodybuilders are doing what all athletes are doing -- dieting, working out. There are no secrets to it. But, if all people see is a bunch of oiled, near-naked guys striking poses up on stage, they're going to think it's...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 11, 2002

NPO tries to make Afghans' lives livable

KYOTO -- Although international aid has flowed into Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime last October, Afghan people living far from Kabul are still suffering from malnourishment and a poor living and education environment, according to a Kyoto-based nonprofit organization.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 21, 2002

Trance music: Taking it to the next level

When deep into the music at a trance party, most people dance a sort of mechanized primal stomp, working their arms like pistons and clomping their feet. Although these maneuvers may look awkward, they are a natural reaction to the music's rigidly 4/4 industrial-sounding beats, which, though sublime...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2002

Japan playing a vital role in Myanmar

Aung San Suu Kyi has completed two successful and delightful long-distance inland political journeys since her release from a second house arrest about 10 weeks ago. The State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC, the military regime, has provided full security for her travels in Mandalay and Mon states....
Japan Times
JAPAN / KANSAI BEAT
Aug 1, 2002

Time for Japan to face up to AIDS threat

KOBE -- For many Japanese, AIDS has long been regarded as someone else's problem.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 30, 2002

New law may raise prospects for homeless

In the Kamagasaki day-laborer district of Osaka, news about the soon-to-be passed bill to provide aid for the nation's homeless has been greeted with a mixture of hope and indifference.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji