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EDITORIALS
Dec 19, 2002

A belated but welcome apology

The USS Greeneville, a massive nuclear submarine, accidently rammed and sank the Ehime Maru, a Japanese fisheries training vessel, off Hawaii on Feb. 9, 2001, killing nine. This week, nearly two years later, the Greeneville's former captain, retired Cmdr. Scott Waddle, traveled to Japan to apologize...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2002

United in trauma of terror

While India is the world's most populous democracy, Israel is the Middle East's most notable. Relations between democratic countries can be strained on particular issues, but the underlying strength remains resilient. Judaism and Hinduism are among the world's ancient civilizations and "root faiths"...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Dec 19, 2002

'Machiya' morphs into IT incubator

KYOTO -- What do traditional Kyoto and broadband Internet access have in common? Not much, which is the problem. The solution is the Kyoto Nishijin Machiya Studio.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Dec 18, 2002

Hot stove ponders fate of Rose, Matsui, Nakamura

This is the final "Baseball Bullet-In" for 2002, so let's take a look at, and make some comments about, topics on the hot stove of baseball news on both sides of the Pacific.
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Dec 18, 2002

Under the skin of strangers

Goldsmith's College is generally associated with the wave of Young British Artists (or YBA, as they are famously known) that rocked the contemporary art scene during the 1990s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Dec 18, 2002

"el Christmas: The World in Winter"

Before British label el records went belly up, they were considered one of the hippest dispensers of candy-coated twee-pop and lounge music from the '70s and '80s. A holiday compilation album pulled from el's catalog of aural confectionary makes perfect sense as so much of the holiday season nowadays...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Dec 18, 2002

Sparkle Drives: "None But the Righteous"

A few years ago, three tall black men entered 29th Street Guitars on the west side of Manhattan. One of these men began playing the steel guitars at the back of the shop, tearing them up with the power and conviction that should be the envy of any musician. After the three men left, one of the clerks...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 18, 2002

'Red Demon' to claim British souls

Acclaimed in Japan for the last quarter of a century as a drama director, writer and actor, Hideki Noda is set to become a major player on the world stage from Jan. 31, when his "Red Demon" opens for a near-monthlong run at the famed Young Vic in London's West End.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 18, 2002

Asia, in a nutshell

In Douglas Adams' future dystopia novel "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," a giant computer finally determines the answer to the meaning of life: 42. The joke was that nobody knew the question.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 16, 2002

Withholding food aid only kills innocents

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara does not like Japanese charities sending dog biscuits and old rice to North Korea to feed its hungry people.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Dec 16, 2002

Will dramatic arts take a backseat?

Two months ago, my 8-year-old came home from the Japanese elementary school he attends and told me about the play his grade would do at the upcoming gakugeikai (drama festival).
MORE SPORTS
Dec 15, 2002

Defending champ Suntory rolls over Toyota

The 55th and final Company Clubs Rugby Football Championship reached the national stage on Saturday with the first round of games in the four groups of four.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

Screen dreams of the good old samura days

With the stock market heading south and the political situation taking an uncanny resemblance to the last sclerotic days of the Soviet Union, no wonder Japanese moviegoers want to be anywhere but here and now. Even so, the number of new and recent Japanese films set in the past is extraordinary, given...
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

Countdown to catastrophe

On Nov. 26, 1941, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull submitted a note to Kichisaburo Nomura, Japan's ambassador in Washington, and special envoy Saburo Kurusu. Whether that note was an ultimatum that made it virtually certain Japan would wage war -- or whether it represented the latest U.S. effort...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Dec 14, 2002

Ducky tale of a high-flying family

To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The very rich are different from you and me."
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 14, 2002

A nation that's set up for looking down

Only in Japan is it possible to ride a crowded train to work, stop to buy your "o-bento" lunch at the convenience store, and arrive at work -- all without ever having eye contact with anyone. That is because people spend a lot of time looking at the ground in Japan.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 13, 2002

Transfer market reveals evidence of shadowy money trail

LONDON -- During the Nineties the Football Association launched what was to be a four-year inquiry into alleged "bungs" -- dodgy transfer dealings where various middle men, ranging from agents to club managers and chairmen, were alleged to have benefited illegally.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Dec 13, 2002

Even classics can be improved

As a mercenary chef — jumping from kitchen to kitchen, to help out for a few days or to just observe — I've picked up new and interesting ways to approach the things I've done so many times before. Even the best dish from the best chef needs an occasional reworking. Last year's plates and presentation...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 13, 2002

Time to say arrivederci to the old-school cucina

Out with the old and in with the new. That's the prevailing state of the game in Tokyo's restless, ever-changing restaurant scene. Sometimes this can be exhilarating, as with the brilliant refurbishment of the top floors of the My City building in Shinjuku. Sometimes, though, the process can feel downright...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Dec 12, 2002

Tomjanovich should add Washington to staff

NEW YORK -- If Sacramento Kings president Geoff Petrie, a two-time NBA Executive-of-the-Year winner, wants to earn permanent Petey Props, he will apply for the NBA's first legal exception.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Dec 11, 2002

In search of the real artist-potter Ogata Kenzan

"Sensational art finds are both desired and feared: desired because they become a form of pleasure and capital; feared because they displace something or somebody. Japan has had its share of such moments."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Dec 11, 2002

The Roots: "Phrenology"

'They have reached the level of their dreams: a major-label record deal and some international notoriety. But for all that, their concept has not yet blown up, and it is possible it won't."
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Dec 11, 2002

Jimmy Thackery and Tab Benoit: "Whiskey Store"

The album "Whiskey Store" pairs up two guitar wizards, Jimmy Thackery and Tab Benoit, and lets the good times fly. The blues here is tough and uncompromising, but punches with sophistication and technique. It surpasses most recordings for its consistent rollicking energy and devotion to basic blues values...
MORE SPORTS
Dec 8, 2002

'El Nino' takes golfing world by storm

MIYAZAKI -- As a kid growing up, Sergio Garcia dreamed of being a soccer star for his beloved Real Madrid. With no disrespect to his potential soccer abilities, it is probably a good thing that he chose to become a professional golfer. Since turning pro in 1999, "El Nino" has taken the golfing world...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Dec 8, 2002

Swiftlets threatened by bowls of soup

Entering a Borneo emporium in 1922, American missionary Elizabeth Mershon noted that "many strange and evil-smelling articles greet the eye and the nose."
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 8, 2002

Take me back to the ball game

WE ARE NIPPON: The World Cup in Japan, by Simon Moran. S.U. Press, 2002, 190 pp., 1,500 yen (paper) As anyone who was here will undoubtedly recall, things got a little raucous in Japan and South Korea last summer. But hosting a World Cup will do that to a nation or, as in this case, two nations.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 7, 2002

Journeying back to tribal roots with eagle feather

Two years ago, after more than a decade in Japan, Shirley (Blackstar) Macdonald and her husband, Chris, decided it was time to go home. Now they run Eagle Feather Gallery in Victoria, British Columbia, with a magnificent cedar house in deep forest north of the city. A long way from working in Tokyo,...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Dec 7, 2002

NATO's Balkanization begins

MOSCOW -- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was established after World War II to protect Western Europe from a possible Soviet invasion. Once the Soviet empire crumbled, it was left without a purpose. In the euphoria of 1989-1991, it seemed that democracy and humanism had triumphed throughout Europe,...
EDITORIALS
Dec 6, 2002

Aceh on the brink of peace

At long last, there is an end in sight to the two decades of deadly conflict in Indonesia's separatist province of Aceh. The Indonesian government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri and the Free Aceh Movement, the guerrilla group established in 1976, are expected to sign a peace agreement in Geneva next...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Dec 6, 2002

Rice vinegar is key to the pause that refreshes

I must admit I have never been a huge fan of televised sports. Most holidays, growing up in the eastern United States, I was in the kitchen, either cooking or dispensing advice on food and otherwise.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan