Search - history

 
 
LIFE / ALTERNATIVE LUXURIES
Dec 7, 2000

Traditions found anew

"It's only recently that the great mass of Indians have begun to feel that rising in the world and becoming rich was a good thing, a valuable thing," says Asha Amemiya.
LIFE / Travel
Dec 6, 2000

Sick of holding your breath? Suit up for the real diving deal

I could have kicked myself -- and I might have done had I not been wearing flippers.
COMMENTARY
Dec 4, 2000

Turning a blind eye to Chinese proliferation

NEW DELHI -- It speaks volumes that just when the United States determined that China was engaged in clandestine missile trade with Pakistan and, to a lesser extent, Iran, Washington announced that it was waiving a law requiring imposition of economic sanctions in such a situation. The unmistakable message...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 4, 2000

Ants find inheritance tax high

The maximum rate of inheritance tax in Japan is 70 percent, more than many people can afford to pay: If they inherit, they have to sell off land and property to pay the tax.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Dec 3, 2000

Chid Waller

Although Chid Waller says she waxes lyrical over the career she was following in England, she willingly gave it up to come to Tokyo. That was three years ago. During this time she has put her expertise at the disposal of several local organizations, giving them voluntarily the benefit of her effective...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 3, 2000

The cutting edge of sound and vision

For some, myself included, the U.K. Sound Design exhibition, held Nov. 23-27 at the Ground in Harajuku, was a stroll down memory lane. Organized by the British Council in Japan, the show assembled record sleeves from seminal British designers of the last 30 years. Seeing many old records that had made...
BUSINESS
Dec 1, 2000

Finance Ministry reveals 'mission'

The Finance Ministry published a position paper Thursday outlining its "mission" and "policy objectives" for the first time in its 131-year history, ahead of the government's major restructuring in January.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 1, 2000

Wooing rebels may calm Paradise Lost

NEW DELHI -- This year, there was an added significance in the sighting of the Ramadan moon, the new moon that marks the start of the holiest month on the Islamic calendar.
CULTURE / Music
Dec 1, 2000

In search of the turntable tingle

It made perfect sense for French beat-head Kid Loco to dedicate one of his albums to both Jimi Hendrix and Andrew Weatherall. In the techno scene, Weatherall dwells in just as lofty a realm as Hendrix does in the rock world.
LIFE / Travel
Nov 29, 2000

Pilgrimage to Chiba's stone daibutsu

KYONAN, Chiba Pref. -- Finding the perfect, companionable Buddha can become an obsession. Foreigners living in Asia are often struck by this calm, enlightened face; its features contrast sharply with the figures of Western religious art and their often contrived depictions of the ecstasy of Christian...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 28, 2000

Thunderstruck by the Asian ascent

THUNDER FROM THE EAST: Portrait of a Rising Asia, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, 377 pp., $27.50. This is a mediocre potboiler of scant significance. One suspects that these Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters for The New York Times know a great deal more about...
JAPAN / OBITUARY
Nov 27, 2000

Ex-Foreign Minister Zentaro Kosaka dies

Zentaro Kosaka, a conservative politician who worked for normalization of diplomatic relations with China and promoted rapprochement with the Soviet Union during the Cold War era, died of renal failure at his home in Tokyo's Ota Ward on Sunday afternoon, his family said. He was 88.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 27, 2000

Asia debates the merit of political debates

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- I don't want to add to the endless debate over the chances of the two U.S. presidential contenders. Rather, I want to focus on the debates and some possible corollaries for Asia.
MORE SPORTS
Nov 27, 2000

T.M. Opera O wins Japan Cup

International company failed to stop Japan's champion, as the record favorite T.M. Opera O bested the competition yet again, this time for his seventh race straight, with a neck win of the 20th running of the Japan Cup at Tokyo Racecourse on Sunday.
EDITORIALS
Nov 26, 2000

Emissaries with feet of clay

Sometimes there is nothing for it but to send out the troops. Doubtless frustrated by the slow pace of progress toward unification with its "renegade province" of Taiwan, China last week announced plans to do just that. A small force of soldiers, it said, is being prepared to cross the Formosa Strait...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Nov 26, 2000

Get ready for the Ichiro onslaught

Hold onto your hats. The contract agreement between the Seattle Mariners and Ichiro (Suzuki) promises to offer an exciting, fun time with a frenzied media circus, possible extra events, increased tourism and brisk souvenir sales, as the former Orix BlueWave outfielder and seven-time Pacific League batting...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Nov 26, 2000

Barry Duell

Last year Barry Duell published a book that he wrote in Japanese. This year he is putting it out in English. Its title indicates its unusual content: "The Other Potato: Sweet Potato in the U.S.A." Duell said that when he was considering the book he found few sources of information. "The biggest source...
CULTURE / Music
Nov 26, 2000

Looking up so tears won't fall

Tragedy crushes some people, twists and mangles them in ways from which they never recover. Others emerge stronger, as if all the pressure had fused to produce a diamond. Violin prodigy Diana Yukawa shows such sparkle.
COMMUNITY
Nov 26, 2000

Visual abstractions in old-fashioned language

Imagine the gentle good humor to be found in the name Michael England but being, say, Scottish. In fact England's mother is Irish and his father Welsh, so quite the national conundrum. "Do I think of myself as Gaelic? Only when drinking and dancing. First and foremost I'm a painter."
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 25, 2000

In Peru, the strong man takes his leave

LONDON -- Alejandro Toledo, the man who would have won the Peruvian election last spring if President Alberto Fujimori had not cheated at every stage of the process, got it exactly right: "Alberto Fujimori's government will be illegitimate, a source of permanent instability, and I don't think it can...
COMMENTARY
Nov 25, 2000

Can the system be salvaged?

LONDON -- Reading the accounts in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and the Financial Times of the shenanigans inside and outside the Japanese House of Representatives over the no-confidence motion against the Mori government, I could not help laughing, but I also felt despair about the future of parliamentary...
CULTURE / Art
Nov 25, 2000

Farewell to art world's jewel

Some five weeks from today, a few artists and friends will gather in the Sagacho Exhibit Space.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Nov 24, 2000

From the underground up

Ryoji, the charismatic frontman and mastermind behind skacore group Potshot, has the impossibly skinny, graceful physique of a true rock star. Think Mick Jagger in 1969 or Kurt Cobain 20 years later: the ugly duckling reborn through the grace of a power chord.
EDITORIALS
Nov 23, 2000

A less than gracious farewell

The Fujimori era is over. Peru's embattled president, Mr. Alberto Fujimori, has resigned after 10 tumultuous years in office. Mr. Fujimori leaves a mixed legacy. There were important accomplishments during his decade in power, but the price has been high. His successor inherits a divided country whose...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Nov 23, 2000

The man who never forgets a sake

Haruo Matsuzaki raises the small glass to his nose, sniffs for but a couple of seconds, and takes in a small sip. Slurping in a bit of air, he scribbles for a few seconds into his ever-present tiny notebook, finally expelling the sake into the spittoon next to the table. On to the next.
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Nov 22, 2000

One more time

www.allgore.com "This day in Gore history: 1978 -- Al and Tipper go roller skating at the Y." OK, so it's not easy to parody someone void of personality.
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2000

Village whittled down to just four elderly souls

ITAIBARA, Tottori Pref. -- The death of this village's sister looms large in the collective memory of its residents.
JAPAN
Nov 20, 2000

Clinton told U.S. must accept responsibility for Vietnam War

HO CHI MINH CITY -- Vietnamese Communist Party chief Le Kha Phieu told visiting U.S. President Bill Clinton on Saturday that the United States must bear a disproportionate share of responsibility for the Vietnam War and should act accordingly, Vietnamese state-run media reported Sunday.

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic