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COMMUNITY
Mar 31, 2002

War of the words

Ah, Nihongo. Of all foreign languages, this is the one that keeps you on your toes. An Occidental beginner might suspect that the Japanese did it on purpose -- sowed their language with mines and pitfalls to thwart non-native penetration. To 16th-century European missionaries, Japanese was the devil's...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 27, 2002

Explosive issues dominate Arab summit

BEIRUT -- Arab summits may deal with any matter of common concern to the 22 member states of the "Arab Nation." The matter may be "ordinary" or "emergency," but in practice the more or less permanent emergency of Palestine has furnished 90 percent of their resolutions. Only occasionally have other issues...
COMMENTARY
Mar 25, 2002

Koizumi takes aim at collusion

The scandals involving two Liberal Democratic Party bigwigs -- former LDP Secretary General Koichi Kato and former Hokkaido and Okinawa Development Agency Director General Muneo Suzuki -- are a reminder of the cozy ties that bind LDP politicians, bureaucrats and businesses.
COMMENTARY
Mar 24, 2002

Struggling for freedom against the odds

HAVANA -- Inside Avenida 21, number 3014, a nondescript house in a Havana suburb, lives dissident Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz. Despite Cuba's greater engagement with the world over the last decade, "political repression has been increasing," says Sanchez.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Mar 24, 2002

Yankee chicken, go home!

"Down with President Bush's thighs!" says Moscow. "We've eaten enough of them and they're no good. We're not going to cook them again."
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 24, 2002

Helmsdale: A spot of haggis and ale, lads?

Helmsdale is not so much a pub as a shrine to the "water of life," known to the ancient Gaelic peoples as uisge beatha and to their modern-day descendants as whisky. Almost every inch of space is devoted to it, from the groaning shelves of classic single malts arrayed behind the counter to the empty...
CULTURE / Books
Mar 24, 2002

Shimoda sounds a literary lament

SAN FRANCISCO -- A foreigner in Japan is an outsider by default, a fact foreign residents have lamented for centuries in what is now a ritualized barstool grievance: "I've lived here for so long, learned the language, love my natto, but still . . . "
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 23, 2002

Personal agenda with Taisho feminist literature

Woken earlier in the day, Anne Sokolsky was so sleepy she assumed me to be a Japanese woman speaking bad English rather than the other way around. A rocky start dispelled by the wide-awake vivacity with which she approached me at Tokyo's Yotsuya Station midafternoon.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Mar 23, 2002

Gods and sea monsters: culture quiz

It's time for another Japanese culture quiz!
SOCCER / World cup
Mar 22, 2002

Japan stifles Ukraine

OSAKA -- Japan's first match of this World Cup year ended in success on Thursday as it beat Ukraine 1-0 at Nagai Stadium in Osaka.
LIFE / Language
Mar 22, 2002

The boy who's been everywhere

Over the last 73 years, this boy's been everywhere. He's zoomed to the moon in a red-and-white checkered rocket, trekked snow-covered Tibet in search of the yeti and has been saved at the last minute from being sacrificed to the Sun God by angry Aztecs. For all his hair-raising adventures, he hasn't...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mar 21, 2002

Fundamentals of good education

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been the most vocal of European leaders in his attacks on fundamentalism, but it seems that only Islamic forms of fundamentalism are worthy targets. Christian fundamentalism -- which teaches that the world is only a few thousand years old and was made in seven days...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 20, 2002

Zazen and the art of playwriting

This month, the Kabukiza Theater in Tokyo is presenting two programs of kabuki plays and dance numbers starring such leading actors as Koshiro Matsumoto, Nizaemon Kataoka, Mitsugoro Bando and Sadanji Ichikawa, as well as the female-role specialists Tamasaburo Bando and Tokizo Nakamura.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Mar 20, 2002

Come back, come back wherever you were . . .

As part of its continuing effort to promote J-pop overseas, Sony last week released an album in the United States titled "Japan for Sale 2," which is a great all-around introduction to Japanese music.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Mar 20, 2002

Kasey Chambers: 'Barricades & Brickwalls'

Home may be where the heart is, but sometimes the voice comes from somewhere else. Whether it's Mick Jagger's Mississippi drawl or Billy Joe Armstrong's cockney pretensions, pop singers adopt accents because that's the way they imagine one sings a particular style of music. It doesn't matter that Jagger...
COMMENTARY
Mar 19, 2002

Class struggle joins Marx in the dustbin

HONG KONG -- Last Wednesday, a top official declared that, as a result of the market economy, "people's jobs and status keep changing" in China today, and there are "differences and contradictions between communities, between industries and between regions." These remarks by Li Ruihuan, China's fourth-ranking...
BUSINESS
Mar 19, 2002

Wal-Mart spells chaos for already shaken industry

The entry into Japan of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of the United States, the world's largest retailer, will throw the industry into chaos as it struggles for survival amid the deepening recession.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 18, 2002

Free trade carries a price

WASHINGTON -- U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to impose tariffs on steel imports into the United States has been decried as a politically motivated and economically ruinous move that marks the end of free trade and initiates a battle in the World Trade Organization.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Mar 18, 2002

'Gerontocrat' academicians with myopia

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- After Harvard Professor Ezra Vogel's famous book "Japan as Number One" appeared in 1979, the West experienced a "learning from Japan" boom. I fully participated in this movement in both of its manifestations: publications, seminars etc., and the establishment of university Japanese...
SOCCER / World cup / EXCERPTS FROM PHILIPPE TROUSSIER'S BOOK
Mar 18, 2002

Leading my troops into battle

"Passion" is the story of Japan soccer team coach Philippe Troussier, his struggle to make it as a player and manager and his travels around France, Africa and Japan. In the book, Troussier also details his philosophy and thinking as he prepares for the World Cup in June.The book has been published...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 17, 2002

The Imperial family: celebrities or deities?

At a press conference to mark his 68th birthday last December, Emperor Akihito surprised reporters by saying that he felt a strong "kinship" with Korea.
COMMUNITY
Mar 17, 2002

Twelve heavenly stories of wonder

On a visit to Yokohama's "Theater Street" (Isezakicho) in the early 1890s, Henry Finck, the music critic of the New York Evening Post from 1881-1924, watched "the wonders of electric light, telephone, [and] phonograph . . . [demonstrated] to gaping natives."
LIFE / Language / FOR KIDS
Mar 15, 2002

Join the global St. Patrick's Day party

How would you like to spend Sunday afternoon dancing jigs to Irish pipes? Or marching with a group of baton-twirling cheerleaders? Or making friends with leprechauns?
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 14, 2002

Premier raises peace hopes in Sri Lanka

There is now hope, however faint, of peace in Sri Lanka after almost two decades of bloody ethnic conflict between the majority Buddhist Sinhalas and the minority Tamils, who are fighting for a separate homeland in the northern and eastern parts of the small island.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 13, 2002

What names, things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me

William Shakespeare
BUSINESS
Mar 13, 2002

Banks told not to lower efforts

Banks should not become lax in their efforts to dispose of nonperforming loans, despite speculation that the risk of a financial crisis occurring this month has receded, Financial Services Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY
Mar 12, 2002

Asia changed little by 9-11

HONOLULU -- While the way Americans look at the world may have fundamentally changed since Sept. 11, the basic Asian issues confronting U.S. decision-makers remain largely unchanged. A look at regional concerns shows more similarities than differences to those that existed before Sept. 11.
EDITORIALS
Mar 10, 2002

Filling the void in Manhattan

While he was in Washington last weekend to pick up this year's gold medal from the American Institute of Architects, Mr. Tadao Ando jumped into the debate about what should replace New York's World Trade Center towers. According to the celebrated Japanese architect, this is not a moment for celebrity...
COMMUNITY
Mar 10, 2002

The state of trance

Trance: It has seeped deep into this city's ambience. Aside from the clubs, where you'll likely find four or five trance events every weekend, and the massive summertime outdoor festivals, it's always in the air, and unmistakable. Wander into any Roppongi watering hole or strip club; pop into any funky...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 10, 2002

Caught between two parallel worlds: growing up under the Raj

OUT OF INDIA: A Raj Childhood, by Michael Foss. London: Michael O'Mara Books, 2001, 181 pp., xC820 (cloth) The Raj began in 1818 when the Rajput states of central and northern India and much else of the country came under British "protection," an occupation that ended only in 1948. Many accounts exist...

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