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Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 25, 2004

Cashing in on ideas

Thomas Edison's electricity, Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, the Wright Brothers' creaky biplane, H.G. Wells' time machine (OK, that last one hasn't happened yet), but through these world-changing discoveries, our daily lives have been made easier. Flick a switch and light banishes the darkness, pick...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 25, 2004

Kabuki star in Fuji TV's "Tuesday Special" and more

On July 25, kabuki star Nakamura Kankuro will wrap up a historic weeklong run in New York City. Though Kankuro has performed in New York before, this time he brought his portable Heisei Nakamura-za theater and had it erected in the plaza of Lincoln Center.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 24, 2004

Rent-a-cats bring women love at first bite

It has long been said that for men, walking a dog is a good way to meet girls. I have to admit, I'm a sucker for a cute dog too. Whenever I see a dog, especially a black Labrador retriever, I run over and pet it, hug it, kiss it and tell it how beautiful it is. So walking a dog is a good way to meet...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / GARDEN PATHS
Jul 24, 2004

Down by the watersides

In the heat of summer we are naturally drawn to water, and for centuries water has been a vital element in Oriental gardens. In the ninth century, the Chinese poet Po-Chu-i (known as Hakurakuten in Japan) wrote about a small pond in his garden, and his words still evoke the timeless pleasures of the...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 24, 2004

Labor threatens golden FTA

SYDNEY -- Ah, such dilemmas in power politics. At last, after years of both sides giving concessions, Australia has gotten America to agree to a free trade agreement. And what does the Australian Labor Party do? Threaten to kill it before birth.
BUSINESS
Jul 23, 2004

Exports, imports hit record highs in first half

Japan's exports and imports hit record highs in the first half of 2004, underscoring solid growth in the Japanese and world economies, the Finance Ministry said Thursday.
COMMENTARY
Jul 23, 2004

Dream of wind power flags

LONDON -- Is Britain about to reverse its policy on civil nuclear power? Could the British policymakers be reluctantly coming to accept that while the official energy policy is to keep only one nuclear power station going after 2020 it may in practice be necessary to build some more in order to ensure...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jul 18, 2004

Candela rise above definitions of East and West

Japanese culture is famed for importing artistic forms and converting them to new patterns, but one local group of foreign musicians is trying to reverse that trend. Candela, a group of four American musicians with diverse musical backgrounds, creates jazz-based music with Japanese melodies; folk tunes...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 15, 2004

High-flying names a far cry from good old days

Like people elsewhere in the world, the Japanese have a fondness for the good old days. My great-grandfather's "good old days" were the 1920s, a time when there were public rose gardens in Hongo, with bushes imported directly from Kew Gardens in London. That was a time when rickshaws pulled up alongside...
EDITORIALS
Jul 5, 2004

A step in the right direction

Japan will soon express its willingness to become a party to the twin protocols of the four Geneva conventions that were approved in 1949 to protect war victims and prevent the kinds of abuses that had occurred during World War II. The supplementary protocol agreements, adopted in 1977, set humanitarian...
MORE SPORTS
Jul 5, 2004

Castrogiovanni scores hat trick of tries as Italy tops Japan 32-19

For such a religious nation it was perhaps appropriate that it needed a biblical figure to steal the show and help Italy defeat Japan 32-19 on Sunday on a scorching hot day at Toyko's Chichibunomiya Stadium.
EDITORIALS
Jul 4, 2004

The long and short of it

Here is another stereotype to discard: The world's tallest people are not Polynesian or Tutsi or even American. They are Dutch. Those lowlanders claimed the height title in 1999 and have kept it ever since, with the average Dutch male now topping the charts at a head-turning 185.4 cm.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jul 4, 2004

Seiichi Kanise: Media insider casts an outsider's eye on Japan

After 17 years' experience as a top-flight news reporter both at home and abroad, in 1991 Seiichi Kanise began a 10-year stint as a TV news anchorman. Then, after covering a wide range of news events, in 2003 he accepted an offer from the Tokyo-based Bunka Hoso (Nippon Cultural Broadcasting Inc.) radio...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 3, 2004

Tanimichi Sugita

His father gave Tanimichi Sugita more than his religion and his name. He gave him his life's theme. The devout father was the first to translate into Japanese the works of Cardinal Newman. For the family, the meaning of the name Tanimichi combined East and West. His mother, who painted holy pictures,...
MORE SPORTS
Jun 26, 2004

Murofushi to compete in Prague

Reigning world bronze medalist Koji Murofushi has agreed to compete in the men's hammer throw at the Prague International next week before wrapping up his U.S. training tour, athletics sources said Thursday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 23, 2004

Naughty and nice, sugar and spice

Shimotsuma Monogatari Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Tetsuya Nakashima Running time: 103 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Youth fashion in Japan used to march in lockstep from trend to trend, led by magazines with names like pandas...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Jun 23, 2004

Japan crowd overwhelms Jiga + Jinno; New releases spark summer's fire

Weeks of wonder culminated in a long moment of uncertainty when Jiga + Jinno of Analog Pussy took the stage back on April 9 at Cube326.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Jun 11, 2004

Simple visionary hastened Soviet collapse

MOSCOW -- Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who died last week after a long and dehumanizing struggle with Alzheimer's disease, will be remembered by most as one of the last great figures of the 20th century.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 9, 2004

Honey, honey, ah, sugar, sugar

Cutie Honey Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Director: Hideaki Anno Running time: 93 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Doesn't everybody need a break once in a while? The answer is evidently yes for Hideaki Anno, best known abroad for his meditative...
EDITORIALS
Jun 6, 2004

When slow is beautiful

A new book on an old theme, published last month, is slowly beginning to garner attention in the American and British media, although it has not yet made the best-seller lists. But that is probably just fine with the author, Carl Honore, a Canadian journalist based in London, because taking time is precisely...
COMMENTARY
Jun 5, 2004

Badawi: A kinder Mahathir?

KUALA LUMPUR -- Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi is proving to be a kinder, gentler, but no less candid, thoughtful and thought-provoking version of his mercurial predecessor.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 30, 2004

Shōchū: The spirit of the times

All it takes is a whiff and a sip of shōchū  to realize it is markedly different from the more common nihonshu (which Westerners call "sake," although in Japanese, sake is a catchall word for all alcoholic drinks).
EDITORIALS
May 30, 2004

Unsung heroism

The Abu Ghraib prison scandal, still far from over, has prompted a lot of reflection and a fair degree of consensus in the United States. Some, like U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, may quibble over whether the treatment meted out to Iraqi prisoners constituted "abuse" rather than "torture,"...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 27, 2004

Soaring soybean prices hurt tofu makers

A historic rise in soybean prices driven by soaring demand in China is dealing a heavy blow to Japanese makers of traditional staples such as tofu and soy sauce.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
May 27, 2004

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time," "Fergus Crane"

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time," Mark Haddon, Random House; 2003; 272 pp. You know from the first paragraph that this is no ordinary book.
COMMENTARY
May 27, 2004

What Asians tend to think of America

LOS ANGELES -- Asia -- home to something like 60 percent of the earth's people -- is a vast multitude of ethnicities, nationalities, religions and cultures.
BUSINESS
May 26, 2004

EU objects to Sony-BMG music merger

The European Commission has sent a statement to the music units of Japan's Sony Corp. and Germany's Bertelsmann AG, objecting to a proposed merger between the two units, a Sony official said Tuesday.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past