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LIFE / Travel
Oct 9, 1999

Beijing throws new light on Silk Roads

BEIJING -- As China celebrates the 50th anniversary of communist society and evolves toward a more prosperous future, it is once again recognizing the value of its rich past.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 9, 1999

China's canny strategy in East Timor

China supported the U.N. Security Council resolution clearing the way for the deployment of an International Force for East Timor and also offered to send a civilian police contingent to be part of the U.N. peacemaking operation. Given China's advocacy of the principle of noninterference in internal...
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Oct 9, 1999

Different stokes for Iowan folks

I never thought my interest in Japanese pottery would lead me to Iowa.
CULTURE / Music
Oct 8, 1999

Have no fear, the real Soul Train has arrived

So what's up! It's been a little while since I had a chance to talk to my Tokyo soulmates. But have no fear, I am still here.
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
Oct 7, 1999

Need a new millennium look? Try going over-the-top glam

The world of fashion is one of the best places to search for signs of millennial spirit. If you look at what designers are creating for 2000, you'll find an overall atmosphere where everything is over the top, pushed to the outer edges and carried to astonishing extremes, from which there are several...
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Oct 6, 1999

Nature nurtured by the Dead Sea

"There is nothing, absolutely nothing alive in this sea; neither fish nor algae nor molluscs, only rocks and salt, candid saline formations that rise from the water like ghostly coral."
LIFE / Travel
Oct 6, 1999

Fall in Kyushu unique after all

AKIZUKI, Fukuoka Pref. -- "Japan," I am frequently informed, with looks of grave importance, "has four seasons." I always wonder if I should feign amazement at this fact, or be silly and ask whether this is because Japan is an island country and all foreigners hate natto. But I can never be told enough...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Oct 6, 1999

International outlook

There are a lot of people who would like to get out and see Japan, but often it seems the cost outweigh the experience. Now U.S. citizens can avoid this dilemma, thanks to a wide-ranging exchange program based on one of the first Japan-American cultural exchange projects. It dates back to 1841 when Nakahama...
CULTURE / Art
Oct 2, 1999

The duality of light and shadow at the crossing of diverging roads

At first glance, the photographs of Ralph Gibson and those of Robert Mapplethorpe appear to have little in common. Gibson (b. 1939) is a graduate of the school of "straight photography" (the term applies to a classic approach, not one's sexual orientation, although further differences between the two...
JAPAN
Sep 30, 1999

Chinese students embrace lessons of Japanese advertising

Staff writer
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 30, 1999

Washington consensus cracks, but what is next?

WASHINGTON -- Is the so-called Washington consensus coming to an end?
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Sep 23, 1999

Osaka still has reasons to be proud of its brewing culture

Osaka has long been a great center of commerce and activity, but likely doesn't stand out as a major brewing center in the minds of most people. True, it has never been nearly as significant as its Kansai cousins -- Kyoto, Hyogo and Nara -- but the sake brewing culture was, and still is, strong there....
LIFE / Travel
Sep 22, 1999

Good things come in Iki packages

Iki Island, administratively part of Nagasaki Prefecture but located in the straits between Fukuoka and Korea, has some of the finest white sand beaches in Kyushu.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 21, 1999

Get ready for the second nuclear age

FIRE IN THE EAST: The Rise of Asian Military Power and the Second Nuclear Age, by Paul Bracken. HarperCollins, 1999, 186 pp., $25 (cloth). The last two years have upset a lot of strategic certainties. Rather than moving toward nuclear disarmament, the nuclear club has expanded as India and Pakistan exploded...
JAPAN
Sep 20, 1999

Fashion followers scoff at danger of super-high soles

Staff writer
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 17, 1999

Ten reasons why English is an evil language

English is an evil language. If it wasn't, all Japanese people would speak fluent English upon graduating high school. After all, seven years of English study should be enough.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Sep 17, 1999

Chari Chari's evergreen sound

The term legend is often used lightly in music journalism. Kaoru Inoue, known as Chari Chari, is one of the few Tokyo DJs who could reasonably be called legendary.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Sep 15, 1999

Opportunities

Today is Respect for the Aged Day. Once Japan was criticized for not having enough holidays. Now, with New Year's for winter celebrants, O-bon in the summer, Golden Week in the spring and an assortment of traditional and recently created special days in between (with Mondays off if they fall on Sunday),...
JAPAN
Sep 14, 1999

Japan, China consider upgrading security forum

Staff writer
JAPAN
Sep 13, 1999

Work starts on contentious Kobe airport

KOBE -- Nearly 30 years after it was first proposed, construction of the controversial Kobe airport officially began Monday morning off Port Island amid protests and doubts about its economic feasibility.
EDITORIALS
Sep 11, 1999

Lost along the Third Way

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has pledged to remake his Social Democratic Party along the lines of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's "new" Labor Party. Those plans suffered a rude setback last weekend when the SPD lost two state elections to its conservative rival, the Christian Democratic Union....
EDITORIALS
Sep 8, 1999

Deja vu in the Middle East

For what was supposed to be a new era for the Middle East, the recent rituals have been all too familiar. As the deadline for another peace agreement approached, negotiations ground to a halt. The Israeli prime minister dug in his heels as his Palestinian counterpart made last-minute demands and shifted...
JAPAN
Sep 8, 1999

Ishihara holds shindig to tackle school lunches

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara met with a group of celebrities and private-sector executives on Wednesday in an unstructured get-together where a new idea to help pare the budget came up -- doing away with school lunches.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Sep 5, 1999

Late returns

A reader remembers a column about Gen. Douglas MacArthur's office in the Dai-Ichi Insurance building. It was ideally situated for the role he was to play -- it overlooked the Imperial Palace. He established his own imperial pre-eminence when the Chinese carpet he always used in his office was delivered:...
JAPAN
Sep 3, 1999

Lawyer challenges Japan to reveal WWII labor details

A California-based lawyer on Friday urged the Japanese government and Japanese companies to disclose wartime documents that would expose facts about the forced labor of American prisoners of war in Japan during World War II.
JAPAN
Sep 3, 1999

Fix conscience with Article 9: Hatoyama

Japan should send a clear message of soul-searching over the war it waged with Asia when it reviews the Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9, said Yukio Hatoyama, deputy secretary general of the Democratic Party of Japan, on Friday.
EDITORIALS
Sep 2, 1999

Another stab at peace in Congo

One month after six of the seven parties fighting in the Congo signed a peace agreement, the remaining holdout has joined the ceasefire. Peace is desperately needed in the long-suffering nation, impoverished by decades of looting by former strongman Mobutu Sese Seko and then wracked by civil war after...
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Sep 1, 1999

Walking into the millennial sunrise

If you still haven't made up your mind about where you're going to be come sunrise of the year 2000, here's one to contemplate. How about Barrow, Alaska followed by a leisurely stroll 14 km to Point Barrow at the utmost north of the Americas?
LIFE / Travel
Sep 1, 1999

Eyes wide shut in North Korea

It's late afternoon in Beijing. Beside a gloomy, concrete platform an antiquated train lumbers into place. In the dim light, people scurry about looking for the right car. This is, in fact, important. The first four carriages are bound for Dandong, a small Chinese border town, but the last two will continue...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Sep 1, 1999

The water is wide, I cannot get o'er

The mammals of the Nansei Shoto may be inconspicuous and difficult to observe, but their distribution, and the relationships between the different species and populations in these islands, provides insight into the past history of the archipelago. This interesting mixture of animals has links in the...

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