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Oct 6, 2000

Penguins, Predators ready to drop puck

The National Hockey League makes its third regular-season appearance in Japan this weekend as the Pittsburgh Penguins and Nashville Predators square off for a two-game series Saturday and Sunday at the new Saitama Super Arena in Omiya.
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
Oct 5, 2000

The power of St. John's wort: A herb to make you happy

In these days of miracle medication for nearly any psychological complaint, the botanical alternatives are getting a lot of attention. There have been happiness remedies around for millennia, of course; as with most botanical treatments, the knowledge is ancient.
LIFE / ALTERNATIVE LUXURIES
Oct 5, 2000

A dance of color, space and line

"Sometimes just to touch the ground is enough for me," says Wakako Oe with all the warmth of her plenteous years, "even if not a single plant grows in the garden."
LIFE / Travel
Oct 4, 2000

On the track of buried treasure

George Braseros is certain there is gold buried in the jungles of Mindanao. He is so sure it is there, just waiting to be dug up, that he has sunk a small fortune of his own into searching for it. And he knows other men have died for it.
LIFE / Travel
Oct 4, 2000

Close-up and personal with Peak District scenery

On Friday morning I was a point, press and hope-to-get-a-good-one sort of photographer; by Sunday evening I knew the raison d'e^tre of an f-stop and could talk solarization, ambient lighting and reversals.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2000

A real German lesson for the two Koreas

SEOUL -- In one of numerous books dealing with unification matters, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung refers to his meetings with leading German politicians in the early part of the 1990s. According to Kim's account, the German politicians told him, "You are fortunate because you can analyze all the...
COMMENTARY
Oct 2, 2000

Is drug-price cure worse than the disease?

WASHINGTON -- Election years in the United States are good for political consultants but bad for everyone else. Especially the average citizen who bears the brunt of Washington-style "reform."
EDITORIALS
Oct 1, 2000

Life after the Olympics

What do we do now with our evenings and weekends? For two happy, mindless weeks, we have flopped down in front of the TV any spare minute we had, just to get our daily fix of the big show going on in Sydney. Cynicism, the pre-Games attitude du jour, went out the window the second the teams entered the...
OLYMPICS
Oct 1, 2000

Takahashi still gracious after win

SYDNEY -- The strong performance of Japanese women to claim 13 of the 18 medals that the nation has won at the Sydney Olympics reflects women's growing independence in society, women's marathon gold medalist Naoko Takahashi said Saturday.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 1, 2000

Stringing a line through fashion and art

The 21st century in Tokyo is seeing a great migration of disciplines from one sphere into another. Fashion designers are collaborating with artists and exhibiting in galleries. Artists are collaborating with designers and exhibiting in shops.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 1, 2000

Van Gogh, up close and personal

There is a rapid sketch by Vincent van Gogh of a sunny square in the south of France where a man is waiting expectantly by an open door. In the distance, a steam train is arriving, puffing smoke into the sky. It is just a simple drawing of a corner of Arles in 1888. But when we realize that the man is...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 30, 2000

Thomas Wolfe: 20th-century America's warped looking glass

"No one has ever written any books about America -- I mean the real America," he wrote to a friend in 1931.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 30, 2000

Korean folk traditions come alive on porcelain

Folk art motifs on the painted plates of Kim So Sun In our contemporary world, where art is commissioned for anything from airplanes to automobiles, the transposition of 17th-century Korean folk art to modern porcelain dishes should not prove too surprising. In a wonderful burst of innovation, artistKim...
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 30, 2000

Puppetry for the people

In Western countries puppetry is a form of entertainment aimed at children. From Punch and Judy to the Muppets, Western puppet theater has been small scale, emphasizing broad, slapstick humor and simple, if any, plots.
JAPAN
Sep 29, 2000

UNSC must change before Japan, Germany join

OSAKA -- The U.N. Security Council is not adequately dealing with global problems, according to former German President Richard von Weizsaecker, and the entry of Japan and Germany into the body as permanent members should only take place after major U.N. reforms.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Sep 29, 2000

'Those Parisian guys' way out west

Japanese music aficionados have a knack of tuning into the musical zeitgeist. Post-rock, Brit-pop and grunge all had substantial audiences in Japan before the rest of the world caught up.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 28, 2000

Japan's nonprofits carve out a space of their own

When the Nature Conservancy's Lori Forman addressed the College Women's Association of Japan at a luncheon earlier this year, the topic was supposed to be nongovernmental organizations in Japan. But instead of providing a nuanced description of Japan's not-for-profit movement, Forman seemed more interested...
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Sep 28, 2000

Trendy slurping in Azabu-Juban

All things must pass -- especially, it seems, the good stuff. So a final farewell, then, to the old Azabu-Juban we used to know and love, with its funky, friendly mom 'n' pop stores, cheap nomiya and overpriced wine bars, and its faintly musty smells of onsen and kimchi.
LIFE / Travel
Sep 27, 2000

A surprise of size in Bruges

BRUGES, Belgium -- For a small city, many things are surprisingly big in Bruges.
LIFE / Travel
Sep 27, 2000

Mysteries and majesties of Mount Hiko

The Mount Hiko region has long been an important training ground for yamabushi, itinerant Buddhist monks. Today, other pilgrims on quests of naturalism, heroism or masochism join the white-clad mountain mystics climbing the steep, forested flanks of 1,200-meter Mount Hiko.
LIFE / Travel
Sep 27, 2000

Japanese scientists question mineral-accretion technique

A Japanese researcher who conducted a project in Okinawa to explore the effectiveness of growing reefs via mineral accretion in 1989, says he remains unsure of the effectiveness of the technique.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Sep 27, 2000

Old memo presages present struggles

Japan wasn't an "unprovoked aggressor" in the 1930s. China and the United States were to a considerable extent responsible for a sequence of events that led to Japan's actions in Manchuria and, to a lesser degree, in China.
EDITORIALS
Sep 26, 2000

More facts, less politics, on education

At first glance, the interim report from the National Commission on Educational Reform, an advisory panel of the prime minister, appears cautious about revising the 1947 Fundamental Law on Education. In marked contrast to an earlier subcommittee report that explicitly supported a revision, the panel's...
CULTURE / Music
Sep 26, 2000

Aussie singer-songwriter finds an authentic musical voice

"I must admit the music I do is a bit daggy," says Tokyo-based singer-songwriter Donna Burke with a laugh, rejecting any slick, "groovy" image in favor of the old-fashioned, down-to-earth comfort the colloquial Australian term implies.
OLYMPICS
Sep 26, 2000

Observers stunned by Takahashi's feat

SYDNEY -- The Olympic host nation has taken a break from self-aggrandizement to applaud Naoko Takahashi for raising the standard for all marathons to come with her record-breaking time in the women's marathon Sunday.
COMMENTARY
Sep 25, 2000

Weak unions, weak economy

The collapse of the department store operator Sogo Co. came as a shock to Japan's recovering economy. Even more shocking are reports that the company's union leader has been fired for disrupting "order" in the organization.
EDITORIALS
Sep 24, 2000

A feminist ties the knot

A lot of fun has been had this month at the expense of longtime American feminist icon Gloria Steinem. After decades of pointing out the drawbacks of marriage, the 66-year-old Ms. Steinem recently surprised and titillated the world by going off and getting married.
CULTURE / Music
Sep 24, 2000

Grand old men give grand concerts

Hiroshi Wakasugi, 65, recently conducted a presentation of Benjamin Britten's opera "A Midsummer Night's Dream," sumptuously staged by the Nikikai Opera. Hiroyuki Iwaki, 68, recently conducted Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa in a brilliant program opening with a clever arrangement by Yuzo Toyama, 69, of...
CULTURE / Art
Sep 24, 2000

Impressions made in paper take form

When the semioticist Roland Barthes came to Japan, he decided to do what many foreigners do, which is to base his impressions of Japan on exactly that, his impressions. His book "The Empire of Signs" is ostensibly about Japan, but the author acknowledged (with no shame) that it actually was a collection...

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji