Search - information

 
 
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 23, 2000

New York-style soup bars offer tasty stock options

New York-style coffee and bagel shops have been on the scene for years now, but another Manhattan staple is just beginning to spill into Tokyo's streets: soup cafes.
COMMENTARY
Apr 3, 2000

Partial reform will not work

The Japanese-language version of "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations," by David Landes, professor emeritus of history and economics at Harvard University, has been published. The translator of the book, Keio University Professor Heizo Takenaka, notes that gaps are widening between winners and losers in...
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Apr 1, 2000

Music for both young and old

Tokyo boasts several quality professional and amateur Western-style orchestras, as my colleague Robert Ryker keeps reminding us. The elite music schools of the nation's capital turn out highly competent piano, string and woodwind players who are active around the world. American pop songs are heard and...
BUSINESS
Mar 31, 2000

Toyota, NTT Com to invest in stores' e-trade venture

Toyota Motor Corp. and NTT Communications Corp. (NTT Com.) said Thursday that they will invest in an e-commerce venture designed by five Japanese convenience store operators.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 23, 2000

Breaking down the doors of Japan's discriminatory press clubs

In May 1993, David Butts, then Tokyo bureau chief of Bloomberg Business News, was fed up. After years of unsuccessful efforts to penetrate Japan's press clubs through polite negotiation, the tall Texan chose a more direct approach. On the day annual company reports were released, Butts, with other foreign...
CULTURE / Music
Mar 18, 2000

Shakuhachi tips and tunes to welcome in the spring season

If you want to learn more about the shakuhachi and various performance techniques, observe a variety of instruments for sale and hear a selection of original pieces played by young performers, then I recommend the Senshu Kobo Sunday Clinic and Open Lesson.
BUSINESS
Mar 17, 2000

Bill to protect investors wins approval of LDP

The Finance Ministry on Thursday presented the ruling Liberal Democratic Party with a draft bill designed to protect investors in financial products, LDP officials said.
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 12, 2000

Worries balanced with hope in 'State of the World 2000'

Attempting to evaluate the state of our world is an absurdly complex task. Nevertheless, that is what the Worldwatch Institute has done every year since 1984, and has done once again this year with "The State of the World 2000."
JAPAN
Mar 3, 2000

Aum computer firm got list of 3,000 Honda execs

Aum Shinrikyo obtained a list of some 3,000 officials of Honda Motor Co. through a computer software company linked to the cult, the Metropolitan Police Department said Thursday.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Feb 23, 2000

Private eyes

On the Net and off, personal data is a currency, an entity that can be bought, sold, bartered and, yes, stolen. Ideally, this information connects companies with potential clients and consumers with products and services. Ads with the precision of surgical airstrikes are swell for advertisers, but on...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 27, 2000

Polishing off more perfection

It is finally beginning to get cold, which must bring a collective sigh of relief from sake brewers all over the country. The unseasonably warm temperatures of late are not good for brewing sake. Since just about now is when brewers dig in and begin to brew their best stuff, not enough cold could spoil...
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Jan 19, 2000

New opportunities

I have a letter from a 15-year-old girl in Germany. She has blue-gray eyes and dark blond hair. She speaks English, French and German. She tells me of her school and her hobbies. She has a cat called Blacky. She is looking for pen-friends in Japan.
COMMENTARY
Jan 9, 2000

Doomsayers have it wrong

LONDON -- Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, is a deeply spiritual and thoughtful man. Again and again he brings us back to the really central question of our times -- central in all societies and all religions, and becoming more so in a globalized age. What now binds us together?...
JAPAN
Dec 21, 1999

Jury system for criminal trials urged

Second of three partsStaff writer Lawyers and other experts are calling for introduction of a jury system for criminal trials, arguing that it would change not only the makeup of the bench, which is exclusively run by legal professionals, but also the Japanese mind-set. "If the system is successfully...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Dec 5, 1999

New entry

I have long relationships with some of my readers. One contacted me first with a challenging project -- teaching her cat to use a scratch post -- and moved on through a wedding at a shrine and later a divorce, and finally the establishment of her own business. We have never met but we are friends so...
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Dec 4, 1999

Innovative star takes the stage

Those who appreciate the finest koto and shamisen music will be familiar with the name of Satomi Fukami. Fukami is considered to be one of the most innovative of all mid-career hogaku performers. She developed a highly disciplined style based on classics combined with a modern sensibility. This enables...
JAPAN
Nov 20, 1999

Hitachi plans info-systems investment

Hitachi Ltd. announced Friday it will invest 300 billion yen in the next two years to strengthen its foothold in the fast-growing information systems business.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 1999

HP gears up for aggressive Japan campaign

Consumers and business partners in Japan will become increasingly important in the next century for Hewlett Packard Co. to expand its share in the information technology market, Carly Fiorina, new president and chief executive officer of the firm, told reporters Tuesday.
JAPAN
Nov 1, 1999

Child pornographers vanish as law takes effect

Staff writer
JAPAN
Oct 28, 1999

Short-sighted policy hinders disabled voters

Staff writer
JAPAN
Sep 30, 1999

Y2K info on yearend flights on ministry Web site

The Transport Ministry today will begin posting information on foreign countries' Y2K preparations for New Year's flights on its Web site, amid high expectations of computer problems during the annual changeover.
JAPAN
Sep 28, 1999

Asian Y2K experts conclude confab with vigilance vow

Asian policy coordinators for the Y2K problem concluded their two-day meeting Tuesday in Tokyo with a pledge to continue efforts to accelerate their preparations for contingencies that the millennium glitch might trigger at the turn of the century.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Sep 19, 1999

Encounters

Recently I had a minor automobile accident. How often have you seen drivers discussing their accident with the police and felt great sympathy for the participants, who were obviously going to be there for a very long time. This time one of the participants was me, and I was, even though the damage was...
EDITORIALS
Sep 4, 1999

Business embraces the bit

The business of doing business underwent a radical transformation this week. First, Sun Microsystems announced that it would offer some of its critical business software free over the Internet. Responding to the challenge, Microsoft Corp. two days later revealed that it would offer its own top-selling...
JAPAN
Sep 2, 1999

Low-dose birth control pill makes debut

Staff writer
JAPAN
Aug 12, 1999

Wiretapping, numbering bills clear Diet in all-night session

In a marathon, 28-hour plenary session, the Upper House on Thursday approved two controversial bills -- one to authorize wiretapping in organized crime investigations and another to have each citizen numbered for administrative purposes.
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Aug 12, 1999

Nihonshu's sweet spectrum

Perhaps the best way to buy sake is to have tasted enough to know exactly what you are looking for, and find that label. Advice and recommendations go a long way too. But we all need to foray into the unknown and try new things at times.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 15, 1999

Free of corporate connections, Kinyobi targets toxic offenders

As a buzzword, "dioxin" has quickly come to represent all that's wrong with Japan's mish-mash of contradictory and ineffective environmental policies.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jul 9, 1999

'Showa 64' puts reverse spin on club scene

With his goatee and finely pointed ears, James Vyner has a puckish quality that makes it difficult to imagine him, bewigged, in Her Majesty's court. In an alternative life, yes, Vyner was a barrister.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Jun 19, 1999

From court to village across the centuries

During the upcoming early summer weeks, one can experience a wide variety of fine hogaku concerts, including sublime gagaku court music, a lively group of kagura performers from Iwate Prefecture, contemporary koto music played by several fine young women performers, a large-scale biwa presentation and...

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.