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LIFE / Travel
May 10, 2000

Postcards from the flip side of Japan

Think of the antithesis of Japan. A place where there are few people, an abundance of unspoiled natural beauty, a low standard of living and, perhaps most importantly for the visitor, sparkling blue oceans teeming with fish and alive with coral reefs.
CULTURE / Stage
May 10, 2000

Kee Company explores facets of communication

If we could see language, if language relied on visual instead of aural means, it would become a kind of communication closely resembling telepathy: a fusion of the observer with the observed.
COMMENTARY / World
May 10, 2000

Modest hopes for summit between Koreas

Last month, the leaders of North and South Korea stunned the world with an announcement of plans to meet in Pyongyang in June at the first ever summit between the two nations. It is an event fraught with both danger and opportunity.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 9, 2000

Kafu's sure but fleeting touch

AMERICAN STORIES, by Nagai Kafu. Translated and with an introduction by Mitsuko Iriye. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, 240 pp., unpriced. In 1903, the young man who was to become one of Japan's finest writers left for the United States. He did not particularly want to go -- he would have...
CULTURE / Books
May 9, 2000

Testing times for Japan-U.S. alliance

ALLIANCE ADRIFT, by Yoichi Funabashi. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1999, 501 pp., $49.95 (cloth). The jacket of this hefty chronicle of the recent history of Japan-U.S. security relations proclaims that Japan has found its Bob Woodward. Consider yourself warned.
BUSINESS
May 8, 2000

E-commerce tax under construction

PARIS -- Talk about the information technology revolution is everywhere. Electronic commerce is taking off, financial institutions are trading online, and schools are holding class on the Internet.
CULTURE / Art
May 7, 2000

Of statues and men -- the fourth plinth problem

LONDON -- Trafalgar Square is all things to all people. For out-of-towners and tourists, it is where you have your photograph taken with the National Gallery and the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields as a backdrop, or of you feeding the pigeons or climbing Sir Edwin Landseer's lions. Four of them...
BUSINESS
May 5, 2000

Bluetooth wants bite of mobile market

Portable computers' claim to fame is that they allow you to access and send information anytime and anywhere. But what if you leave a cable at home or bring the wrong one on a business trip?
CULTURE / Art
May 5, 2000

Swimming 'Sea Monkeys' and rolling digital mice

Sometimes you just get lucky. That, better than anything else, works for me as the reason why the unfocused, gadget-dependent and low-tech exhibition "New Media New Face/New York" manages, against the odds, to end up being a fairly good show.
CULTURE / Music
May 5, 2000

Santana keeps the flame -- with a little help from friends

Eric Clapton's appearance halfway through Carlos Santana's April 28 concert at the Budokan, the last date on his recent Japan tour, was unexpected but, in hindsight, not surprising.
JAPAN
May 4, 2000

Bureaucracy had large role in political power play

Kyodo News On the night of April 2, when then Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi suffered a stroke and fell into a coma, Teijiro Furukawa was one of the few people immediately informed, and he promptly busied himself arranging for a smooth transfer of power.
LIFE / ALTERNATIVE LUXURIES
May 4, 2000

Threads of culture weave picture of a wider world

One of the great paradoxes of world travel (especially that which is slow and makes intimate contact with the peoples of other lands) is that the traveler returns with a greater appreciation of what is valuable and troubled in her own native land. Talking with fabric artist and mother Keiko Haraguchi,...
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
May 4, 2000

How to hang on to luscious locks

Rakugami, kuzume: When you're happy, your hair grows; / when sad, your fingernails -- Japanese proverb
BUSINESS
May 3, 2000

Nicaragua to get more ODA after leader's visit

Japan and Nicaragua will agree next week to conclude a treaty aimed at facilitating Japanese technical cooperation to help the impoverished Latin American country rebuild its economy, government sources said Tuesday.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
May 2, 2000

Punkers united will never be divided

It's three in the morning at the livehouse Gig-Antic in Shibuya and as the girl band launches into the first song a skinhead leaps on stage, screams "Manchester United" into a mike and dives headfirst into the mosh pit. He's caught by a studded-leather-clad kid with a yellow mohawk, a skate-punk in baggy...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 29, 2000

Mission to preserve and protect

Official art criticism has a long history in Japan. The Heian Imperial Court and the Muromachi and Tokugawa shogunates all had staffs of experts to classify, authenticate and evaluate works of art. Many famous artists doubled in this capacity, and not a few emperors and shoguns were known for their critical...
EDITORIALS
Apr 28, 2000

The fight over Elian

It is a very long way from Japan to Miami, both physically and psychologically. For that reason, the brouhaha over little Elian Gonzalez that engulfed the United States this week has been a bit mystifying to people here. And yet perhaps distance lends a useful perspective.
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Apr 27, 2000

Nigorizake puts the fun back in sake drinking

It is all too easy to get all too serious about sake all too often. Ginjo this and ginjo that, highly polished rice, double-secret yeast, fancy fragrance, full palate, clean finish, yada yada yada. Sake in the end should be fun, and nothing reminds us of this better than nigorizake.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Apr 27, 2000

The Curse of Colonel Sanders

Back in 1985, Hanshin fans were giddy with joy when their Tigers secured the Central League pennant and then went on to capture the Japan Series. The standard canal-jumping scene took a new twist when a plastic Colonel Sanders mannequin was tossed into the Dotonbori Canal in downtown Osaka.
CULTURE / Art
Apr 26, 2000

The home of Japanese porcelain

Arita is a fine spot for porcelain pots -- and cups, vases, buttons, wall sockets and even denture-holders. Need a cartwheel-sized ashtray (useful at Japanese banquets), or a 1.8-meter-high urn to brighten up a castle somewhere? You'll find them in all shapes, sizes and colors in this peaceful town,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 25, 2000

Marco Polo's fantastic truths

MARCO POLO AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE WORLD, by John Larner. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999, 250 pp., with plates (14) and maps, unpriced. In 1271, a mere 17 years old, Marco Polo left Venice in company with his uncle and several other merchants. Twenty-four years later, in 1295, he returned,...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2000

Mongolian state faces its horrific past

ULAN BATOR -- G. Tserendulam remembers the year Josef Stalin detained her father and his family during a trip to Moscow and sent them to the Soviet Union's Black Sea. It was 1936, and the pro-Soviet government of Mongolia told the people that Prime Minister Genden had felt the urgent need for a holiday....
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2000

NPT facing uncertain future

NEW DELHI -- When the complete history of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty gets written, its 1995 permanent extension will prove the beginning of its end. Although all nations of the world except four are today party to it, the NPT is in trouble, its future uncertain. From Japan to New Zealand, and...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Apr 23, 2000

Japan as No. 1 (in being bullied by U.S.)

With a refreshing bit of journalistic acuity, the USA Today reporter James Cox has reminded me how bizarre the U.S. attitude toward Japan has become. Under the headline, "U.S. bullies Japan like no other nation," Cox noted the astonishing extent of U.S. high-handed meddlesomeness with Japan, suggesting...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Apr 23, 2000

On to Hawaii -- maybe

It is not surprising that I often become quite involved with readers and their problems. Take June Wong, who grew up in Hawaii but had to come to Japan to learn the hula. She was impressed by a group of Japanese women dancers and joined them. "I love my teacher and every one of my hula sisters," she...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 22, 2000

Myriad layers emerge in Matsue's macrovision

On the wall is a field of 24 monochrome prints, light gray in tone, arranged in an eight-by-three horizontal grid. From a distance, the pictures all appear to be similar. They look a little like simple texture shots -- you know, burlap, canvas, that sort of thing. But step a little closer to Taiji Matsue's...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Apr 19, 2000

Family life full of give and take

After 20 years of wedlock, my Japanese wife and I usually see things eyeball-to-eyeball, especially when staring at each other. Yet, there is one case where we match up like sushi and whipped cream.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 18, 2000

Lessons of the Nanjing debate

THE NANJING MASSACRE IN HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY, edited by Joshua Fogel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000; 238 pp, $49 (cloth), $15.98 (paper). Did the Nanjing Massacre really happen? In a review of Katsuichi Honda's excellent book on this subject last year ("The Nanjing Massacre:...
BASEBALL / MLB
Apr 16, 2000

Kiyohara engaged

Yomiuri Giants slugger Kazuhiro Kiyohara, whose exploits as a bachelor have been followed closely by the media, is finally planning to tie the knot. He's engaged to 31-year-old model Aki Kimura, sources close to the veteran infielder said Saturday.

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