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CULTURE / Books
Aug 19, 2001

Politico battled clans, bureaucrats

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OZAKI YUKIO: The Struggle For Constitutional Government in Japan. Translated by Fumiko Hara. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2001, 455 pp., $35 (hardback) Well into this fascinating account of Japanese politics, which spans the period from the beginning of the Meiji Era...
BUSINESS
Aug 18, 2001

Foreign carmakers going small to increase presence in Japan

By offering smaller, more affordable cars and increasing their visibility in the marketplace, foreign automakers are gradually increasing their presence in Japan.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 18, 2001

Visitors' deep-seated terror: Asian toilets

It's hard to say which culture is more enamored with the Western-style toilet -- the Japanese or the Americans. While in Japan, the Asian-style squat toilet still rules, the Western-style sit-down toilet is making inroads. In fact, most new homes are equipped with the Western "porcelain god."
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2001

Thousands honor war dead at Yasukuni

About 3,000 people -- twice as many as last year -- gathered Wednesday at Yasukuni Shrine in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, to attend an annual memorial service to pay tribute to Japan's war dead.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 15, 2001

Fruits of U.S. economic expansion eluded many American families

FREDRICKSBURG, Virginia -- We're supposed to remember the 1990s as a period of economic expansion unlike anything the United States had ever seen. But to Oya Oliver and the rest of the staff at the Fredericksburg Area Food Bank, that decade always looked a little different than the official story that...
SOCCER / J. League / ON THE BALL
Aug 14, 2001

World Cup volunteers require effective training

The Japanese World Cup Organizing Committee recently announced the results of volunteer applications for next year's World Cup.
EDITORIALS
Aug 12, 2001

The lure of Amelia Earhart

Life abounds with mysteries, both profound and trivial, and if we were to spend all our time pondering them we would never get any work done. Yet some tug more forcefully at our imaginations than others -- and of these, the mysteries surrounding disappearances are the most forceful of all. Nature abhors...
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Aug 12, 2001

Rich experience on a poor man's budget

Although hogaku is an important part of Japan's cultural identity, concerts and other opportunities for exposure are often difficult to track down. Meanwhile, the range of hogaku genres, instruments and performance styles is vast, and concerts expensive. So to experience hogaku in its totality involves...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 12, 2001

Feet first!

Somewhere in the march of progress, we lost sight of our feet. Though there are cutting-edge running shoes incorporating space technology for maximum performance, many of us gladly choose low-tech gear in the name of style. We are willing fashion victims, but the damage can be more serious than many...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Aug 12, 2001

Take time to stop and hear the music

As your Music Nomad is wandering back to the U.K., this will be my last column. Thanks for taking the trouble to read it over the years; hopefully some of you have enjoyed seeing the concerts recommended.
EDITORIALS
Aug 11, 2001

Round two for Mr. Khatami

Iranian President Mohammed Khatami began his second term of office this week. Any hopes that his second landslide win might have chastened the country's conservatives were quickly put to rest in a last-minute power play. Mr. Khatami was supposed to have been sworn in last Sunday, but a dispute with hardliners...
COMMENTARY
Aug 11, 2001

Musharraf bravado won't stop the killing

ISLAMABAD -- In most parts of the world, a president's offer to grab a gun and go after the killers of a prominent businessman would raise eyebrows, to say the least. But in Pakistan, awash with illegal weapons, the bold words of President Pervez Musharraf did not surprise many people.
JAPAN
Aug 10, 2001

Smokers sue as Japan Tobacco denies causal links

Matao Yamamoto, a 67-year-old former Kyoto cab driver, is one of a large number of smokers in Japan who deeply regrets acquiring the hard-to-quit habit.
JAPAN
Aug 10, 2001

Suicides abate, but still over 30,000

The number of suicides in Japan in 2000 fell 3.3 percent to 31,957 for the first annual drop in six years but stayed above 30,000 for the third straight year, the National Police Agency said Thursday.
COMMUNITY / THE PARENT TRIP
Aug 10, 2001

We are family . . .

My seven brothers and sisters testify to the reality that families come in all sizes, shapes and colors. We range in shades from straight coffee to cafe latte to cream.
JAPAN
Aug 9, 2001

War criminal kin's widow on peace quest

Shizue Sugano, 60, a relative by marriage to Class-A war criminal Koki Hirota, embarked on her antiwar pilgrimage in 1994.
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2001

60-year-old new mom says she is ready to raise her child

A 60-year-old woman who successfully gave birth in late July following fertilization treatment in the U.S. says she is ready to take on the challenge of raising her child, sources close to her said Tuesday.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Aug 7, 2001

Rubbing noses with a musk ox

The Northwest Territories cover approximately one-third of Canada. Given that Canada is the second-largest country in the world, it can therefore be said without fear of contradiction that the NWT is rather large.
COMMENTARY
Aug 6, 2001

Voodoo economics rule the day

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's oft-repeated slogan, "There will be no economic recovery without structural reforms," sounds familiar to most Japanese.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 5, 2001

Getting (hic) hitched in the sticks

Imagine you are a bride. At your wedding reception, you visit each table for "candle service." Lighting one on each table you greet guests, all of whom congratulate you, clapping their hands. This would be a scene from an ordinary reception. But what if half the guests are nodding off? Such was my case....
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 5, 2001

Terrors, real and imagined

August means hot weather and ghost stories to add a little chill to the muggy air. Tonight, on TV Tokyo's "Sunday Big Special" (7 p.m.), host Tsurutaro Kataoka will explore various occultish phenomena for either your terrified delectation or your nonbelieving derision.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 5, 2001

From the outside looking in

THE DONALD RICHIE READER: 50 Years of Writing on Japan. Compiled, edited and with an introduction by Arturo Silva. Stone Bridge Press, 2001, 238 pp., $19.95 (paperback). Full disclosure: I've known Donald Richie for more than 20 years and, like many people who have known him for a long time, I count...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 3, 2001

Shades of hubris in Kumaratunga's political offensive

NEW DELHI -- The July 24 rebel attack on Sri Lanka's only international airport at Colombo further underscored that peace cannot be easily achieved in the island nation that has witnessed an ethnic crisis for almost two decades now. The minority Tamil-speaking people have been demanding an independent...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 3, 2001

The Thai dilemma: ethics or stability?

BANGKOK -- Is Thailand's prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra just an entrepreneurial businessman in a hurry, anxious to bring to the country the same benefits that he won in the telecom business, where he became a U.S.-dollar billionaire and very quickly, one of the world's richest 500 people? Or does...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Aug 2, 2001

Salt tolerance and life's dispersal derby

Salt is an interesting mineral. We all need it. It is crucial to the operation of the cells that make up our bodies.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

State appeals order to pay black-lung disease victims

The government on Tuesday filed an appeal to the Supreme Court against a high court ruling ordering the state and three companies to pay 1.91 billion yen in compensation to former coal miners who contracted black-lung disease and to families of those who died from the disease.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
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