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JAPAN
May 9, 2000

39 court districts have no practicing lawyers

Japan's lawyers are disproportionately concentrated in Tokyo, leaving 39 district court jurisdictions out of 253 nationwide with no practicing lawyers, according to a report issued Monday by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.
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...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
May 8, 2000

Orangutans smuggled in underwear

You're flying back from a week in Indonesia and the guy next to you seems unusually twitchy. Considering all he's had to drink, he ought to be adequately sedated, but he's just ordered another Scotch.
COMMENTARY / World
May 7, 2000

European sports play by their own rules

It is said that the military is always prepared to fight the last war and never the next. In the economic domain the same is true of politicians, who are generally at least a generation or two out of date. In Britain in 1913, there were 1.3 million miners, meaning that almost one in 10 men were working...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
May 7, 2000

All good things

Here is good news for all Kenny Endo fans, and if you aren't a fan you will be once you attend one of his performances. Kenny is a master of the taiko. Most of you know that taiko is drum, and then there is "odaiko," a huge drum. In general, taiko is to drum like the tea ceremony is to a tea bag. It...
EDITORIALS
May 5, 2000

The sound and the fury

There are passions aplenty in the mounting protests against the world economic order. It is ironic that in a time of unprecedented prosperity, insecurity and uncertainty are climbing. Actually, among protesters, there is little uncertainty. They are quite convinced that the global economic order is broken...
JAPAN
May 5, 2000

Self-brewing helps to combat Japan's indistinguishable ales

It's warm and sunny -- a nice day to have a cold glass of beer. At supermarkets and convenience stores, beers with a variety of colorful labels, tempting names and intriguing catch phrases line the shelves.
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.
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2000

Regaining the spirit of prewar Japan

The budget committees of both Houses of the Diet met April 24 and 25 to hear Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's views on various matters facing his new Cabinet. Throughout both days, he answered questions from the opposition parties. As a result, he seems to have cleared his first hurdle as the head of government....
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 3, 2000

Ya'gotta accentuate the positive

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus -- but my wife is from Kagoshima.
JAPAN
May 1, 2000

Group wants lost relatives handed back

The government should not normalize diplomatic relations with North Korea unless it hands back Japanese nationals allegedly abducted by Pyongyang agents, a group of family members of such missing people and their supporters said Sunday.
COMMUNITY
Apr 30, 2000

'English Patience' thickens plots

I found Yukichi Arai eating fruit sherbet in the lobby of the Tokyo Station Hotel. It was hot, I agreed, whereupon he ordered another. After four days sitting in a booth at the Tokyo Book Fair at Tokyo Big Site, promoting his book (titled in "katakana" as "English Patience"), he felt the world deserving...
EDITORIALS
Apr 27, 2000

The real 'evil' in China

One year ago, Falun Gong made an eerie debut on the international stage. On April 25, 10,000 of the group's followers surrounded the Beijing compound where China's leaders live and stood silently to protest a government campaign against them. That show of force -- in particular, the group's ability to...
EDITORIALS
Apr 26, 2000

A last gasp by Iran's hardliners

Iran's hardliners refuse to give up. Despite a string of election defeats, conservatives are fighting reformers with every weapon at their disposal. A key battleground is the press, which has been a pillar of support for President Mohammad Khatami, leader of the reform movement. This week, fundamentalists...
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,...
EDITORIALS
Apr 23, 2000

A nation of chatterboxes

People who at first glance seem to be carrying on animated conversations with themselves, complete with bows and gestures and sometimes so loudly they annoy anyone near them, are a common sight nationwide. Of course, they are not conversing with imaginary listeners. As most of us know because we are...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 22, 2000

Use Earth's ecosystems more sustainably

The findings of a new report sponsored by the U.N. Development Program, the U.N. Environmental Program and the World Bank, titled "World Resources 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life," underscore the fact that the growing worldwide demand for resources is threatening the world's...
COMMUNITY
Apr 20, 2000

Calligraphy with a global message

Tim Jensen confesses that the first time he saw Mitsuo Aida's calligraphy poems his immediate reaction was "I could do that!" Now Aida's greatest fan and translator of three volumes of his work into English, Jensen is not alone in his initial reaction. According to Aida's son Kazuhito, director of the...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Apr 17, 2000

Chance meeting provides valuable insights on Japan and environment

In early April I had a chance to meet with Rea Litty, an environmentalist from the Netherlands, and Fushi Zen, president of the Association for the Conservation of Humans Against the Natural Environment, and former director of Humans First!
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Apr 16, 2000

Cindy Fueki

More than 70 years ago, a group of women living in Yokohama founded the International Women's Club. They devised lively social programs and gave their attention to welfare work. The outbreak of World War II meant that the club ceased its activities.
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 15, 2000

Illusion meister's imagination creates world of visual fantasy

When we were children, the world was a place full of magic and mystery. In our minds, Santa Claus really existed; a ghost lived in the attic; and we could easily imagine our favorite doll coming to life overnight.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Apr 12, 2000

Sweeter dreams

I wrote recently of the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, and the instant Westernization it prompted. The government encouraged efforts to make foreigners feel at home. One was directed toward ryokan and many of them installed Western-style toilets and created a few rooms with Western beds. The beds were rarely...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 12, 2000

Fingleton deflates the New Economy

IN PRAISE OF HARD INDUSTRIES: Why Manufacturing, Not the Information Technology, Is the Key to Future Prosperity, by Eamonn Fingleton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999, 273 pp., $26 (cloth). A 24-year-old Englishman with a ponytail waltzed into the offices of a London venture-capital company...
EDITORIALS
Apr 11, 2000

The stain that is Rwanda

April 7 marked the sixth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, one of the most shameful acts of political cowardice in recent history. Many uncertainties still linger over the events that began that day, but what we know is enough to judge the behavior of the participants as evil, and the reaction of...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 5, 2000

Take your vitamin C -- but how much?

The message is everywhere -- take vitamin C.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Apr 5, 2000

Nemuro rolling down a road to nowhere

We may think of America as the land of the automobile, but for a place that both produces them and is constantly involved in road works for them, we need look no further than Japan.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’