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BUSINESS
Mar 31, 2000

Sony headquarters gets new moniker; call it eHQ

In a move to demonstrate its renewed focus on network business, Sony Corp. will rename its group headquarters "eHQ" -- short for e-headquarters -- effective Saturday, President Nobuyuki Idei announced Thursday.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 28, 2000

The marvelous paradox of Ise

ISE -- JAPAN'S ISE SHRINES: Ancient but New, by Svend Hvass. Holte: Aristo Press, 146 pp., profusely illustrated, 6,000 yen. Ise holds one of the most important Shinto shrines in Japan. Enshrining the ancestral gods of the Imperial family, it has a long and varied political career. Such was its power...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 26, 2000

Impressions of an overlooked artist

In February 1866, three young artists tramped along the frosty paths of Fontainebleau, declaring that nature would ever be their muse. One, handsome, rich and carefree, would follow that muse until he lost everything except the respect of his friends. He died in poverty, in a home stacked with unsold...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Mar 5, 2000

Masanao Murai

"Horses are very gentle and kind to the weak," Dr. Masanao Murai said. "A child suffering from cerebral palsy can sit on a horse and feel the animal's warmth. He can see farther. The horse's movement reaches the child's brain through the spine, so that a child who cannot walk feels he has one body with...
EDITORIALS
Mar 3, 2000

'But it couldn't happen here'

There is no refuge from the senseless gun violence that plagues the United States. Homes, offices, places of worship, city streets and even schools -- no place is safe. This week, there was an especially horrifying episode: the shooting of one first-grader by another. The details tell a tragic story,...
JAPAN
Mar 2, 2000

Terrorists tease press from cells

BEIRUT -- With just days left before five Japanese Red Army members are due to be released here, local and foreign press interest in the captives is heating up.
COMMUNITY
Mar 1, 2000

Conspiracy theories: just waiting to be shot down

Amelia Earhart's fate has long been fertile hunting ground for conspiracy theorists, leading to some credibility-stretching explanations for her disappearance over the Pacific in July 1937.
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 29, 2000

Anti-glamor Idevian Crew hit the stage

Shigehiro Ide is back on stage with his dance company Idevian Crew after all too long an absence from performing. His comeback in "Which," the piece he choreographed to open the Next Dance Festival at Shinjuku Park Tower Hall Feb. 18, establishes him as the most promising dancer/choreographer on the...
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2000

E-consumers' habits reveal low-tech solution to recession

Major supermarket operator Nagasakiya Co. has just gone bankrupt, and reports say many department stores are taking heavy losses.
EDITORIALS
Feb 27, 2000

The imitable Jeeves

Correct us if we are wrong, but we seem to have detected a certain half-veiled annoyance recently on the part of a British literary agency named A.P. Watt. The trouble is, these Watt chaps' duties include looking after the estate of the late, great comic novelist P.G. Wodehouse, creator of the supposedly...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 16, 2000

The essence of Japanese film

FROM BOOK TO SCREEN: Modern Japanese Literature in Film. By Keiko I. McDonald. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000, 326 pp., with b/w photos. $62.95 (cloth); $25.95 (paper) Keiko McDonald's 1994 "Japanese Classical Theater in Films" (Associated University Presses) has become an indispensable text. Anyone...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 13, 2000

'Fantasia 2000' live with the Philharmonia Orchestra

The Philharmonia Orchestra: Dec. 27, James Levine conducting in Orchard Hall -- Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67: Allegro con brio (Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770-1827); "The Pines of Rome" (Ottorino Respighi, 1879-1936); "Rhapsody in Blue" (George Gershwin, 1898-1937), featuring Ralph Grierson; Concerto...
LIFE
Feb 3, 2000

Harvesting the world's profusion

"In Japanese, we call that shrub an asebi," says botanist and potter Gufudo Watanabe. Without a pause, the sinewy man with the graying goatee tells me the two other common names in Japanese, the Latin name (Pieris japonica) and the English common name (Japanese andromeda).
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 30, 2000

Rihito Kimura

To answer the question what is bioethics, professor Rihito Kimura wrote a book and more than a hundred articles. "It is a huge subject," he said. "Many people think its focus is on medical issues, but it is much wider than that. It has ethical, legal and social implications too, in an environmental context....
CULTURE / Art
Jan 23, 2000

Eye to eye with 20th-century face

When photography was born and proclaimed the "mirror of nature," the death of portrait painting was announced.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 16, 2000

Stitched with love by mothers' hands

Teenagers rarely go to museums by choice, but Bunka Gakuen Costume Museum in Shinjuku is a special case. On a recent lunchtime visit groups of lively students came into the galleries and fell into quiet, appreciative murmurs over the needlework of Indian villagers and Japanese grandmothers.
COMMUNITY
Jan 9, 2000

Good I-house innkeeper still making world news

Meet my first man of the 2000s after last Sunday's press holiday. Hiroshi Matsumoto may be 70, and a "banto," but a more civilized and forward-thinking innkeeper you are unlikely to meet in the next 99 years (or 999 years, for that matter).
SOCCER / J. League
Jan 4, 2000

Reds' Ono looking to recover his form before seeking new challenges abroad

For Shinji Ono, 1999 started with glory and ended in agony. In April, Ono captained Japan's under-20 team to a runnerup finish at the World Youth Championship in Nigeria and went on to boost Japan's Olympic campaign in summer.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 4, 2000

The glorious mess of Bangkok

BANGKOK: Then and Now, by Steve van Beek. Bangkok: AB Publications, 1999, 132 pp, with numerous color and b/w photos, maps, drawings, etc. unpriced. Writing in 1900, the American consul residing in Bangkok marveled that only 35 years earlier there had been no streets in the capital, that all traffic...
CULTURE / Music
Jan 3, 2000

It's not an easy trick to pick one out of 108 for best of year

It is time once again to look back over some of the most significant events of the previous year, 1999.
COMMUNITY
Dec 30, 1999

Le Nozze de video

Toss away your Love Getty and forget the formal o-miai (arranged meeting) -- matchmaking has gone hi-tech.
JAPAN
Dec 29, 1999

Writer, artist unite to portray Okinawa's problems

Staff writer OSAKA -- When artist Seitaro Kuroda was videotaping a series of war stories for children written by prize-winning author Akiyuki Nosaka, he noticed something was missing. The stories, which first appeared in a magazine in 1971, described the hardship brought upon children and animals by...
COMMUNITY
Dec 23, 1999

A cry to help children in need

If Joseph Lam were to take a vocational aptitude test, the results would no doubt point to a career in either politics or tele-evangelism.
JAPAN
Dec 22, 1999

Insanity cited in serial killer's death penalty appeal

The counsel for convicted serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki did not dispute allegations that he murdered four girls in Tokyo and Saitama prefectures in the late 1980s, but they claim he was insane at the time. The lawyers made the claim in their opening statement Wednesday of the appellant trial before...
JAPAN
Dec 21, 1999

Alleged serial killer 'insane'

The counsel for accused serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki on Tuesday did not argue allegations that the defendant was involved in the murders of four girls in Tokyo and Saitama prefectures in the late 1980s but did claim he was insane at the time. The lawyers made the claim in their opening statement of...
JAPAN
Dec 17, 1999

Art group attempts to heal those ravaged by war

Staff writer In these days of "Pokemon" mania, who wouldn't want a personal note from Pikachu? Hector Sierra, 34, a fine arts doctoral student from Colombia, might not seem like the most likely recipient. But the filmmaker and NGO coordinator was as tickled as any kid. Arriving days before Sierra was...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 5, 1999

Fantasy, drama: visions of a blind artist

When Carter's, the biggest children's clothes maker in the U.S., chose to use blind artist Emu Namae's pastel drawings on their children's line, new doors opened in Namae's life.
CULTURE / Art
Dec 4, 1999

Folk painting from roadside to museum

The world of the minga, "folk painting," is one of subtle beauty created by the countless unknown artists who draw on rich crafts traditions for inspiration. The end result of these unknown artists is refreshingly simple, unaffected works of art. Opportunities to view the work of these unheralded artists...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Dec 1, 1999

The top of the world

Tengboche Monastery is the oldest Buddhist monastery in Nepal. Founded in 1916 by Lama Gulu, the building itself has been destroyed and rebuilt twice. Today it is home to 50 monks and hosts about 22,000 visitors each year
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 10, 1999

Homage to an image maker

HAYAO MIYAZAKI: Master of Japanese Animation, by Helen McCarthy. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 1999, 240 pp., 8 pages in color and 60 b/w images. $18.95. The biggest domestic movie hit of all in Japan was the 1997 "Princess Mononoke," an animated film created by Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli....

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