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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 11, 2004

Ah, that's Dogma amore

Italian for Beginners Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Japanese title: Shiawase ni naru tame Itariagokoza Director: Lone Scherfig Running time: 97 minutes Language: Danish, Italian Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] "Italian for Beginners" is a sweet, unpretentious love story...
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2004

Takefuji drops lawsuits targeting magazine piece

Takefuji Corp. dropped its lawsuit against a freelance journalist and a major magazine publisher Friday, withdrawing its demand for 200 million yen in damages over reporting of the company's alleged collusion with police.
CULTURE / Books / THE BOOK REPORT
Feb 5, 2004

Japan mulls its future with Koizumi

What stance should Japan take in a world dominated by the American superpower? Is Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi no more than an errand boy for bullyboy George W. Bush, as a Shukan Gendai headline implied last March? Is he an incompetent know-nothing who has casually thrown away Japan's precious pacifist...
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2004

Diet impasse comes to an end

Diet business returned to normal Tuesday afternoon.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 3, 2004

Retail beef prices continue to hit new records

Retail prices of domestic and imported beef continued rising to new records last week amid the import ban on U.S. beef, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry said Monday.
Events
Feb 1, 2004

KANSAI: Who & What

Foreign students sought for Japanese classes: The Osaka International House Foundation is seeking foreign students to sign up for its weekly Japanese-language classes, which begin on April 6 at its facility in the city's Tennoji Ward.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Jan 29, 2004

Japan is learning to love (and loving to learn) Chinese

Every day, it seems, more and more Japanese want to communicate -- in Chinese. One million Japanese, says Web magazine ChinaGate, are learning Mandarin and other Chinese dialects. At Japanese universities and schools, Mandarin has overtaken French and German to become the most popular language after...
BUSINESS
Jan 27, 2004

Beef prices accelerate pace of increase

Prices of domestic and imported beef accelerated their increase in the week of Jan. 19-23 on expectations that the import ban on U.S. beef may be prolonged, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry said Monday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2004

GSDF team to build ties with Iraqis

SAMAWAH, Iraq -- An advance Ground Self-Defense Force team vowed to cement ties with the Iraqi people after arriving at a Dutch base near here Monday evening.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 17, 2004

Float to travel without moving to find deep self

There are only two known isolation tanks in Japan. One is in Kyoto, for private use. The other is in Kazuo Miyabe's first-floor apartment in one of the fast-disappearing enclaves of Shirokane in downtown Tokyo, where he makes it his business to help people float away the stresses and strains of modern...
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2004

Defense Agency briefings spat continues

A dispute between the media and the Defense Agency over the agency's plan to halt regular weekly news conferences by the chiefs of staff of the Ground, Maritime and Air Self-Defense Forces continued Thursday.
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2004

Fukuda lauds halt to defense briefings

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda on Wednesday welcomed the Defense Agency's decision to halt regular news conferences involving top officers of the Air, Ground and Maritime Self-Defense Forces.
COMMENTARY
Jan 15, 2004

China more open, at least on medical front

HONG KONG -- Last year, after China was caught suppressing information about the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, it dismissed the minister of health and the mayor of Beijing and dramatically opened its health-care system up to international scrutiny. There was much hope then that the...
CULTURE / Books / THE BOOK REPORT
Jan 8, 2004

Japanese books climbed walls, went back to the past in 2003

The particular combination of theme, packaging and timing that produces a best seller is always a mystery, and last year's top sellers in Japan presented even more of a puzzle than usual. What is it about "Baka no Kabe" by anatomy professor Takeshi Yoro that took it to the top of the chart soon after...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 31, 2003

High-rise denizens wage effort to regain sense of community

Tokyo, for many of its inhabitants, is a faceless concrete jungle lacking any sense of community, unlike the days when close-knit row-house neighborhoods were the norm before the capital exploded into a soaring, postwar urban sprawl.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 28, 2003

If truth be told . . .

There was once a Chinese emperor who abolished time. Wei Ming decreed that day broke when the dawn sky flushed the color of his pet bullfinch's breast. Nighttime began whenever he retired from the audience chamber with his concubines, and was consequently rather longer.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 16, 2003

'Shut-ins' turn backs on Japan

To look at 29-year-old Kenji Tanaka laughing and drinking with his friends, it's hard to believe that he spent the best part of his twenties cut off from almost all human contact.
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2003

Rape allegation heaps misery on SDP

The Social Democratic Party found itself in further turmoil Thursday as a former state-paid secretary to party lawmaker Tomoko Abe was accused of raping a woman on several occasions last year.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Nov 28, 2003

Duff acquisition paying immediate dividends for Chelski

LONDON -- Somewhere on this planet the man working for Decca Records 40 years ago who told the Beatles they wouldn't make it and should try another career, may still be alive.
Events / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Nov 23, 2003

Kobe German school to host Christmas market

Deutsche Schule Kobe, a German school in the city's Nada Ward, is hosting a Christmas market between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Nov. 29.
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Nov 20, 2003

What's the point in learning how to write kanji?

Joe Lauer, a long-term American resident of Hiroshima, sent the following feedback on a workshop I conducted to promote the Kanji Proficiency Examination (Kanken), a standardized test that measures both kanji reading and writing ability:
JAPAN
Nov 19, 2003

Journalists to countersue lender

Five journalists said Tuesday they will countersue the leading consumer lender Takefuji Corp., which launched libel litigation against them earlier this year over their reports on the scandal-tainted firm's alleged misdeeds.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Nov 8, 2003

Keiichi Kurosawa

"English music in its most primitive form was essentially group music. The old divisions were church, secular and concert music. . . . The madrigal flourished best in the Tudor period. Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I composed madrigals."

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?