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CULTURE / Books
Sep 23, 2001

Fact and fiction meet in re-creation of Ainu past

HARUKOR: An Ainu Woman's Tale, by Katsuichi Honda. Translated by Kyoko Selden. University of California Press, 2000, 315 pp., $19.95 (paper). When I was a university student in Kyoto during the 1960s, Katsuichi Honda was the most glamorous adventurer-journalist of the day.
CULTURE / Film
Sep 19, 2001

Pixels can't really tell the whole story

Final Fantasy Rating: * * * Director: Hironobu Sakaguchi Running time: 106 minutes Language: English Now showing
COMMUNITY
Sep 16, 2001

Divination business thriving, for the foreseeable future

Head bowed, eyes closed, silently intoning my birth date and a prayer-like plea for good fortune; I feel a little silly, but I'm doing as I've been told.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 9, 2001

This is the season of our national discontent

Last week's edition of Aera (Sept. 3) looked at the current "Age of Discontent," while Bungei Shunju published a special issue in August on ways to find happiness. Both themes currently feature on the shelves of Japanese bookstores as well.
JAPAN
Aug 24, 2001

Insurer reports fake widow after finding husband alive

Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co. has filed a complaint with police over a case of insurance fraud in which a Japanese woman has allegedly sought compensation for the death of her husband, whom the insurer says is still alive, industry sources said Thursday.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Aug 16, 2001

Five years later, a friend remembered

He was probably the greatest basketball player you have never heard of. Such was the fate of my friend Derek Smith, who died five years ago last week at the age of 34, while on a cruise from New York to Bermuda.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 3, 2001

Poetry, music and art make for a peaceful soul

Several summers ago, while at St. John's University in Minnesota, I came across a book that had matched a poem by Ntozake Shange with paintings by American artist Romare Bearden (1912-88).
CULTURE / Film
Aug 1, 2001

There's 'cheerleader angst'

Bring It On Rating: * * * Director: Peyton Reed Running time: 98 minutes Language: EnglishNow showing Thank you, O Lord. Such was my reaction after viewing "Bring It On," a bouncing-with-exuberance tale of high school cheerleaders. Hey, where are you going? Don't put down the paper just because...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 14, 2001

Red Army daughter seeks to set record straight

"My parents named me after the month of a certain political action," explains May Shigenobu. "But in Japanese I am known as Mei, which means 'life.' " The specific political operation to which she is referring? The bombing by Japanese leftwing radicals of Lod Airport in Tel Aviv on May 30, 1972.
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 4, 2001

Brook's 'Hamlet' speaks straight to the soul

In his book "The Shifting Point," Peter Brook writes that when he begins work on a play, he starts with "a deep, formless hunch which is like a smell, a color, a shadow."
JAPAN
Jun 29, 2001

Coming out at the workplace the next big challenge for gays

During a party celebrating his election to a Tokyo ward assembly in April 1999, the candidate was being congratulated by supporters, as were his parents, who were hailed as the biggest contributors to the successful campaign.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 24, 2001

Nagashima provides balm for the caregiver's soul

THE GIRL WHO TURNED INTO TEA, by Minako Nagashima, translated by Hiroaki Sato. P.S., A Press, 2000, 56 pp., $12. The frailties and failings of the human body and mind are not usually the stuff of poetry, but Minako Nagashima, a longtime social worker and aid to the physically and mentally handicapped,...
BUSINESS
May 2, 2001

REITs banked on to ease market fears

As stock market woes and asset deflation continue to cast a cloud over Japan's economic recovery, a new type of investment trust will be introduced this month in a bid to solve these problems in one fell swoop.
JAPAN
Apr 29, 2001

Technology obscuring Japan's culture, calligrapher believes

For many contemporary Japanese -- both children and adults alike -- everyday life is becoming unthinkable without personal computers and cellular phones.
CULTURE / Film
Apr 25, 2001

Wake up, it's just a bad movie

The Family Man Rating: * * Director: Brett Ratner Running time: 125 minutes Language: EnglishNow showing This is Kafka's nightmare scenario: One morning, a man wakes up and finds he's turned into a giant bug. He must deal with the inner turmoil that follows. This is writer/director Brett Ratner's...
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2001

Gadget guy puts ideology over profit

On a cluttered desk in a dimly lit office in central Tokyo lies a golden, cylindrical object you can't find in any store. It's a combination lock that would take 3.2 trillion years to crack, about 160 times the age of the universe.
JAPAN
Mar 24, 2001

Owing 980 billion yen, Tokyo Mutual fails

In the insurance industry's fifth failure in fiscal 2000, midtier insurer Tokyo Mutual Life Insurance Co. filed for court protection from its creditors Friday after it was denied capital assistance from its main bank, Daiwa Bank.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 20, 2001

Globalization does its work on Japan

GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN, edited by J.S. Eades, Tom Gill and Harumi Befu. Trans Pacific Press, Melbourne, 2000. 295 pp., 3,250 yen (paper). The word "globalization" is used with increasing frequency these days. It is variously employed to describe the increasing degrees...
BUSINESS
Feb 3, 2001

Sanwa to buy Daido housing loans

Daido Life Insurance Co. will sell part of its home-loan assets to Sanwa Bank, the two companies said Friday.
BUSINESS
Feb 1, 2001

Prudential plans to inject 50 billion yen into failed Kyoei

Prudential Insurance Co. of America will infuse 50 billion yen into failed Kyoei Life Insurance Co., Kyoei's court-appointed administrators said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2001

Mori highlights reform, recovery, IT

Introduction At the opening of the 151st session of the Diet, as the prime minister of Japan charged with the affairs of state as we mark the turn of the century, I would like to state my views as I once again brace myself to bear forward the burden of responsibility in this historical era.
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2001

Mori highlights reform, recovery, IT

Introduction At the opening of the 151st session of the Diet, as the prime minister of Japan charged with the affairs of state as we mark the turn of the century, I would like to state my views as I once again brace myself to bear forward the burden of responsibility in this historical era.
BUSINESS
Jan 12, 2001

Three insurers to merge in '04 deny units will tie up sooner

The presidents of Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Co., Asahi Mutual Life Insurance Co. and Nichido Fire & Marine Insurance Co. -- scheduled to consolidate under a holding company in 2004 -- on Thursday denied the possibility of an immediate merger of the companies' subsidiaries.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 21, 2000

Beautiful poetry from the ashes of Hiroshima

BLACK FLOWER IN THE SKY: Poems of a Korean Bridegroom in Hiroshima, by Chong Ki-Sheok. Katydid Books, distributed by the University of Hawai'i, 2000, 79 pp., $20 (paper). As the war generation grows older, casting glances back on life, poetry of witness has become increasingly urgent. Perhaps time...
CULTURE / Art
Nov 19, 2000

Wake-up calls to the subconscious

Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) is the great painter of the enigma in our era and his work is now on exhibit at Tokyo's Bunkamura in one of the most comprehensive shows seen yet in Japan.
LIFE / Travel
Aug 30, 2000

Travel in the company of women

"The challenge is to myself and not to the mountain." -- "Clouds from Both Sides," by Julie Tullis
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 30, 2000

Nigel Mortimer

When he was a youth, Kiyomu Shimomura found his mentor in the late scholar Masahiro Yasuoka. Yasuoka wrote the draft of the statement made by the Emperor Showa at the end of World War II. That was the first time for a Japanese emperor to speak to the people, and in his radio address to the nation he...
COMMUNITY
Jul 27, 2000

A social clash of old values and new rules

The number of divorces in Japan, especially among couples who have been married for 20 years or more, has been increasing. According to a survey carried out by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, in 1999 there were a total of 250,538 divorced couples.
JAPAN
Jul 18, 2000

Okinawa weaving tradition dying out

OGIMI, Okinawa Pref. -- Until recently, visitors to this village would have seen elderly women -- many in their 90s or older -- patiently making banana-fiber thread while sitting on sunny verandas and weaving it into traditional fabric.

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers