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EDITORIALS
Mar 6, 2000

Aiming at a million

It had to happen. The slick but savvy TV quiz show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?," which first took Britain by storm and then went on to conquer America, is poised to invade Japan. Fuji Television announced last month that it will begin airing a tailored-for-Japan version of the show -- to be called...
JAPAN
Mar 5, 2000

Visaless family seeks resident status

KOBE -- For over six years, 40-year-old Peruvian Jose could enjoy his stay in Japan, where he had a stable job at a leather processing factory and his family had a peaceful life in Tatsuno, Hyogo Prefecture.
COMMUNITY
Mar 5, 2000

Researcher dives deep, flies high, blows bubbles

Minoru Yamada thinks there is something rather beautiful -- poetic even -- about the location of the headquarters of JAMSTEC (Japan Marine Science and Technology Center) in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. And this has nothing to do with being right beside the sea, with a great view across Tokyo Bay to...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 5, 2000

Treasures of the House of Orange

Four hundred years ago, in spring 1600, a Dutch ship made landfall in Kyushu, the sole survivor of five that had set out on the hazardous journey from Rotterdam two years before.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 4, 2000

Synthesizing the old and the new

The individual genres of the traditional Japanese performing arts rarely stood alone. Each instrument or genre had a role to play, either religious, theatrical or social, and Japanese instrumental music, with a few exceptions, existed to provide accompaniment to song, dance or theater.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 3, 2000

Don't believe the hype, just cue up the record

You can tell because it's become a staple of boy bands and television commercials, selling everything from hair dryers to soft drinks. Even the least offensive manifestations of hip hop's mainstream acceptance, Dragon Ash, has all the substance of white bread.
COMMENTARY
Mar 2, 2000

How not to liberalize trade

LONDON -- Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once famously described -- or is alleged to have described -- the Japanese language as an unfair obstacle to trade. How, she is said to have demanded, could foreign suppliers possibly penetrate the rich Japanese market when it was protected by an impenetrable...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2000

Handling the bugaboo of post-POW stress

It is well-known that U.S. presidential aspirant John McCain, a former U.S. Navy pilot, was struck by North Vietnamese fire over Hanoi during the Vietnam War and subsequently spent five and a half years in various prisoner-of-war camps. He still bears physical scars from the experience, notably the fact...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2000

Tough new laws stir outrage in Australia

SYDNEY -- Johnno, a 15-year-old Aboriginal boy, steals a few pencils and some paint. The magistrate has no option but to send him to prison for four weeks. After three weeks behind bars, Johnno hangs himself.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 1, 2000

Conversation: enough said

I heard once that the average male speaks 2,000 words a day, while the average female speaks 7,000.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 29, 2000

Afghanistan drags Pakistan down with it

ISLAMABAD -- More than 20 years after Soviet troops marched into Afghanistan in support of the last communist coup, the central Asian country's turmoil is unending. Descriptions such as "extreme impoverishment," "a lost generation" and "the ultimate pariah state" are just some of the ways that Afghanistan...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 29, 2000

Japanese politics are gray, not green

GREEN POLITICS IN JAPAN, by Lam Peng Er. Routledge, March 1999, 232 pp., $90. The next 100 years have been dubbed the century of the environment. While this pronouncement may be a bit premature, even inflated, it reflects the swelling interest in environmental issues. From global warming and dioxins,...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 29, 2000

Pilgrimage for the 21st century

EXPLORING KANTO: Weekend Pilgrimages from Tokyo, by Michael Plastow. New York: Weatherall, 1996, 262 pp., with color photos and maps, $19.95. A long journey of exalted purpose is one of the dictionary definitions of pilgrimage. One makes such a demanding endeavor for personal or, if you will, spiritual...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 27, 2000

Muazaz Kasrawi and Maria Edileuza Reis

Two ladies from countries across the world from each other have come together as cochairwomen for this year's Cherry Blossom Charity Ball. The ball with its featured raffle is a major fundraising event organized each year by the International Ladies Benevolent Society. Money raised is donated directly...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 25, 2000

Lounging in Stereolab's living room

It was very nice of Laetitia Sadier to introduce each song that Stereolab played at Shinjuku Liquid Room Feb. 16. Though normally I find the practice distracting, in this case I was grateful, since the promoter hadn't provided a set list. (Concert reviewers like to give the impression that they know...
JAPAN
Feb 25, 2000

Dutch war display given no place to go

Staff writer OSAKA -- One month after an Osaka International Peace Center symposium denying the Nanjing Massacre took place, another controversy over Japan's wartime past is brewing after the center and a Tokyo nursing home rejected an exhibition on the occupation of the Dutch East Indies. The Osaka...
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Feb 23, 2000

Local variations

With the new animal welfare law about to be enforced, several readers have asked how they should report examples of cruelty they have seen. One woman was repulsed by a game she saw recently. Players tried to catch live lobsters crowded into an aquarium with a cranelike tool operated by remote control....
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 23, 2000

Building tropical paradise on a trash heap

Yumenoshima is a man-made island in Koto Ward, Tokyo.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Feb 23, 2000

Private eyes

On the Net and off, personal data is a currency, an entity that can be bought, sold, bartered and, yes, stolen. Ideally, this information connects companies with potential clients and consumers with products and services. Ads with the precision of surgical airstrikes are swell for advertisers, but on...
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2000

Pipe firms fined over cartel; execs get suspended terms

Three firms and 10 of their former employees were found guilty Wednesday by the Tokyo High Court for maintaining a cartel in ductile pipes in violation of the Antimonopoly Law. Affected by the ruling were Osaka-based Kubota Corp. and Kurimoto Ltd., as well as Nippon Chutetsukan Co. of Tokyo. The companies...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 23, 2000

Tsukiji or not, nothing fishy about Bellini's Bar

One usually doesn't go to Tsukiji to get a fine cappuccino or a poppy-seed sponge cake soaked in liqueur. Yet just a few minutes away from "Tokyo's Kitchen," where pricy cuts of maguro are noisily auctioned off to the highest bidder, Bellini's Italian Bar offers businesspeople and tourists alike a pleasant...
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 22, 2000

Edo Period internationalism: kabuki's Hakata smugglers

The Kabukiza's programs for the month of February offer some of kabuki's biggest stars, including tachiyaku (male leads) Danjuro Ichikawa, Kikugoro Onoe and Kichiemon Nakamura. Jakuemon Nakamura, the distinguished 79-year-old onnagata actor, appears opposite Kichiemon in two plays in the evening program,...
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2000

Allergy-prone get jump on hay fever

Staff writer For the past 10 years, spring has been tough on Mari Koi, with her seasonal allergy leaving her with itchy, watery eyes and a runny nose from February through March. But this year, the 30-year-old Tokyo woman has been well so far -- possibly due to early preparation. "I have been taking...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 21, 2000

Penny-wise, pound-foolish

The Japanese government is reportedly planning to negotiate a cut in so-called "omoiyari yosan" (sympathy budget), or special host-nation support, for the U.S. forces stationed in Japan. The word "omoiyari" is left out these days, however, on the ground that it can create misunderstandings. The budget...
COMMENTARY
Feb 20, 2000

Shame's societal role remains intact

In September 1998, Jeremy Strohmeyer admitted murdering 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson in a Nevada casino and was sentenced to life in prison. He was back in court in mid-February, explaining that he couldn't remember committing the crime and wanting to recant his plea.
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Feb 20, 2000

It depends

A gentleman tells us that he is puzzled by the term suspended sentence, often seen in newspapers. He encloses a copy of a headline: "Accountant gets 28 months suspended sentence for poisoning." The accused had put poison in the water for making tea. Nine of his coworkers became ill, and while no one...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2000

Modern Japanese painting's other capital

The figure of Kakuzo Okakura, better known in Japan by his pen name Tenshin, looms large over modern nihonga (Japanese-style painting). Not a painter of distinction himself, his importance was as a critic, curator and organizer. As the founder of what is now Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and...
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2000

Ministry to finance cram school envoys

Pupils don't have to study English at elementary school yet. But over the next year, the Education Ministry plans to spend 180 million yen to help children study the language outside of school on the weekend. Using the requested budget for the next school year starting in April, the ministry plans to...

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami