Search - life

 
 
COMMUNITY
May 20, 2001

Osaka's great, but hold on to your purse

OSAKA -- Osaka produces some of Japan's best comedians, tastiest food and most enterprising businesspeople. But who should really be taking the credit for keeping the prefecture at No. 1 over the past 25 years are its purse-snatchers.
CULTURE / Music
May 20, 2001

You gotta fight for your right to freedom

Adam Yauch, MCA of the Beastie Boys, has come a long way since 1986's "License to Ill," the obnoxious, wildly juvenile album that launched the careers of the punk-turned-hip-hop trio from New York. And not just musically. He's become one of the voices of a worldwide political movement, one heard in Tokyo...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 20, 2001

Audrey Hepburn's neck

"I don't understand cats and I don't understand women," confessed a foreign friend, half to me and half to his mug of beer. I leaned in closer to listen.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
May 20, 2001

Now that's what I call internationalism

Beginning in the 1970s and continuing into the "bubble" years of the 1980s, one of the buzzwords heard often in the media and from the mouths of politicians was "internationalization." Internationalization supposedly meant that the Japanese would become confident world citizens, fluent in English and...
COMMENTARY
May 20, 2001

Koizumi honeymoon rolls on

Three weeks after its debut, the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi continues to command high popularity. In opinion polls immediately after its inauguration April 26, the new administration received record approval ratings of over 80 percent. The "Koizumi boom" is likely to last for...
COMMUNITY
May 20, 2001

Kansai dialect survives on CD

OSAKA -- The distinctions are clear, a Kansai native might tell you. To express, for example, "she's not coming" ("kanojo konai" in standard Japanese), Osaka people would say "kanojo kehen," Kyoto people "kanojo kihen" and Kobe people "kanojo kohen."
JAPAN
May 19, 2001

LDP sees nuclear as a core source of power

Nuclear power is regarded virtually as a core energy source in a bill for Japan's basic law on energy being prepared by Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers, according to the full text obtained by Kyodo News.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 19, 2001

Satellite radio: a commuter's best friend

Ever wonder how Japanese people can sleep on trains? Ever wonder how they know exactly when to wake up at their stop? I've finally figured it out: They're not really sleeping. They're listening to satellite radio. Satellite-radio stations offer a variety of programs, many of them designed with Japan's...
BUSINESS
May 19, 2001

Meager gains in premiums precede mergers of insurers

Increased competition saw premium revenue rise only incrementally at Japan's largest property insurance companies, according to fiscal 2000 earnings reports released Friday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
May 19, 2001

Dana Neufer

Dana Neufer had never lived anywhere other than the Midwest of America until she came to Japan. Her husband's employment with General Motors brought the family here in 1988, when their daughter Erin was still very small. Dana went into a hospital in western Tokyo to have her second child, Jeffrey. "That...
JAPAN
May 17, 2001

Jailed Red Army Faction hijacker meets daughter

Three daughters of former Red Army Faction members who hijacked a Japan Airlines flight in 1970 visited the Tokyo Detention House on Wednesday to see one of the trio's father, who is being held there.
COMMENTARY
May 16, 2001

New metaphors for Europe

LONDON -- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his Social Democratic Party have done Europe a great service -- although it may not have been the one Schroeder intended.
CULTURE / Film
May 16, 2001

Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?

Actor Christian Bale probably has more fans in Tokyo than at home in the U.K., given the splash that "Velvet Goldmine" had in this "visual-kei" obsessed town. Fans of the fey beautiful boy Bale played in that film, though, may be surprised to see him pumped up and wielding a mean chain saw in "American...
CULTURE / Music
May 16, 2001

The Sonig circuit

Back in 1960 when he was a strapping egghead of 31, Karlheinz Stockhausen, the father of taped electronic music, had a vision: Every major city in the world would build an auditorium for the appreciation of "space music." Stockhausen's prediction was simply the optimistic ramblings of an intellectual...
JAPAN
May 16, 2001

Tokyo eatery an Ainu specialty

A restaurant in Tokyo has been sending out a simple but poignant message for more than seven years: It's not bad to be Ainu.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
May 13, 2001

Don't take China so seriously

These days China is always in the news. If it's not the U.S. spy-plane incident, then it's Beijing's bid for the 2008 Olympics or the Chinese Communist Party's human-rights record or Beijing's bullying of Taiwan. After decades of condescending reporting on China, the international media is finally starting...
JAPAN
May 13, 2001

Bureaucrat turns his back on elite job of the past for IT career of the future

Last July, elite bureaucrat Shin Yasunobe sent shock waves throughout government offices in Tokyo's Kasumigaseki district by announcing his resignation from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 13, 2001

The garden of good and herbal

Herbs have been used in Japan for hundreds of years, for both culinary and medicinal purposes, and a fun way to learn more about the rich heritage of Japanese folk remedies is to visit a herb garden.
CULTURE / Books
May 13, 2001

Portrait of California's nisei generation brings out diversity

GROWING UP NISEI: Race, Generation, and Culture among Japanese Americans of California, 1924-49, by David K. Yoo. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000, 180 pp., no price. The experiences of second-generation Japanese Americans -- the Great Depression, world war, postwar prosperity and Cold War...
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
May 13, 2001

Last night a radio DJ saved my life

The foreign contribution to Tokyo's nightlife is not all Roppongi sleaze. Take Guy Perryman, for example, who has created a unique lounge-cum-event space around a radio station. Guy had just started his career as an FM disc jockey in Sydney when he was recruited by Virgin to spin at the opening of their...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 13, 2001

Death and the maidens

TBS's "Sekai Fushigi Hakken," currently the longest-running quiz show on commercial TV, was also one of the first series to combine education and entertainment in a way that didn't compromise either. Whereas the previous record-holder, "Naruhodo the World," which went off the air several years ago, presented...
SOCCER / J. League
May 13, 2001

S-Pulse ends Jubilo's winning streak

AINO, Shizuoka Pref. -- Shimizu S-Pulse kicked the new Ecopa World Cup stadium into life Saturday with a 1-0 extra-time win over runaway J. League leader Jubilo Iwata before 52,959 fans.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 13, 2001

Sit back, relax and let life pass you by

Summer's on its way, and none of us need any encouraging to make the most of it. There's no better way to celebrate the onset of the hot weather than with a leisurely lunch in the open air. Nothing too heavy, nothing too complicated -- this is the season to start lightening up the diet, anyway. Here...
JAPAN
May 12, 2001

Activist gives draft CFC bill pass mark

Citizen lobbying and government dithering is moving the nation closer to realizing a scheme to promote the retrieval of ozone-depleting and greenhouse gases.
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2001

Cooling South China Sea competition

The Sino-U.S. spy-plane crisis is a reminder of the ever-present potential for confrontation in the South China Sea. The world has been lucky so far. Despite a stream of provocations by the various claimants to the area, there have been no recent clashes. But as the EP-3 incident makes painfully clear,...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 12, 2001

Newcomer's guide to interpreting Japlish

English can be seen and heard all over Japan. However, the meaning of the English isn't always obvious. Here is a list of Japanese-English words and phrases explained.
BUSINESS
May 10, 2001

BOJ survey shows more believe economy is worse than last year

The number of people who believe the economy is worse off than the previous year jumped to 58 percent in March from 27.4 percent six months before, according to a Bank of Japan survey released Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
May 10, 2001

'Sold to the highest bidder'

U.S. President George W. Bush's plans for antimissile-defense highlight the threat posed by rogue nations. Many security experts warn that the real national defense issue is not ballistic missiles, but the warheads they carry. Nuclear proliferation is the danger. According to a new study, that threat...

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell