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Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 30, 2004

Shōchū: The spirit of the times

All it takes is a whiff and a sip of shōchū  to realize it is markedly different from the more common nihonshu (which Westerners call "sake," although in Japanese, sake is a catchall word for all alcoholic drinks).
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 30, 2004

Media leave Imperial family forgotten, lonely, and in a corner

The excitement last weekend over North Korea's release of some of the Japanese abductees' children overshadowed another news story about prisoners of the state -- the Japanese Imperial family. Crown Prince Naruhito returned from his whirlwind wedding tour of Europe to a tense Imperial Household Agency...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 30, 2004

The Michael Nyman Band

Though Michael Nyman has worked with a variety of film directors, most notably Peter Greenaway and Jane Campion, his film scores are instantly recognizable. The horns sound regally, the strings pulsate and his band swings so wildly that the music threatens to fly apart. As a music critic in the 1960s,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 30, 2004

Freedom in a feudal land

FINDING MONJU, by Earle Ernst. Key West: Eaton Street Press, Inc., 186 pp., 2000, $19.95 (paper). The late Earle Ernst was the author of that seminal work, "The Kabuki Theater," first published in 1956 and still in print, and the editor of the 1959 "Three Japanese Plays." While a member of the Allied...
Features
May 30, 2004

Anyone for a cocktail?

A shochu-based Bloody Mary with nam pla (a fish-based Thai sauce) and fresh coriander? You have got to be joking. But no, Bob Sliwa is not -- and he insists that such strange cocktail combinations can be real winners.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 29, 2004

Miyajima to Oshima: sailing back in time

"The Inland Sea is a dangerous one unless the ship has a pilot of the greatest skill and one who thoroughly knows the channels," wrote my great-grandfather on his passage through the sea in 1900.
JAPAN
May 29, 2004

Aum cultist to hang for role in sarin gas attack

The Tokyo High Court sentenced former senior Aum Shinrikyo member Yoshihiro Inoue to death on Friday, overturning a lower court ruling of life in prison.
JAPAN
May 29, 2004

British ambassador looks to deepen global partnership

Japan and Britain should deepen their partnership on global matters, including dispute settlements, British Ambassador to Japan Stephen Gomersall said in a recent speech in Tokyo.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 28, 2004

Officials explore technology in effort to win gold in Athens

With the Athens Olympic Games looming, Japanese sports officials are exploring a variety of scientific devices and methods to secure as many gold medals for Japan as possible.
Japan Times
JAPAN / BY THE NUMBERS
May 28, 2004

Inconvenience of 2,000 yen bills keeps them a novelty

How often do you come across a 2,000 yen bank note?
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 28, 2004

Officials explore technology in effort to win gold in Athens

With the Athens Olympic Games looming, Japanese sports officials are exploring a variety of scientific devices and methods to secure as many gold medals for Japan as possible.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 27, 2004

Picking the brains of teenagers shows how we 'mature'

What an age we live in. Science is progressing in ever greater leaps and bounds. The way things are going, we might one day even understand that most enigmatic and mysterious of natural phenomena, the teenager.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 26, 2004

Rob Reiner recycles himself

Alex and Emma Rating: * * (out of 5) Director: Rob Reiner Running time: 95 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] When Alex met Emma he was a destitute writer. His words had left him, he was being hounded by loan sharks and the plaster on his ceiling...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 26, 2004

A hard man-woman is good to find

Casting is all in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," but here all's very well indeed.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 26, 2004

The hits that the house band built

Standing in the Shadows of Motown Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Paul Justman Running time: 108 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Musicians are always getting screwed. If it isn't their record label cheating them out of royalties, the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 26, 2004

Self-improvement in the sugar cane

Shinkokyu no Hitsuyo Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Tetsuo Shinohara Running time: 123 minutes Language: Japanese Opens May 29 [See Japan Times movie listings] Getting away from it all means different things to different people, doesn't it? Your dream vacation may be a hammock...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 25, 2004

More pension information and hiking

Pension I I am a foreign national living and working in Japan. I have heard that when I leave Japan, I will be reimbursed for my contributions to the national insurance , unemployment insurance or national pension plans.
BASEBALL / MLB
May 24, 2004

Matsui's HR lifts Mets over Rockies

NEW YORK -- Kazuo Matsui hit a leadoff homer in the first inning to jump-start his team's offense as the New York Mets went on to beat the Colorado Rockies 5-4 on Saturday.
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2004

On the move after decades of pacifism

A quiet pride is evinced in the dispatch of Japan's Self-Defense Forces troops for peacekeeping in Iraq even though the polls say a bare majority opposes the deployment. Says a business executive: "That's their profession; that's what they've been trained for."
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2004

People of Myanmar need Asia's support to hasten their passage to democracy

BANGKOK -- It was ridiculous to hear Myanmar's prime minister, Gen. Khin Nyunt, call on the literati to collaborate with the government in building a military-dominated nation.
Japan Times
Features
May 23, 2004

Japan's deadly game of nuclear roulette

Of all the places in all the world where no one in their right mind would build scores of nuclear power plants, Japan would be pretty near the top of the list.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
May 23, 2004

Should be handled with extreme caution

Violence is in, pop-pickers. You've seen those pictures of those troops whooping it up in Iraqi jails. Violence is clearly fun. It's cool. It basically rocks! Just ask Bush and Rumsfeld. They kicked the whole thing off.
Japan Times
Features
May 23, 2004

Power and the People

North Korea is not the only country casting a long nuclear shadow over Japan and America. The citizens of both nations are right now under threat from precarious atomic programs -- ones which are being forced on them by their own governments.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 23, 2004

Obsessions with Japan's uneasy history

NEUTRAL WAR, by Hal Gold. New York: The Lyons Press, 426 pp., 2003, $22.95 (cloth). TOKYO, by Mo Hayder. London: Bantam Press, 364 pp., 2004, £10.99 (paper). Novels that tantalize readers by intertwining known facts about the Pacific War with historical what-ifs and maybes bring to mind such entertaining...
COMMENTARY / World
May 23, 2004

How separate are religion, government?

SINGAPORE -- Religion and the state in East Asia have always had a tenuous relationship. But as political and social development accelerate with the accumulation of wealth and a growing middle class, East Asia appears to be ultimately confronting the issue of separating religion from secular politics....
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 22, 2004

A sudden pause on the bridge of dreams

I don't expect much from life, but I do assume that when I shake myself up from my dreams in the morning, I will at least be returning to those dreams at night.
JAPAN
May 22, 2004

Freed abductees hope Koizumi brings their kin

The five Japanese repatriated in 2002 after being abducted by North Korea in 1978 expressed strong expectations Friday that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi would return from his trip to Pyongyang with their eight family members.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan