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JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 1, 1999

'Liberation' of birth control proves a bitter pill to swallow

On Aug. 16, the Health and Welfare Ministry announced that it had finally approved the low-dosage birth control pill, which will likely become available through prescription in the fall. Oral contraceptives for women have been available in the West for close to 40 years, but in Japan they've always been...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jun 30, 1999

Let's digital

Let's digital. That's the message in the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications 1999 White Paper on Communications in Japan. The annual survey, released earlier this month, reveals a nation poised for the millennium, its finger firmly on the mouse, clicking its way into the 21st century
CULTURE / Books
Jun 29, 1999

American haiku now holds its own

THE HAIKU ANTHOLOGY, by Cor van den Heuvel. W. W. Norton, pp. 363, $27.50. Cor van den Heuvel is the most important anthologist of haiku composed in English in North America. He has published three collections, all simply called "The Haiku Anthology" and all through prominent commercial houses: Doubleday,...
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jun 25, 1999

J rockers want free Tibet, wherever that is

"Tibet . . . hmm . . . it's a foreign country, I know that," mused one young man.
CULTURE / Film
Jun 25, 1999

Lost opportunity of the disco daze

If there were ever a high-water mark of hedonism, it would have to have been located at some New York or L.A. disco in the late '70s. In this pre-AIDS, post-Pill era of guilt-free sex, drug use was widespread and largely tolerated, gay culture was coming out of the closet and sexual mores were loosening...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 20, 1999

Y2K: The liability millennium

The coming new millennium means different things to different people. Some fatalists believe it presages the end of the world. Some religious people believe it portends the return of Christ. Some lawyers believe it promises yet another financial cornucopia.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Jun 19, 1999

From court to village across the centuries

During the upcoming early summer weeks, one can experience a wide variety of fine hogaku concerts, including sublime gagaku court music, a lively group of kagura performers from Iwate Prefecture, contemporary koto music played by several fine young women performers, a large-scale biwa presentation and...
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 19, 1999

Exploring tropical forests of poetry

Stephen Forster has released a new volume of poetry titled "The Good Mouth." In this collection of poems, Forster takes the reader on an imaginative journey to distant lands where conquistadors in tropical forests meet their savage doom, or to places where the omniscient voice of a child uttering the...
JAPAN
Jun 17, 1999

Portugal — the next hot European tourist draw?

OPORTO, Portugal — The government of Portugal is trying to convince Japanese tourists that provinces in the south of France are not the only destination for a relaxing vacation in Europe. Instead, it is pushing the Iberian countryside with its ecotourism opportunities and locally made brandy-laced...
JAPAN
Jun 15, 1999

Prewar taste of 'awamori' springs anew

NAHA, Okinawa Pref. — It was almost a religious moment for "awamori" aficionados.
EDITORIALS
Jun 12, 1999

The prospect of peace in Kosovo

The proper response to the Kosovo peace accord agreed to last week by NATO and Yugoslavia is caution. Caution because agreement is easy, and implementation is not; the lesson of Bosnia is that making an enduring peace is a long and tedious process. Caution because Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic...
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Jun 12, 1999

Open door to a world of dreams

David Wheeler, shakuhachi performer, teacher and writer on Japanese music, will be presenting a shakuhachi recital June 19 at Hamarikyu Asahi Hall.
COMMUNITY
Jun 12, 1999

Don't throw in the towel on tenugui yet

Tenugui, rectangular cotton hand towels, are sometimes distributed by shops or firms as gifts for their openings or other occasions, mainly because they are inexpensive, lightweight and easy to carry. Those who receive them, however, are not usually thrilled to get towels printed with simple patterns...
JAPAN
Jun 10, 1999

GDP expanded 1.9% in January-March quarter

The nation's economy grew 1.9 percent in the January-March quarter — an annualized rate of 7.9 percent — breaking a string of five consecutive quarters of contraction, the Economic Planning Agency said Thursday.
CULTURE / Music
Jun 10, 1999

Rockers get down for Tibet Freedom weekend

What do an 11th-century Tibetan saint and a member of one of the world's more popular hip-hop groups have in common?
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jun 9, 1999

The random walk

Hoping to tap into that Amazon.com magic right here in Japan, Softbank (a software and publishing company), Seven-Eleven, Yahoo! Japan and Tohan, a book publisher and distributor, last week announced a joint venture to sell books online. e-Shopping! Books (who thinks up these names?) plans to open for...
JAPAN
Jun 9, 1999

Publisher to pay for exposing accused man

OSAKA — The Osaka District Court ordered the Tokyo-based publisher Shinchosha to pay 2.5 million yen in damages Wednesday to a 20-year-old man indicted for a murder he allegedly committed as a minor, for carrying his name and photo in one of its publications.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 8, 1999

The darkest shores of the soul

SHIPWRECKS, by Akira Yoshimura, translated by Mark Ealey. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1996, 180 pp., $21. Though Akira Yoshimura, born in 1927, is the author of some 20 novels, this is the first to be translated into English. Perhaps the reason for the delay is that he is better known as a historian...
COMMUNITY
Jun 5, 1999

Brushing up on hairs and whiskers the write way

"The first thing that I learned from my father was how to choose the right type of hairs," says Yoshio Tanabe, the fude (Japanese writing brush) maker who owns Tanabe Bunkaido. Selecting the hairs is the first and most important step taken in the brush-making process, he says.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

Foreign women who leave husbands have few options

Second of two parts
CULTURE / Film
Jun 4, 1999

Somewhere over the airwaves

Once upon a time, back in the '50s, there existed a "better" America, a wholesome utopia of crew cuts, unquestioning white-bread conformity and mom in the kitchen baking apple pies.
JAPAN
Jun 3, 1999

Immigrants: Foreign laborers attempt to organize

First of two parts
LIFE / Travel
Jun 2, 1999

Learning through landscapes

ARBORFIELD CROSS, England -- When Susan Humphries was appointed head of the Coombes Infant School in Arborfield Cross, Surrey, an hour's drive from London, it was doubtless a satisfying moment in career terms. A school of her own at last. What she did not realize, and is likely to dismiss modestly today,...
EDITORIALS
Jun 1, 1999

Ratify the stand against torture

It was in 1984 that the United Nations adopted the "Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment." More than 110 countries have since joined the treaty, but surprisingly Japan is not yet one of them. Finally, however, the government has decided to ratify the...
JAPAN
May 31, 1999

Prange exhibit recalls Occupation's censorship

Staff writer
COMMENTARY / World
May 31, 1999

Trade must extend to poorer countries

Prosperous countries in the North, such as the United States, can no longer rely on trade between developed countries led by Fortune 500 corporations alone. Trade must increase in developing countries and transitional economies if all are to benefit from a growing world economy. Policymakers and businesses...
EDITORIALS
May 29, 1999

Wiretapping is a two-edged tool

The threat to public safety posed by rising rates of organized crime requires new tools and techniques in the hands of the police. On that there is scant disagreement, except possibly among lawbreakers and potential lawbreakers themselves. It is not so clear, however, that the answer to growing public...
JAPAN
May 28, 1999

Kosovars take refuge in Japan

Staff writer
JAPAN
May 28, 1999

Panel ponders ways to reverse falling birthrate

Amid the declining birthrate, the government held its first meeting Friday of Cabinet ministers to discuss ways to encourage young couples to have more children.
COMMUNITY
May 27, 1999

Tokyo market's quiet riot of color

Beneath cascades of purple orchids, ferns uncoil like emerald snakes. Tokyo's wholesale flower market is a quiet riot of color.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past