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COMMUNITY
Aug 24, 2000

A new deal for man's best friend

Theta was a month-and-a-half-old puppy when she first came to live with Fuyumi Morita and her husband in the city of Kakegawa, Shizuoka Prefecture, one year after the couple's marriage. Morita remembers Theta's little paws scrabbling at her when she picked her up, Theta's little eyes looking into her...
COMMUNITY
Aug 20, 2000

A decade of anecdotes to order

There are books about spending time in Japan, written in the main by Alice-in-Wonderlands who believe a short stretch makes them authoritative on all things Japanese. And there are books about Japan. Bruce McCormack's "Tokyo Notes and Anecdotes: Natsukashi" falls into this second, far more recommendable,...
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
Aug 17, 2000

The tawdry charm of the tattoo

Tattoos are everywhere these days. What are we expressing with this new vision of beauty, that calls for the tattoo to complete it? Until a few decades ago in the West, tattoos were associated mostly with sailors, prisoners, gang members, soldiers and carnival performers.
COMMUNITY
Aug 13, 2000

Women! Enhance your lifestyles with Webgrrls

Talking with American Khristine (Khris) Schaffner lowered the heat in Tokyo's Nishi-Shinjuku by several degrees. She has that kind of tall, willowy, pale blonde beauty that acts as a psychological cooler even if she is talking 10 to the dozen and making a complete fool of herself over a Starbucks chocolate...
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Aug 12, 2000

Bringing out the flavor of the clay

Shuroku Harada is the consummate potter. First off, this highly successful ceramist doesn't put on any proud airs; he maintains a humbleness that is important when working with the earth. He shapes the clay and the clay has shaped him, so to speak, into what he is today; mutual respect at its best.
COMMUNITY
Aug 9, 2000

Echoes of the past in an oasis of beauty

The Japanese lords of yesteryear certainly lived in grand style. Famous gardens in Japan are like very expensive works of art. Luckily the Ritsurin Garden in Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture, cannot be sold at Christie's.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 25, 2000

Fenollosa's study of art is art

EPOCHS OF CHINESE AND JAPANESE ART, by Ernest F. Fenollosa. A facsimile of the 1913 edition. New York, Tokyo, Osaka: ICG Muse, Inc. 440 pp., with original plates, 2,100 yen. Ernest Fenollosa, the man who taught the West about traditional Japanese art, first came to Japan in 1878, when he was invited...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 23, 2000

Miki Wakamatsu

"The World Dance Alliance has initiated a project to join in celebrating the millennium. It is a time to consider where we have been, where we are and where we are going. Therefore the theme of World Dance 2000 is 'Dance in the Past, Present and Future,' " said Miki Wakamatsu.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2000

Summit holds key to vision for Okinawa in the 21st century

Okinawa was placed under U.S. rule for 27 years after the end of World War II. During this time, the Japanese mainland succeeded in rebuilding its economy, in particular securing high economic growth through the development of heavy industries, and thus joined the ranks of industrialized countries.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2000

Balancing act for G8 leaders in a land apart

Four years ago, in July 1996, I suggested in an opinion piece for the Sankei Shimbun that the Group of Eight summit in 2000 be held in Okinawa.
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 19, 2000

Really roughing it in the wilderness of Sakhalin

Few people would associate "tourist paradise" with "Sakhalin." The lobster claw-shaped island lying just 40 km from Hokkaido is best known for the rush to exploit resources on its northeastern shelf, a repository of crude oil and natural gas.
JAPAN
Jul 9, 2000

Battlewagon Yamato steams again as replica

KAWABE, Wakayama Pref. -- As the biggest battleship the world had ever seen, the Yamato is still remembered by many Japanese even half a century after it was sunk off Cape Bo-no-Misaki in Kagoshima Prefecture.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jul 8, 2000

Through the fires of experience to beauty

One afternoon a few months ago I had the pleasure of taking a visiting dignitary around Tokyo to view pottery. While we were riding around in his limousine and talking about Japanese pottery he said many times how sublime he thought it was.
COMMUNITY
Jul 6, 2000

Young women take to life at sea

It's common knowledge that a large proportion of Japanese traveling abroad these days are young single women. They usually have decent-paying jobs, live rent-free with their parents and spend their salaries as they please. Well aware of this phenomenon, the travel industry has geared some advertisements...
EDITORIALS
Jul 2, 2000

Dumb and dumber

There is a wonderful anecdote about Oscar Wilde in Richard Ellmann's monumental biography of the Victorian wit, aesthete and playwright. In 1882-3, Wilde undertook a North American lecture tour, with the aim of bringing the gospel of beauty to the New World. A highlight of the tour was his stopover in...
EDITORIALS
Jul 1, 2000

Cutting the price of diamonds

The links between diamonds and some of the world's deadliest conflicts are becoming clearer every day. Diamonds play a critical role in the wars in Africa. It is estimated that Angolan rebels earned more than $4 billion in 1998 from the sale of the gems. The sale of mining rights has spurred foreign...
LIFE / Travel
Jun 21, 2000

Kumamoto: the fortified city

Like the good residents of Granada in southern Andalusia, notorious for their drastic mood swings, natives of Kumamoto have a reputation for being stubborn and sulky. These durable folk (Kumamoto has one of the country's largest contingents of centenarians) are also reputed to be both easy to anger and...
CULTURE / Music
Jun 18, 2000

All in the Phish phamily

At first, I felt sorry for the Americans who followed Phish across the Pacific for the band's Japan tour. I live here, and even I find the prices intolerable and the infrastructure unforgiving.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jun 8, 2000

Epic upset by Warriors still greatest in NBA history

It's been 25 years now but I remember it like it was yesterday.
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2000

Volcano leaves Lake Toya in limbo

ABUTA, Hokkaido — Lake Toya is silent. The smell of sulfur is heavy in the air.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jun 7, 2000

Irrational tomatoes and criminal turnips

What do Abraham Lincoln, Dark Purple Beefsteak, a Giant Belgian and the Earl of Edgecombe have in common?
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jun 6, 2000

Super Furries, Eels, Bentley signed up for summer of fun

Super Furry Animals -- "Mwng" (Placid Casual) Their warped imaginations proffer a bent reality, a Dali-like melting pot of madness; they adorn their album covers with exotic monstrosities that are both cute and menacing. They are totally fuzzy. They are the Super Furry Animals, they don't play by the...
CULTURE / Art
Jun 3, 2000

Paintings that invite you to linger longer

The first thing you notice are the fingers. These are big, long fingers, four of them radiating outward from each half of a stretching oil on canvas diptych the artist calls "Double Fist."
COMMUNITY
May 17, 2000

A city of two tales

BEIJING Close to sunset, the Chinese national flag above Peach Garden School cast a long shadow on the muddy ground. Thirteen-year-old Li Jianrou, the daughter of migrant workers from Hebei, still lingered with friends in their ramshackle classroom. A peek into her home, just a minute away, soon reveals...
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
May 11, 2000

Enjoying the best Austria has to offer

Ultimately wine appreciation is about the glorious moment when distinctive wine and discerning taste buds rapturously converge. Having visited over 150 wineries, I can assure you that this pleasure is possible at a winery wine tasting even after something as stressful, for example, as my rain-drenched...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
May 10, 2000

Sea of love

Ponder, if you will, these two recent headlines:
LIFE / Travel
May 10, 2000

Postcards from the flip side of Japan

Think of the antithesis of Japan. A place where there are few people, an abundance of unspoiled natural beauty, a low standard of living and, perhaps most importantly for the visitor, sparkling blue oceans teeming with fish and alive with coral reefs.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Apr 30, 2000

Creating memories

Recently, in California, I was sitting next to an elderly woman on a bus. We exchanged a few words, and then I asked if she had always lived there. She said yes, but that she had traveled all over the world. She began counting the places and the list seemed endless. Among them was Japan. She paused when...

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb