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CULTURE / Art
Mar 11, 2001

Bottling everyday beauty on film

With an oeuvre more than a quarter-century in the making, Mamoru Sugiyama is due for a retrospective exhibition. So that is exactly what Tokyo's respected Photo Gallery International has given the 49-year-old photographer, in a show featuring some 30 of Sugiyama's representative black-and-white still-life...
JAPAN
Mar 4, 2001

Osaka to emphasize dangers of lighting up

OSAKA -- Forget the bid for the 2008 Olympic Games or the opening of Universal Studios Japan. For those Osaka residents who have long suffered in the presence of cigarette smokers, a recent announcement by the city came as some of the best news in years.
JAPAN
Mar 2, 2001

Researcher publishes third study on toilets

OSAKA -- A 53-year-old civil servant in Osaka Prefecture who has been researching the history of toilets in Japan for more than 30 years has published his latest findings in what he calls "The Journal of Toilet Culture."
CULTURE / Film
Feb 24, 2001

Space . . . the funny frontier

Think of it as a "Seven Samurai" in outer space. OK, well there are only six warriors in "Galaxy Quest" but the comparison kinda works. They are a group of has-been actors whose sole claim to fame is a TV series called "Galaxy Quest" that went off the air 18 years ago. But American human beings weren't...
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Feb 24, 2001

Names writ in letters of fire

The leading ceramics quarterly Honoho Geijutsu recently published a very interesting survey in its 65th issue, listing the names of the most important (juyo) and popular (ninki) ceramic artists of the 20th century.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 20, 2001

Support for Asian filmmakers

Facing nonexistent government support, meager prospects for private-sector funding and even diminishing turnout at box offices, any aspiring filmmaker in Japan might lose sight of their movie-making dreams.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 18, 2001

Renoir's transition to Old Master

Renoir's world is a chocolate box, full of plump women, sweet children and pastel whirls. But even if you prefer paintings with more bite, do not dismiss Bridgestone's new Renoir exhibition. This interesting selection reveals a talent of more depth and restlessness than you may have seen before.
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2001

Court upholds ban on publishing novel

The Tokyo High Court on Thursday upheld a lower court ruling ordering prizewinning novelist Miri Yuu and publisher Shinchosha Co. to halt publication of a short novel and pay 1.3 million yen to a former friend of Yuu's for violating her privacy.
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2001

Politicians rethinking reliance on vote-gathering machinery

Staff writer It is election year in Japan again. About half of the seats in the Upper House will be up for grabs in the triennial election in July, while the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election -- often seen as an indicator of voting trends in national polls -- is expected in June.
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2001

Politicians rethinking reliance on vote-gathering machinery

Staff writer It is election year in Japan again. About half of the seats in the Upper House will be up for grabs in the triennial election in July, while the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election -- often seen as an indicator of voting trends in national polls -- is expected in June.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Feb 10, 2001

The beauty of the dark side

Black is usually associated with the "dark side" -- evil, frightening, and negative. But in the Way of Tea, a black chawan (tea bowl) is prized above all others.
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Feb 8, 2001

All good wines must converge

For winemakers in the Southern Hemisphere (specifically in South Africa, South America, Australia and New Zealand), February is a very important month -- just before the harvest in March, half a year or more before harvest time in the Northern Hemisphere.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 6, 2001

Modernism revealed

FICTIONS OF DESIRE: Narrative Form in the Novels of Nagai Kafu, by Stephen Snyder. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000, 196 pp., $42 (cloth), $17.95 (paper). Recently, it has been argued that the 18th-century realist tradition (Balzac, Dickens and on to now) is not the only such tradition;...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 4, 2001

The elephants walk

Peter Pommerer likes to think big. Like, elephant big. His drawings, paintings and installations almost always revolve around depictions of the herbivorous mammal. Actually, there is a rumor floating around the art world that the Stuttgart artist actually believes he is an elephant.
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 3, 2001

Suzuki's view of the stars

Of the many categories of dance in Japan, from traditional ballet to so-called neo-butoh and beyond into the unmapped territories of performance installation, Minoru Suzuki is the only ballet choreographer with the potential to be a contender internationally. To celebrate 35 years in the business, Star...
COMMENTARY
Feb 3, 2001

Is Asian democracy at risk?

Is democracy in trouble in Asia? From the removal of an elected president by less than constitutional means in the Philippines to an attempt to remove another sitting president in Taiwan to questions concerning the eligibility of the presumptive prime minister in Thailand to a near-coup by the ruling...
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2001

Green product guidelines approved

Government officials approved basic guidelines Thursday regarding the selection of environmentally friendly products for use in government offices as well as the Diet and courts.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 29, 2001

Banks untouched by evolution

After three years here, I believe the essence of the difference between Japan and India can be summed up thus: In India, nothing works, but everything can be arranged (for a consideration, of course); in Japan, everything works, but nothing can be arranged. One of the surprising aspects of life in Japan...
CULTURE / Art
Jan 28, 2001

Elegance in everyday sculptures

In the 19th century, ukiyo-e wood block prints and ornamental toggles for pouches -- netsuke -- were greatly prized in the West. But to most Japanese, in the whirl of modernization, they were simply old-fashioned aspects of a fading way of life.
COMMUNITY
Jan 14, 2001

Turning gray offices into great places to work

Steven Louie, vice president and design director of Gensler Tokyo, is not only warm, open and charming; he's also sensitive, patient, and very very kind. This was illustrated by his treatment of the 16-year-old student from the U.K. (on a work experience program) who accompanied me, listening attentively...
BUSINESS
Jan 12, 2001

Ogi invites Mineta to land ministers' talks in '02

Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Chikage Ogi on Thursday asked visiting U.S. Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta to attend an international conference of land ministers in Japan next January, ministry officials said.
COMMENTARY
Jan 12, 2001

Still waiting for real reform

A slimmed-down national government debuted Jan. 6, when Japan's central bureaucracy was reorganized. The realignment cut the number of ministries and agencies, under the Cabinet Office, to 12 from the previous 22.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 5, 2001

A film genius in his own mind

Harmony Korine -- screenwriter of "Kids," director of "Gummo" -- fancies himself the enfant terrible of contemporary cinema. Well, he is . . . terrible. Certain critics have been calling him "the new Godard," and I'd agreewith that too. But when was the last time Godard made anything that played better...
BUSINESS
Jan 4, 2001

Redevelopment hits Tokyo's heart

For the moment, it remains an enormous no man's land in the heart of Tokyo, with the only signs of life the numerous cranes, prefab huts and foundations that indicate construction projects are under way.
EDITORIALS
Dec 30, 2000

Economy still stuck in a rut

Looking back to 2000, the critical question hanging over the Japanese economy is: Has there been movement, or at least the preparations for a move, toward a new system befitting the start of a new century? The answer, unfortunately, is no.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?