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LIFE / Travel
Nov 8, 2000

Cracked earth: A journey through Thailand's arid and impoverished Northeast

"In a bad year, it is not only the plows that break, but the hearts too." -- Pira Sudham, "People of Isan"
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 7, 2000

No chippie off the old block

WOODBLOCK KUCHI-E PRINTS: Reflections of Meiji Culture, by Helen Merrit and Nanako Yamada. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000, 284 pp., profusely illustrated, $65. That category of woodblock print called the "kuchi-e" has not been widely investigated. In the large bibliography that concludes...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Nov 7, 2000

A fine fuzzy day out at Rocktober

The inaugural Rocktober festival on Sunday, Oct. 15, at Shiokaze Park in Odaiba, confounded my expectations: I had a great time.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 7, 2000

China refuses to let history be

The recent visit to Japan by Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji has certainly created a favorable impression among the Japanese -- a contrast with Chinese President Jiang Zemin's visit two years ago -- but it has had no significant politi cal impact on public opinion in this country.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Nov 6, 2000

Sexual wounding, kicking and early death

Sex can sometimes be awkward in humans, and sometimes painful, but rarely do human females have to put up with what females of the bean weevil endure. The male's penis carries a formidable array of sharp spines which lacerate the female reproductive tract during copulation.
COMMENTARY
Nov 6, 2000

Profit, but at whose expense?

Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in economics, says consumers who seek maximum gains and companies that seek maximum profits are "rational fools." The Oxford University professor also says behavioral standards of consumers and companies should be based on "commitment and sympathy."...
JAPAN
Nov 5, 2000

Police take action to fight surge in lock-pickings

There was a time not so long ago when it wasn't even necessary to lock the front door in Kenichi Sonada's neighborhood in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 5, 2000

Do the Japanese have a sense of humor?

A Jewish peddler boldly visits the house of a rich nobleman. The place is Rome and the time, well, about 2,000 years ago, plus or minus a few decades here or there.
CULTURE / Music
Nov 5, 2000

Long live the rock 'n' roll animals

A rock musician flaunts his intellect at his own peril, which is why Lou Reed is more of a survivor than his tired rep as the droning voice of the New York demimonde would have you believe. It's been almost 20 years since he started heads a-scratchin' with "My House," his ode to Delmore Schwartz who...
COMMENTARY
Nov 5, 2000

Mori administration reeling

The administration of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is in crisis, visibly weakened by the resignation of Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa over a drug-related extramarital affair.
COMMENTARY
Nov 4, 2000

Mori fumbles, Japan drifts

The government of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori faces another political crisis after a furor over a controversial electoral-reform bill died down with the Diet passage of the legislation. The law introduces a new voting system in the proportional-representation section of Upper House polls.
JAPAN
Nov 3, 2000

Khatami urges people of Japan, Iran to be closer

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami on Thursday urged the people of Japan and Iran to draw closer by overcoming differences in culture, language and mentality.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2000

Oshima, Ogata to get Purple Ribbon

Film director Nagisa Oshima and veteran actor Ken Ogata are among 29 recipients of this fall's Medal with Purple Ribbon for their contributions to the arts and academia.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2000

Child abuse cases rise by 70%

A record 11,631 cases of child abuse were reported in fiscal 1999, an increase of 70 percent from the previous year, according to a Health and Welfare Ministry report released Wednesday.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2000

Fighting system is folly: Tanaka

OSAKA -- Nagano Gov. Yasuo Tanaka said he has learned from the mistakes of other populist governors who took on the bureaucracy and lost, emphasizing that the age of traditional confrontational politics between small citizens' groups and bureaucrats is over.
OLYMPICS
Nov 1, 2000

Ruling made on controversial judo final

The International Judo Federation on Monday confirmed that France's David Douillet should not have won a controversial point that gave him a decisive win over Japan's Shinichi Shinohara in the heavyweight final at the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 1, 2000

International performers take to Shizuoka's streets

Shizuoka City has a problem. Mount Fuji is an hour east, a decent beach is an hour west. Outside of green tea and clean air, Shizuoka City itself doesn't have much going for it.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Nov 1, 2000

Japan's rich natural diversity

For a naturalist, traveling the length and breadth of Japan is an endless magical mystery tour. Living in any one part of the country one can easily forget the phenomenal diversity in this immensely varied archipelago.
JAPAN / LIFE OFF MIYAKE
Oct 31, 2000

Evacuees long for home, gird for worst

Namiko Morishita did not expect it to last this long. She and her family fled their home on Miyake Island in late August as volcanic activity on Mount Oyama intensified.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 31, 2000

Hard lessons Japan failed to learn

JAPAN'S FINANCIAL CRISIS AND ITS PARALLELS TO U.S. EXPERIENCE, edited by Ryoichi Mikitani and Adam S. Posen. Washington: Institute for International Economics, Special Report 13, Sept. 2000, 228 pp., $20. There's an old joke about a politician's plea for a one-handed economist, one who can't say, "but...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 31, 2000

Japan's visionless politics

Many Japanese watched on television at least part of the face-to-face debates between U.S. presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush. Both candidates are said to be more or less middle-of-the-road types,with no defining differ ences in political philosophy. In my view, however, Bush showed himself...
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2000

Opposition camp wants summons for Nakagawa

Opposition parties said Sunday they will demand former Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa be summoned to the Diet to respond to allegations that he leaked police information to his former mistress and is closely tied with a rightwing extremist.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Oct 30, 2000

U.S. reporter misses the mark on Japan

"Given America's willingness to avert its eyes from the most troubling chapters of its history and to resist critical self-evaluation and discussion of the country's atrocities against native Americans and African Americans . . ."
EDITORIALS
Oct 29, 2000

Glamour in a good cause

There was a gathering at the United Nations in New York last Monday that nobody paid much attention to. The World Series and a high-wattage Senate race were distracting New Yorkers. A murderous flareup in the Middle East and a surreal encounter in Pyongyang were distracting the rest of the world.
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2000

Japan hopeful ahead of North Korea talks

Japan and North Korea will hold talks in Beijing from Monday, with the focus of discussions likely to be on North Korean demands for compensation for Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
BASEBALL / MLB
Oct 29, 2000

Giants dethrone Hawks for Japan Series title

Hideki Matsui provided much of the offense and Darrell May pitched in with a stellar performance on the mound Saturday night at the Tokyo Dome as the Yomiuri Giants claimed their 19th Japan Series title in emphatic style, blowing out the defending champion Daiei Hawks 9-3 in Game 6.

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes