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COMMUNITY / How-tos
Mar 1, 2000

Always more

In recent columns I explored purchasing English-friendly computers in Japan. Here is a little more information submitted by a reader who thinks it will be useful for those needing extended language capabilities for their computers, but first he has something to say about agreements, both local and international,...
EDITORIALS
Feb 27, 2000

The imitable Jeeves

Correct us if we are wrong, but we seem to have detected a certain half-veiled annoyance recently on the part of a British literary agency named A.P. Watt. The trouble is, these Watt chaps' duties include looking after the estate of the late, great comic novelist P.G. Wodehouse, creator of the supposedly...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 22, 2000

Some very serious pillow talk

CARTOGRAPHIES OF DESIRE: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950, by Gregory M. Pflugfelder. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999, 200 pp., unpriced. As the author of this detailed, closely reasoned and beautifully written study reminds us, "Rather than sexual practice, this book...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 22, 2000

Hearing the global groove

Just back from an exhilarating recording trip to Santa Cruz, Calif., for the second installment of the project by Okinawa's Takashi Hirayasu and American guitarist Bob Brozman. This time the duo was joined by other musicians on percussion, drums and bass, and also David Hidalgo from Los Lobos and the...
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2000

Japan keeps expo on track despite BIE's concerns

Despite environmental concerns about Japan's proposed 2005 world exposition, a top official on Monday said Aichi Prefecture is expected to register its plan at the general assembly of the Paris-based International Bureau of Expositions (BIE) in May. "The important thing is for us to continue efforts...
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2000

Kono, Ivanov signal further efforts toward a peace treaty

In the first foreign-ministerial meeting since former Russian President Boris Yeltsin resigned on New Year's Eve, Japan and Russia confirmed Friday that they will continue to cooperate on a foreign policy course to advance peace treaty negotiations, a Foreign Ministry official said.
EDITORIALS
Feb 5, 2000

Men, machines and messages

Sen. John McCain has jolted the race for the Republican presidential nomination. His landslide win in the New Hampshire primary this week stunned the front-runner, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, and reinvigorated the campaign. New Hampshire is not representative of U.S. politics, but the results there foreshadow...
COMMUNITY
Feb 1, 2000

Dance craze swinging into action

The 1996 hit movie "Shall We Dance?" has helped the Japanese appreciate the charm of ballroom dancing. Yet despite the surging popularity of dance schools across the country, social dance continues to play a minor role in the local nightlife. Now, some devotees are promoting swing, a more casual version...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 27, 2000

Restructuring, but with a human touch

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- The most popular "buzzwords" in this time of change must surely be "globalization" and "restructuring." Allow me to indulge in one more reference to the latter with some remarks that may be quickly criticized as an example of "old-school, bureaucratic" thinking.
EDITORIALS
Jan 17, 2000

Begin the Constitutional debate

The postwar Constitution of Japan, which was put into effect in 1947, will come up for formal and continuous debate for the first time in the ordinary Diet session that opens on Friday. It is unclear, however, whether the Constitutional Review Council -- which was created last year in both houses --...
JAPAN
Jan 17, 2000

Kobe closes last quake shelter

Staff writer KOBE -- Local government officials marked the fifth anniversary of the Kobe earthquake by announcing that the last temporary shelter has been closed and that it was time to move on and take stock of the lessons learned. But while much of Kobe and the surrounding area has recovered, many...
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Jan 16, 2000

Effective action

Now I know how we can rid our cities of crows. I have a wooded area behind my apartment where they gather to caw about their day, and all morning they have been especially raucous as they settle there for a short rest before taking off on another forage. Then suddenly, quiet. I looked up from my desk...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 13, 2000

A winning resolution: wine tastings among friends

If you've already broken a few New Year's resolutions, welcome to the club: You belong to the majority. But don't worry; just put a positive new twist on the onerous matter of New Year resolutions. Resolve to make wine an even greater pleasure. Herewith, a few ideas:
COMMUNITY
Dec 30, 1999

Cashing in on the new millennium fever

At the turn of the millennium, marketer Kenneth Walker will be seeing lots of zeros. Not only will he be seeing the numbers 01-01-00 everywhere, he'll be seeing lots of zeros coming behind dollar signs.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 1999

Russia's Jewish homeland: a Stalinist experiment in social engineering lingers on

BIROBIDZHAN, RUSSIA -- Mikhail Kul was a soldier in the Soviet Army that helped defeat Germany in 1945, but he returned home to find that the Holocaust had emptied his Ukrainian village of most of its inhabitants.
JAPAN
Dec 28, 1999

Oil rights talks stumble again over rail request

Tokyo and Riyadh have failed to narrow their differences in their latest negotiations over the renewal of Arabian Oil Co.'s drilling rights in a major Saudi Arabian oil field, International Trade and Industry Minister Takashi Fukaya said Tuesday. Fukaya made the remark in reference to a two-day governmental...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Dec 23, 1999

Sake tools you can trust

Happy Holidays to all Japan Times readers.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 1999

SDP legislator demands apology for comic

Diet member Kiyomi Tsujimoto of the Social Democratic Party has demanded that major publishing house Shogakukan Co. and cartoonist Yoshinori Kobayashi apologize to her for a cartoon in the magazine SAPIO that she claims libeled her. Tsujimoto told a news conference Wednesday that she made the demand...
EDITORIALS
Dec 14, 1999

'Get out or die'

Russia has always talked tough. Last week, the world got a double dose of invective, however. First, residents of the Chechen capital of Grozny were told to "get out or die" before the Russian military launched an assault. A few days later, Russian President Boris Yeltsin expressed his displeasure with...
CULTURE / Music
Dec 5, 1999

Down Under music with Asian flair

The renowned Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe vividly recalls gifts he received as a young boy growing up in 1930s rural Tasmania, given to him by family friends on return from Japan. One gift was a much-thumbed children's version of the "Tale of Genji," the other a cardboard-cutout castle.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 24, 1999

Ghostly tanka with a steely brightness

HEAVENLY MAIDEN: Tanka, by Akiko Baba, translated by Hatsue Kawamura and Jane Reichhold. AHA Books, 1999; 115 pp., $10. More expressive than the briefer haiku, tanka can more easily incorporate the flow of events and thoughts that make up ordinary life:
JAPAN
Nov 15, 1999

Forester decries ranger shortage, U.S. whaling

Staff writer
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Nov 10, 1999

Pre-holiday planning

It seems a bit early to be writing about Christmas, but there is a lot of planning to do if you must ship things home, or even pack them to take with you. That's why the Tokyo charity-oriented International Ladies Benevolent Society now schedules its ILBS Christmas Fair even before we have ordered the...
JAPAN
Oct 28, 1999

Extra Diet session to test new triumvirate

Staff writer
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Oct 20, 1999

Ghosts and goblins and kids, oh my!

Just after the ghosts and goblins of Halloween disappear, we will enter yet another spooky holiday: Nov. 3 -- Culture Day.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 10, 1999

Breaking the Pakistani link to terrorism

ISLAMABAD -- Suspicsions of a link between a spate of recent terrorist bombings across Russia and Osama bin Laden, the Afghanistan-based Saudi dissident, promise to again draw Pakistan into the issue of global terrorism.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 23, 1999

Translator bridges Japan-Spain gap

SEVILLE, Spain -- Seville in the summer is so hot, they say, that even the dogs don't go outside. The athletes didn't at the recent World Championships, at least from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. The white walls of the city reflect the southern Spanish sun down the narrow corridors that resemble wintry Alpine passes...
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Sep 4, 1999

Bang a gong, sing a sacred Buddhist song

Sound is an integral part of traditional Buddhist ceremony in Japanese temples. Time in the temple is structured around a procession of ceremonies: rising, meditating, giving alms, eating, etc., and each ceremony is accompanied by the sonorities of men chanting sutras in unison, called shomyo.
JAPAN
Aug 31, 1999

Sexologist to speak on medical ethics

Milton Diamond, a leading sexologist and professor at the University of Hawaii Medical School, will give a lecture on medical ethics concerning intersexualism, the study of people born with sexually ambiguous genitals, Friday at Tokyo Women's Plaza in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward.
JAPAN
Aug 27, 1999

Kanzaki sees September start for coalition

The coalition government of the Liberal Democratic Party, the Liberal Party and New Komeito will start as early as late September, New Komeito head Takenori Kanzaki said Friday.

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell