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COMMUNITY
Feb 3, 2005

A common thyroid disease that's easily overlooked

Of late, do you find yourself becoming very tired or sleepy without any particular reason? Do you feel that you cannot concentrate on your studies or work as well as before? If so, you should have your levels of thyroid hormone checked.
Japan Times
Features
Jan 30, 2005

Counselor counters the blues through chanson and jazz

Junko Umihara turned up a bit late for our interview at a cafe in Tokyo's Hiroo district one afternoon recently. She had been with a patient at her Umihara Mental Clinic in nearby Minato Ward, she said, "and counseling took a bit longer than scheduled."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 29, 2005

All good things come to those who wait

Judy Ishizu holds up her latest English textbook, "Sekando Raifu no Eikaiwa" ("Second Life English Conversation"), and can scarcely contain her enthusiasm. "It's a dream come true to be in print. This is not my first book, however, but the fifth. To date the second -- "Eigo de Imi . Kangae wo Ieru Hyogen"...
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2005

Koizumi set to resume battle for postal reform

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will go all-out in the 150-day Diet session that convened Friday to push his long-cherished, but highly contentious, plan to privatize the nation's postal services.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 19, 2005

Castle of the truly absurd

One night in deep midwinter, K. arrives at an inn in a snow-covered village beneath a mighty castle which may or may not exist. K., played by Tetsushi Tanaka, claims he has been hired by the castle as a land surveyor.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2005

Murders-for-insurance ringleader's death penalty upheld

The Tokyo High Court on Thursday upheld the death penalty for a moneylender for the murder of two men and attempted murder of another for life insurance.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jan 9, 2005

NTV's "87 percent — My Five-Year Chance of Survival" and more

A new year means a whole new set of drama series, though the themes remain the same. Fans of terminal illness stories will find a lot to cry over in "87 percent -- My Five-Year Chance of Survival," which premieres Wednesday on Nihon TV at 10 p.m. Yui Natsukawa plays Akiko, a 35-year-old insurance saleslady...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jan 9, 2005

Keiko Sakai: Conundrum Iraq

One year ago this month, an advance team from Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) arrived in Iraq on a mission -- so the Japanese public was told -- to help rebuild the wartorn country. The rest of the main contingent of 600 troops soon followed.
JAPAN / DEMOGRAPHIC DILEMMAS
Jan 4, 2005

Marital expectations help ensure singles ranks soar

She's a 38-year-old Tokyo working woman, enjoys single life, drives a sports car and dines at gourmet restaurants.
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 29, 2004

Celebrating ourselves and others on stage in 2004

Many of the best theatrical stagings on these shores this year tackled issues having to do with the current chaotic state of the world. The focus of the best productions in Japan was how to understand, communicate and cope with others from quite different cultural and ethnic backgrounds; or, as part...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 19, 2004

Revealing 'The Japanese Sensibility': Iconoclasm

In many senses the Japanese people have been in denial since the end of World War II.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 12, 2004

Revealing 'The Japanese Sensibility': Innocence

How can innocence and worldliness coexist in a people? Does not the black whip of cynicism, with its burr and sting, send naivete sailing for more gentle and accommodating shores?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 11, 2004

Pink Cow princess with two feet firmly on ground

In the early 1990s, artist-sculptor Traci Consoli left her native California to see a bit of the world. "I made a life in Tokyo, married to a Japanese guitar player, but found I was still not happy. Something was missing."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2004

Photographer captures images of youths on death row in U.S.

The subjects of photographer Toshi Kazama -- all young boys and girls -- stare straight into the lens of his camera, some smiling shyly, others looking serious.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Nov 4, 2004

Captivity conundrum over spared bear

In August 1985, I was in Tokyo awaiting the birth of my youngest daughter. One evening, I got a telephone call from Yoshio Kazama, my friend and next-door neighbor in Kurohime -- the beautiful corner of Nagano Prefecture where I live.
Japan Times
Features
Oct 24, 2004

Kitty collector plans afterlife together as well

Some have ridiculed her taste. Others have called her infantile. Yet Asako Kanda, a 31-year-old receptionist at a crafts and culture school in Tokyo, has never had any qualms about her long-running love affair with Hello Kitty.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 16, 2004

Good Day Books to touch base with literary icon

My husband does not often bow to me. But when I announce that I am off to meet the renowned scholar and translator of Japanese literature Edward Seidensticker, Significant Other is so impressed he near bends in half and instantly offers up half a dozen questions he himself would like to ask.
Japan Times
Features
Oct 3, 2004

Teddy bares all

Long before baseball's Ichiro Suzuki or soccer's Hidetoshi Nakata became stars overseas, in 1987 a 15-year-old boy from Asahikawa in Hokkaido flew to London on his way to taking the ballet world by storm just a few years later.
Japan Times
Features
Sep 26, 2004

Disillusioned bard of a bygone Japan

In the century that has passed since the death of Lafcadio Hearn on Sept. 26, 1904, the Japanese people have studiously formulated and maintained a myth -- and they have done it with all the tools and vigor of nostalgia at their disposal.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 26, 2004

Japan's abandoned kids live with the label

The murders of 4-year-old Kazuto Hayashi and his 3-year-old brother Hayato by an acquaintance of their father two weeks ago in Tochigi Prefecture has sparked outrage over Japan's insufficient child-welfare system. Though local police and child-welfare officials were aware the two boys were being beaten,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 15, 2004

You can't beat an old master

Coffee Jiko Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Hou Hsiao- hsien Running time: 103 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Yasujiro Ozu's trademark style -- the low camera angles, the straight cuts, the actors talking at the camera in medium closeup...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 2, 2004

"A Gathering Light," "The Coldest Day in the Zoo"

"A Gathering Light," Jennifer Donnelly, Bloomsbury; 2004; 383 pp. "Tell the truth!" It's not just children who get that all the time: Writers do, too. The only difference is that writers don't have to treat the truth too literally, as Jennifer Donnelly shows us in "A Gathering Light."
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 21, 2004

Beat the heat -- get out to the islands

It has been one of the hottest years on record in Japan, especially in Tokyo. Something about too much pavement and too many high-rise buildings blocking the breeze. It makes you wonder, why don't those people in the high-rises just open their windows to let the breeze through?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 4, 2004

No winners or losers in 'The Face of Jizo'

In the early 1960s, Hisashi Inoue, the author of the original play "The Face of Jizo," was working under contract as a writer at NHK. The idea for the play came when he was sent to Hiroshima in the summer to do a program about the anti-nuclear movement.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 9, 2004

Recovery shows benefits of letting foreigners in

Like many other Japanese investors, Hiroo Sato got burned a decade ago when the nation's speculative bubble burst. These days, he's finally getting some of his money back via a rebounding stock market.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jul 4, 2004

Blaming referee for England's loss to Portugal pathetic

LONDON -- When Urs Meier disallowed Sol Campbell's last-minute goal against Portugal last week the Swiss referee had no idea he was to become the latest recipient of the English media's revenge on a Johnny Foreigner who had, in the words of most tabloids, "cheated us" out of victory.
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 16, 2004

If you go into the woods today . . .

Whether "Into the Woods" works as meaningful entertainment for adults rather than just a musical confection of assorted fairy tales for children is the question hovering over this clever and complex Broadway musical scripted by James Lapine, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. First staged and...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 30, 2004

Freedom in a feudal land

FINDING MONJU, by Earle Ernst. Key West: Eaton Street Press, Inc., 186 pp., 2000, $19.95 (paper). The late Earle Ernst was the author of that seminal work, "The Kabuki Theater," first published in 1956 and still in print, and the editor of the 1959 "Three Japanese Plays." While a member of the Allied...
JAPAN / POLITICS IN FOCUS
Apr 27, 2004

Firms now balking at political donations

Kenji Watanabe spent the last year preaching and begging business leaders around Fukui Prefecture to donate to the Liberal Democratic Party. He was always received politely, but company presidents kept their wallets closed.

Longform

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