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COMMUNITY
Mar 31, 2002

The horror from the heart of darkness

It was a rough drive to the Cambodian town of Takeo in 1992. Going faster than 30 kph would have been suicidal. National Highway 2 was an unsurfaced dirt road pockmarked with craters from shells and land mines. Takeo, about 60 km south of the capital Phnom Penh, served as a base that year for an engineering...
CULTURE / Books
Mar 31, 2002

China's free-enterprise apostle

MODEL REBELS: The Rise and Fall of China's Richest Village, by Bruce Gilley. University of California, 2001, 219 pp., $45.00 (cloth)/$15.95 (paper) It could have been a Forbes cover story: In 1978, a destitute Chinese village doomed to crop failure siphons off state irrigation funds to buy a crude steel...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Mar 14, 2002

You win some and you lose some . . .

Ten years ago, on March 12, 1992, this column began its life on these pages. Though it's still "green," when compared with colleagues who have graced The Japan Times for several decades, Our Planet Earth has now appeared more than 245 times.
COMMUNITY
Mar 10, 2002

Salsa in the city

NEW YORK CITY -- For anyone serious about salsa, New York is the place to be. At around $200 a month for unlimited group sessions, lessons in the city are relatively cheap; instructors are often world-class dancers; and, most importantly, students can immerse themselves in a rich Latin scene.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 4, 2002

Who is bugging the Chinese leadership?

HONG KONG -- Since it is not opening up to the outside world, but remains a very closed society in terms of its internal politics, China raises more questions than it answers. The latest intriguing episode concerns the bugging of a Boeing 767-300ER purchased in 2000 to be the VIP jet for President Jiang...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Feb 3, 2002

Makes perfect pop sense to me . . .

Beat Crusaders must have overheard one of those critics a couple of years back saying "comedy is the new rock 'n' roll" and taken it literally, for what you get at their gigs is tons of cheap stand-up comic banter sandwiched between immensely hummable pop hymns. Remember the speedy guitar pop of The...
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2002

E-symposium to focus on Sept. 11

The Japan Center for Preventive Diplomacy and The Japan Times will jointly sponsor an electronic symposium on the theme of "The Future of Conflict Prevention in the post-September 11 World," from Feb. 6 to Feb. 14. Supported by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, the online symposium again promises to be...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jan 30, 2002

Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble: 'Mnemosyne'

The collaboration between saxophonist Jan Garbarek and the a cappella vocal quartet Hilliard Ensemble is an avant-garde blend of modern European jazz and early music. On "Mnemosyne," their recent collaboration, the origin of their songs extends back to the second century B.C. with a Greek hymn to Delphic...
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2002

Playwright offers art to lift Japan out of crisis

In these gloomy times, it seems everyone in Japan is chanting the mantra of structural reform, yet progress is excruciatingly slow. The greatest obstacle is not the political old guard nor the foot-dragging banks. Instead, the main problem is lack of art, according to playwright Oriza Hirata.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / THE WRITERS' SPIN
Jan 23, 2002

Consultant wary of 'U.S.-style' info, mutual funds

Hajime Yamazaki must be an enemy of mutual fund companies.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2002

Seniority vs. meritocracy: a middle way

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- Quite often the terms "seniority" and "meritocracy" are used -- or rather "misused" -- antithetically as if they were in a 16th-century arena of charging helmeted knights, where the space occupied by one is totally denied to the other. In such thinking, the former term is usually...
JAPAN
Jan 10, 2002

Six Japan volcanoes erupted last year

Mount Oyama on Miyake Island and Mount Usu in Hokkaido were among six volcanoes that erupted last year in Japan, the Meteorological Agency said.
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Dec 30, 2001

This will be the last slurp of the rest of your year

Even if preparing other Japanese New Year's dishes seems beyond your ability, you can't go wrong with toshikoshi ("year-crossing") soba, the noodles eaten just before midnight on o-misoka, New Year's Eve.
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Dec 28, 2001

Practice perfects New Year's calligraphy

Pencils and computers haven't replaced brushes at schools -- brush work is alive and well.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Dec 27, 2001

Resolve to raise a toast to thinking globally

With only days to go before 2002, New Year's resolutions are in order -- in theory, anyway. Whatever we promise, one thing is certain: Resolutions, viewed from this side of Jan. 1, are always made with the best of intentions.
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Dec 21, 2001

Seeking the broader picture

On a flight to Japan, the British writer Lesley Downer was surprised when her seat companion started berating her, mid-conversation. He was upset when he heard that she was writing a book on geisha. Better she write about the real Japan, rather than promote foreign stereotypes, the Japanese businessman...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Dec 20, 2001

Sports world fails to confront fear

It's very interesting to see how people react to crisis. Some embrace it and confront it. Some try to fight it and overheat. Others just run from it altogether.
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Dec 13, 2001

Pounding the mouse pad

www.acupuncturefootwear.com/h_acu2.html You'd be hard pressed to do a day of shopping in Tokyo's Harajuku-Aoyama-Shibuya-Daikenyama hub and not find a particular brand of footwear. All the designers seem to be represented. Except one: this cool little trendsetter from London called Acupuncture. I should've...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 6, 2001

Female langurs get empowered

Humans are remarkable in many ways. Most of us, for example, have sex in private. Compare that to most other mammals, who will copulate in clear view of their fellows.
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2001

Net poses major changes for news media

Does the advent of the Internet society spell the end of the news media as we know it? Will a new breed of reporters, represented by anonymous authors in online chat rooms, oust professional journalists from the public arena?
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Nov 30, 2001

Kids get down to classroom clean-ups

A few weeks before my son started first grade, I asked my friend Nagako to help me read the list of school supplies I needed to buy.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2001

Nation struggles with drug abuse

A suspended prison term handed down six years ago was not enough to stop the 34-year-old gas station worker from using amphetamines, which had already badly damaged his life.
COMMUNITY
Nov 18, 2001

Life on the yellow brick road

Minoru Maeda dreads going outside alone. For him, one wrong step could be fatal.
COMMENTARY
Nov 17, 2001

Free speech includes the right to be stupid

WASHINGTON -- America is a great country. What better evidence is there than the opportunity people have to say the stupidest, most witless things?
COMMUNITY
Nov 11, 2001

Japan's trepanning history is full of holes

In his 1967 study, "Prehistoric and Early History of Trepanation," Professor F.P. Lisowski of the University of Tasmania, Australia, cites the work of two anthropologists who suggested that trepanation might have been practiced in Japan.
COMMENTARY
Nov 4, 2001

Attacks now an excuse to barbecue pork

WASHINGTON -- Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, it has been said, and never was it more obvious in the United States than in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Rescuers were still searching for bodies from the smoldering rubble when lobbyists descended upon Washington, D.C....
BASEBALL / MLB
Oct 21, 2001

Yakult captures Japan Series opener 7-0

OSAKA -- Yakult pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii, playing in what may be his final season in Japan, completely silenced the big guns of the Buffaloes on Saturday night and Alex Ramirez delivered on offense as the Swallows jumped all over Kintetsu for a 7-0 victory in Game 1 of the Japan Series.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Oct 11, 2001

What you can do to cut CO2 emissions

If readers of this column two weeks ago found the results of the 2001 "Environmental Doomsday Clock" questionnaire depressing, that's not surprising. For the seventh year in a row, respondents worldwide have set the clock at "extremely concerned."
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Oct 4, 2001

Diamonds are an athlete's best friend

The other day I had a phone call from an old friend, Joey Camilleri, who now works as a sportswriter with the Mediterranean Gazette. After letting me know how Sliema Wanderers and Xghajra Tornadoes were doing, Joey asked me the details behind a story that had come across his desk.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami