Search - life-style

 
 
Japan Times
JAPAN / WORKING IT OUT
Feb 7, 2002

Early retirement, outplacement, or just pink slip?

Makoto Kawamura, 51, felt he had few options left when the medium-size life insurer he worked for collapsed and a U.S. firm took over management.
COMMUNITY
Feb 3, 2002

Of nationhood and identity

Writer Ian Buruma was born in the Netherlands in 1951. He attended university in Japan and has spent a large part of his adult life in Asia. His nonfiction works include "The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan," "Behind the Mask," "A Japanese Mirror" and "Voltaire's Coconuts." Buruma...
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
Jan 16, 2002

New Year's poetry-reading ceremony held at Imperial Palace

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko on Tuesday attended the annual New Year's poetry recital at the Imperial Palace, where poems by members of the Imperial family and the general public were recited in traditional style.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 12, 2002

Tabibito Travel: flexible, friendly, frugal and fun

I first meet Matthew Cox for coffee in the summer of 2000. He wants to talk about writing, get feedback on a couple of articles, and doesn't yet get the lesson to be learned from American compatriot Raymond Carver.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jan 9, 2002

Basement Jaxx

What most people respond to when they first hear Basement Jaxx aren't so much the recognizable references -- the Prince and P-Funk nods, the Latin rhythms, the beats-per-minute rules of late-'80s house music -- but the even more basic stuff, like song structure. Even if you're a champion of electronica...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jan 6, 2002

Fuzz Log: (rock)stardate, 2001

2001 was great for music, with rock 'n' roll at last being rescued from the clutches of tired nu-metal (Limp Bizkit, etc.), boring nu-acoustic rock (Coldplay, etc.) and punk-lite (Blink-182, etc.) by exciting new bands like The Strokes, The Toes and The White Stripes.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 3, 2002

This summer it's Sydney's turn 'to sizzle'

SYDNEY -- At times like these, Australians are wondering whether they really do live upside down. While the Northern Hemisphere, shivering in the cold, was welcoming in 2002 with hot drinks, Australia has been battling bush fires.
SOCCER / J. League
Jan 3, 2002

S-Pulse kicks off new year by winning Emperor's Cup

For Shimizu S-Pulse, Tuesday's Emperor's Cup final was a chance to make it third-time lucky after losing two finals in the past three years. For Cerezo Osaka, it was a chance to finish off a miserable season with a trophy and the opportunity to start the year with a boost as the team attempts to return...
JAPAN
Jan 3, 2002

Chinese teas overcome coffee boom as Japan turns new leaf in Asia

Unlike Starbucks coffee, it can be drunk steadily over three or four hours, with no risk of caffeine addiction.
SOCCER / J. League / ON THE BALL
Jan 1, 2002

Troussier hoping for successful swan song

This year will be a crucial period for Japanese soccer, particularly when the national team plays in the World Cup finals from May 31-June 30 in front of its home fans.
JAPAN
Dec 31, 2001

Conductor Asahina dies at 93

OSAKA -- Takashi Asahina, known as the world's oldest active conductor, died of old age at a Kobe hospital Saturday night, his family said Sunday. He was 93.
COMMUNITY
Dec 23, 2001

'God of diamonds' a cut above the rest

Few guests at first notice the seven small stones, shimmering icily in the corner of this Ginza reception hall. The little shards catch a beam of light for the briefest instant, before flicking it gaily away.
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2001

Museum weaves tale of Tokyo's role in history of dyed-goods

Even for Tokyoites, it may come as a surprise that the dyeing industry once flourished in the capital -- just as it did in the ancient cities of Kyoto and Kanazawa.
LIFE / Lifestyle / LEARNING BY HEART
Dec 7, 2001

New b-boys and b-girls on the block

The hippest of hip-hop dancers perform pure magic. They do somersaults, cartwheels and flips. They're dramatic, eccentric, funny and highly creative. They slide in any direction, send electric shock waves through their limbs, glide across the ground like moonwalkers and twirl into body-punishing spins....
BUSINESS / ON MANAGEMENT
Dec 4, 2001

Dreaming of starting your own business?

"I want to go out on my own and start a business," a new acquaintance confessed the other day, "but then I look around at other people who've done it, and I hesitate. It really bugs me that I can't pick out what makes one person a success and another a washout. There just doesn't seem to be any rhyme...
JAPAN
Nov 24, 2001

Rikkyo to get Rampo literary trove, home

Rikkyo University in Tokyo will inherit the home and nearly 20,000 books left by the late mystery writer Rampo Edogawa (1894-1965) from Ryutaro Hirai, his eldest son and a professor emeritus at the private university.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 18, 2001

A story that just doesn't translate

DRUNK AS A LORD: Samurai Stories, by Ryotaro Shiba; translated by Eileen Kato. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2001, 253 pp., 3,500 yen (cloth) Ryotaro Shiba (1923-1996), a distinguished historical writer, brought Japan's past alive by examining many of its important historical figures and the personal...
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Nov 14, 2001

To see a world in a bowl of tea

"Kokoro shugetsu ni nitari," which translates as "My mind is like the autumn moon," is a line from a Chinese poem expressing the Zen sensation felt strongly during this harvest season. Pure and reflecting without hesitation, the moon is a metaphor for our hearts and one that all of humanity could do...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Nov 10, 2001

Exotic Japan found in mundane things

I had just purchased a sweat shirt at the Gap, picked up some shampoo at the Body Shop and ordered pizza from Pizza Hut when I received an e-mail saying: "You live in Japan? How exotic!"
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Nov 7, 2001

Art in the midst of 'iniquity'

I live in Kabukicho -- the infamous tangle of sex clubs and mahjongg parlors located just north of Shinjuku Station's East Exit. There are a number of reasons why I live where I do: the hundreds of wonderful all-night Asian restaurants and supermarkets; the fact that I can walk from my apartment to the...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 5, 2001

Refugee horrors haunt Australian race

SYDNEY -- The human agony of the Afghan refugee crisis has exploded in the middle of Australia's election campaign. Suddenly ethics are pushing aside vote-grabbing promises in the knife-edge runup to the Nov. 10 poll.
COMMUNITY
Nov 4, 2001

It's a paradise for bikers in Japan

Maybe I'm losing it. With temperatures dropping and the first frost just around the corner, thoughts of winter sports and steaming cups of hot chocolate are starting to dance through most people's minds. But I've still got motorcycles wheelying through mine.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Nov 4, 2001

And that's all she wrote, folks

In addition to being the author of the oldest novel in the world, Murasaki Shikibu has the distinction of being the first woman whose image has ever graced Japanese currency. You can be forgiven if you've never noticed her, since she's on the back of the relatively new 2,000 yen note, which seems to...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 4, 2001

In love with the Harley legend

It's Sunday afternoon in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward, and the local Harley-Davidson shop, American Street, is playing host to a stream of visitors in black leather jackets.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 31, 2001

Mistress, queen and empress unmasked?

Ambition. Tragedy. Romance. The lives of Madame de Pompadour, Queen Marie-Antoinette and Empress Josephine read like the publisher's blurb on the cover of a historical novel. Yet they were real people, and a new exhibition from France sets out to unmask that reality.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 31, 2001

Cute art: clued-up or clueless?

I used to dismiss cuteness as kid stuff. But I found such a sophisticated aesthetic of cuteness here in Japan that I was forced to reconsider.
JAPAN
Oct 27, 2001

Technology aids creation of new peace activism

Helmets, chanted slogans and clashes with police -- a common scene in Japan during demonstrations against the Vietnam War. Those days may be long gone, but after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States a new style of peace activism using the Internet and other technology has quietly been created....
CULTURE / Film
Oct 24, 2001

Tales from the dark side of Soderbergh

Schizopolis / Gray's Anatomy Rating: * * * / * * * * Director: Steven Soderbergh Running time: 93 minutes / 79 minutes Language: English Now showing
CULTURE / Art
Oct 24, 2001

A small bite of the Big Apple

For a sampler of art from New York, check out Nihonbashi's Onward Gallery.

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building