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CULTURE / Art
Sep 5, 2001

Connoisseur's selection from the vaults

Times have certainly changed. Corporate art acquisition, once fueled by bubble-era prosperity, is now low down the list of boardroom priorities.
COMMUNITY
Sep 2, 2001

What's off the menu?

Types of vegetarians and definitions, according to the British-based International Vegetarian Union:
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Aug 30, 2001

Ichiro prefers to let his bat do the talking

He may be the ultimate Mariner, but when it comes to dealing with the media, baseball superstar Ichiro Suzuki can act more like a clam.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 19, 2001

Politico battled clans, bureaucrats

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OZAKI YUKIO: The Struggle For Constitutional Government in Japan. Translated by Fumiko Hara. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2001, 455 pp., $35 (hardback) Well into this fascinating account of Japanese politics, which spans the period from the beginning of the Meiji Era...
JAPAN / WEEKEND WISDOM
Aug 19, 2001

Designer holds hope for the future of Japanese creativity

Surrounded by shelves filled with art books and magazines from around the world, Yasushi Fujimoto sits comfortably in his office in Harajuku, one of Tokyo's trendiest areas.
CULTURE / Film
Aug 8, 2001

'Louise (Take 2)'

Rating: * * * * Director: Siegfried Running time: 110 minutes Language: FrenchOpens Aug. 18 at Shibuya Cinema Society 'Louise (Take 2)" is a "road movie" in the most truthful, undiluted sense of the term. And yet it is far, far removed from the liberating buoyancy of ordinary road movies in which...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 8, 2001

David Mead: 'Mine and Yours'

David Mead's songs are invariably described as "lush and sophisticated," adjectives that are normally a good indication something is boring. As a performer and songwriter, he's often compared to Paul Simon, probably because he's from New York and exercises a tendency toward complex phrasing. Further...
SOCCER / THE BALD TRUTH
Aug 7, 2001

Japanese soccer stars shocked by encounters with outside world

First the good news: Five Japan internationals now play abroad. With Naohiro Takahara playing for Boca Juniors and Hidetoshi Nakata, Junichi Inamoto, Shinji Ono and Akinori Nishizawa all employed in Europe, Japan coach Philippe Troussier has good reason to be optimistic ahead of next year's World Cup....
BUSINESS
Aug 7, 2001

Minicar presence gains on automaker innovation

Minicars were once regarded by Japanese consumers as second-class, cheap vehicles.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 5, 2001

U.S., China vie in bending the truth

Diplomacy, as much as the warfare it is designed to prevent, exacts a heavy toll on the truth. One can only wonder what future generations will learn with disbelief and chagrin when the Freedom of Information Act allows public examination of U.S.-China foreign policy intrigue in recent years.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 5, 2001

From the outside looking in

THE DONALD RICHIE READER: 50 Years of Writing on Japan. Compiled, edited and with an introduction by Arturo Silva. Stone Bridge Press, 2001, 238 pp., $19.95 (paperback). Full disclosure: I've known Donald Richie for more than 20 years and, like many people who have known him for a long time, I count...
CULTURE / Film
Aug 1, 2001

. . . And then there's angst

Ghost World Rating: * * * * 1/4 Director: Terry Zwigoff Running time: 111 minutes Language: EnglishNow showing If you're lucky, you made it all the way through high school as one of the in-group, one of the "normal" kids. The next least-bad fate was to not fit in, but remain convinced that somehow...
CULTURE / Art
Jul 25, 2001

Labyrinth of Bombay

An exhibition of paintings and installations by Indian artist Atul Dodiya, depicting the kaleidoscopic changes to the city of Mumbai (Bombay), is being held at The Japan Foundation Forum in Akasaka, Tokyo.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 22, 2001

Fighting the good fight for all

In the pantheon of Japan's fictional action heroes, it would be hard to find one better known or loved than Ultraman.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jul 11, 2001

Pottering in a forest of memory

"A magnificent sunset burns beyond the horizon. Trees are ablaze against the fiery sky. The beauty of the dark silhouettes left an everlasting sensation." These are the words of potter Moriyoshi Saeki from a book published in 1995 titled "The Vibrant Potters of Tochigi."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 8, 2001

Girls know what girls want

At first glance, it looks like a small shop filled with hundreds of colorful fancy goods.
CULTURE / Art
Jul 8, 2001

Fashioning jewels of enlightenment

KATMANDU -- Suman Ratna Dhakawa spills a tray of rings onto a bench and runs his fingers through the mass of metal as if it were a liquid. "My family all have been jewelry-makers, craftsmen or artists," says Dhakawa. "I have jewelry-making in my blood."
EDITORIALS
Jun 25, 2001

Supporting the nation's scientists

Professor Shuji Nakamura, of the University of California, Santa Barbara, is known as the inventor of a semiconductor diode, an electronic element that emits a bluish purple color. Of course, he is one of the most noted Japanese scientists in the world. He is also the hero of the scientific equivalent...
BUSINESS
Jun 23, 2001

Diet enacts pension-benefits law

The Diet passed into law Friday a new defined-contribution pension bill that will go into effect Oct. 1, introducing a scheme modeled on the U.S. 401(k) plan, the benefits of which hinge on the performance of investments.
JAPAN
Jun 22, 2001

Kids caught in latest cosmetics fad

Kyodo News While the nation's "kogyaru" teens, teetering through Tokyo's Shibuya district in their towering platform boots and outrageous makeup, have received their share of attention over the years, it may well be time to pass the torch — there are some new kids in town.
CULTURE / Art
Jun 20, 2001

Face to face with individuality

"Are you Korean or Japanese?" goes the question.
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Jun 20, 2001

J-rap gets real

Most rap music leaves me cold. One reason is that, as a 42-year-old white Canadian male, I am culturally predisposed to dislike it. Another is that a lot of rap is crap: monotonous, rhythmically and melodically sterile, and full of violent, misogynistic, homophobic posturing.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 17, 2001

On a mission from Korea

Kimchi is not just a daily food for Koreans, it's a potent symbol of national identity. Hence the outcry when the news broke of Japanese companies marketing ersatz versions not made according to the traditional process. This was sacrilege on the same order of trying to pass off carbonated grape juice...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 17, 2001

Saikabo: On a mission from Korea

Kimchi is not just a daily food for Koreans, it's a potent symbol of national identity. Hence the outcry when the news broke of Japanese companies marketing ersatz versions not made according to the traditional process. This was sacrilege on the same order of trying to pass off carbonated grape juice...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jun 13, 2001

'Poses': Rufus Wainwright

'Everything I like is a little bit stronger, a little bit thicker, a little bit harmful for me." So croons Rufus Wainwright on "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk," the opening cut from his new album, "Poses."
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2001

Obituary: Kiyonaga Ito

Kiyonaga Ito, a Western-style painter specializing in pictures of female nudes and recipient of the Order of Culture, died Tuesday evening of heart failure at a hospital in Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, his family said Wednesday. He was 90.
LIFE / Travel
Jun 5, 2001

Sparks fly in Mexico's city of artists and artisans

SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, Mexico -- Having grown up in Los Angeles, where only the sanest of fireworks were legally sold, I was taught that colorful sparks shooting up higher than 30 cm would surely make someone pay for their reckless abandon. How happy I was to discover here that it's not necessarily true....
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 3, 2001

From simple folk to the royal couple

When the American folk revival landed on the shores of Japan in the early '60s, it gave rise to the "modern folk" movement. Japanese musicians copied The Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary, and it was only a matter of time before students started writing songs that reflected their own situations....
LIFE / Travel
May 22, 2001

Mists of time and fable fade at Janakpur

JANAKPUR, Nepal -- There are few places where history and allegory blur more easily than the Indian subcontinent. The line dividing fact and fable meanders and shifts like the great Ganges River that figures so prominently in both.
CULTURE / Film
May 9, 2001

Am I the girl you're looking for?

Suzhou River Rating: * * * *Japanese title: Futari no Ningyo Director: Lou Ye Running time: 115 minutes Language:Cantonese, with Japanese subtitlesNow showing "If I leave you someday, would you look for me forever? Your whole life?"

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past