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COMMENTARY / World
Feb 5, 2000

Japan changes -- its own way

"Is Japan changing?" This is the question asked by virtually every recent visitor to Japan. The question reveals both the long-standing desire by many non-Japanese to see Japan change in fundamental ways and the heightened expectations fostered by years of hope-inducing Japanese rhetoric that the country...
COMMUNITY
Jan 30, 2000

Preaching the gospel of women's television

Those who watch the program "New Yorkers," broadcast weekly on NHK's satellite channel, will be familiar with the name Nancy Lee. But how many realize that this snappy, bright, Jewish-American from New Jersey is as much at home in Japanese as English?
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 27, 2000

Bringing an end to South Asia's cycle of violence

South Asia once again is in a cycle of violence. It began with the drama of the seven-day hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814. The ordeal came to a shocking end on the eve of the new millennium as India's external affairs minister, who vowed to not give in to the terrorists' demands, swapped three...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jan 20, 2000

Kokudo's Tucker still showing kids how it's done

After a dozen years in the National Hockey League, a season playing in Italy, and now into his third campaign in Japan, one might expect John Tucker to look forward to that 9 a.m. practice about as much as John Rocker looks forward to his next trip to New York.
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2000

Pilots' diaries show human side

It may only bring a wary smile to the face of 72-year-old Midori Yamanouchi when she sees young revelers at drinking bashes toast the legendary kamikaze missions.
JAPAN
Jan 17, 2000

Kamikaze diaries reveal pilots' human side

Staff writer It may only bring a wary smile to the face of 72-year-old Midori Yamanouchi when she sees young revelers at drinking bashes toast the legendary kamikaze missions. But the soft-spoken anthropology professor at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania gets terribly upset when she hears...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2000

Pessimism, ambivalence about future sum up state of the nation

Staff writer
EDITORIALS
Jan 4, 2000

A new era for Russia

Russian President Boris Yeltsin will be remembered, among other things, for his sense of drama. Last Friday's announcement that he would be stepping down as president was perfectly in character. It focused international attention on him -- at least momentarily -- as the world prepared to meet the new...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Dec 28, 1999

Flying first class around the globe

Since this is my last column of the year, I'll look back instead of forward.
LIFE / Travel
Dec 1, 1999

Cheeky gods, mystic mountains

A forested haven with deep gorges and countless mountain shrines, how could Takachiho not be a home for the gods? Legend has it that the sun goddess Amaterasu once hid her light from the world in a cave here, and that nearby Kirishima is where demigod Ninigi no Mikoto descended from heaven to earth....
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 28, 1999

Global cop or rogue power?

WASHINGTON -- Completely unnoticed by most Americans, the Washington elite has become ensnared in a yet another false, narcissistic foreign policy debate. Yet when French President Jacques Chirac stood side-by-side with Chinese President Jiang Zemin recently and denounced U.S. nuclear and antiballistic...
CULTURE / Art
Nov 26, 1999

Reflecting prosperity, deflecting evil

Every year in the middle of December, thousands of people flock to Tokyo's Asakusa Sensoji Temple for the annual hagoita market to buy oshie hagoita, a decorative battledore that serves as both a New Year's decoration and a good-luck charm.
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 19, 1999

Buto-sha Tenkei dances the idea

Buto-sha Tenkei has picked a dark vision for its new work "Kanata," which premiered Nov. 10-11 at Kitazawa Hall in Tokyo and will tour the U.S. in February. This group has a revolving membership. Ebisu Torii and Mutsuko Tanaka, performers with more than 25 years of experience in Dai Rakudakan and their...
CULTURE / Art
Nov 13, 1999

An ode to nature -- her beauty and her treasures

For many artists and craftsmen, nature is a great source of inspiration. For Toyama-based sunago craftsman Tatsuo Nagaoka, the beautiful scenery he encounters while hiking in the mountains is also his inspiration to create new work. His subjects range from a sea of clouds viewed from a mountain peak...
JAPAN
Oct 20, 1999

Eatery gives elderly more than good food

Staff writer
JAPAN
Oct 19, 1999

Clans gather for a bit of Scottish tradition in Japan

Staff writer
LIFE / Travel
Oct 6, 1999

Fall in Kyushu unique after all

AKIZUKI, Fukuoka Pref. -- "Japan," I am frequently informed, with looks of grave importance, "has four seasons." I always wonder if I should feign amazement at this fact, or be silly and ask whether this is because Japan is an island country and all foreigners hate natto. But I can never be told enough...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Sep 21, 1999

Honeys, ah sugar, sugar

I'm sitting opposite Vivi, Yuri, Kotome and Zina, trying desperately hard not to think about sex. But it's hard, it's very hard.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Sep 15, 1999

Opportunities

Today is Respect for the Aged Day. Once Japan was criticized for not having enough holidays. Now, with New Year's for winter celebrants, O-bon in the summer, Golden Week in the spring and an assortment of traditional and recently created special days in between (with Mondays off if they fall on Sunday),...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Jul 14, 1999

Substitutes

A woman tells us she is a vegetarian in the real sense -- no meat, fish or animal byproducts, even gelatin. In England she could buy dried mixes that could be reconstituted by adding water and then used to make sausages (Sosmix) and burgers (Veggie Burger Mix). She wonders if there are any similar products...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jul 6, 1999

How to get your teenage kicks in the 'teahouses' of Tokyo

I'm not one to hang around kiddies' playgrounds (honestly!), but when I strolled into Shimokitazawa's Shelter last week I was instantly teleported into a school disco, and it kinda felt good. But keep that to yourself, OK.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jun 25, 1999

J rockers want free Tibet, wherever that is

"Tibet . . . hmm . . . it's a foreign country, I know that," mused one young man.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Jun 19, 1999

From court to village across the centuries

During the upcoming early summer weeks, one can experience a wide variety of fine hogaku concerts, including sublime gagaku court music, a lively group of kagura performers from Iwate Prefecture, contemporary koto music played by several fine young women performers, a large-scale biwa presentation and...
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 19, 1999

Exploring tropical forests of poetry

Stephen Forster has released a new volume of poetry titled "The Good Mouth." In this collection of poems, Forster takes the reader on an imaginative journey to distant lands where conquistadors in tropical forests meet their savage doom, or to places where the omniscient voice of a child uttering the...
LIFE / Travel
Jun 2, 1999

Learning through landscapes

ARBORFIELD CROSS, England -- When Susan Humphries was appointed head of the Coombes Infant School in Arborfield Cross, Surrey, an hour's drive from London, it was doubtless a satisfying moment in career terms. A school of her own at last. What she did not realize, and is likely to dismiss modestly today,...
LIFE / Style & Design / SIMPLY DIVINE
May 20, 1999

Hendrixesque

Forget playing air guitar, Konami has done it again. The company that had Travolta wannabees queuing up in video arcade centers to stomp on the Dance Dance Revolution platform has launched a new game for guitar freaks everywhere.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
May 8, 1999

Kawai exhibit shows grace under fire

The term mingei (folk art) was coined by Soetsu Yanagi in 1926 to refer to common crafts that had been brushed aside and overlooked by the industrial revolution.
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 20, 1999

Nakamuras highlight double-suicide plays

During the month of April, the Kabukiza in Ginza is offering its annual Nakamura-kai program, featuring such major actors as Kichiemon, Jakuemon, Ganjiro, Tomijuro and Baigyoku, who belong to the Nakamura line of kabuki actors.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 13, 1999

Writer forever true to himself

THE LEGEND OF GOLD and Other Stories, by Ishikawa Jun. Translated by William J. Tyler. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998, 300 pp., $46 (cloth), $27.95 (paper). Jun Ishikawa (1899-1987) remains less known in the West than other Japanese writers of equal stature. With the publication of this...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 1999

Foreign policy to the fore in Washington

WASHINGTON -- After a year that was unusual, peculiar and unbelievable enough to qualify as one long April Fool's Day, the U.S. government is finally back doing governmental work. It isn't boring, but it is less colorful than the year of Monica et al. We have lost some of our more entertaining characters...

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