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LIFE / Travel
Dec 27, 2000

Running on Soviet time

In December 1991, Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian leaders met at a hunting lodge in western Belarus. There they signed the Belavezha Agreement, which had no small historical significance. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was being consigned to the dustbin of history -- the same contemptuous...
LIFE / Food & Drink / KISSA KULTUR
Dec 27, 2000

Brewing up a winning formula: Starbucks hits it big in Japan

I admit it: I had a breakdown. It probably happened sometime after Starbucks Store No. 100 opened in the cavernous Tameike-Sanno subway station. My first reaction was: What, another one? How many more of these places, full of smiling, happy crowds, nursing "bold expressions" and munching on brownies...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Dec 21, 2000

Wife prevented Kawasaki from having a new life with Red Sox

It has been said that to be great in life you have to be very selfish. I have always believed this to be true no matter what the field -- sports, politics, art or anything else.
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2000

Cultured skin next high-tech goal

First in a three series Kyodo News Professor Hisashi Aoyama is certain of the future of cultured skin.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 19, 2000

Making mush of Meadowlark

SHOPPING: A Novel, by Gavin Kramer. Soho Press, 2000, 216 pp., $22 (cloth). It's easy for a foreigner to feel like a freak in Japan -- tall, different, culturally unaware, linguistically tongue-tied. This wickedly clever novel of manners turns its lens on the foreign protagonist as spectacle, British...
COMMENTARY
Dec 18, 2000

At long last, signs of progress

During his Tokyo visit in October 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and then Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi signed a joint declaration on the bilateral partnership for the 21st century. In the document, Obuchi expressed "keen remorse" and apologized for the historical fact that Japan, through...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Dec 17, 2000

Ruby Pawankar

The Fourth International Symposium on Basic Approach to Allergic Rhinitis will be held in Tokyo on Feb. 10 and 11. Its central theme, "allergy -- from the nose to the lung," is to focus on the impact and relation of allergic rhinitis and asthma. President of the Fourth ISBAAR and a founder of the series...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 16, 2000

Op-ting out of the conventional frame

"Yellow-Green Spiral" by Jun Fujita, 2000, acrylic on board Op Art, pioneered by Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely in the '60s, creates the impression of swirling movement and tricks the eye into perceiving three dimensions. Optical discrepancy is achieved by placing the geometric shapes precisely onthe...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 16, 2000

Africa's growing thirst for democracy

There is a saying among my people in Ghana: one head alone is not enough to decide. I often think of that when I hear people say that democracy is alien to Africa, or that Africans are "not ready" for democracy.
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Dec 13, 2000

Techno and tea

www.thump-radio.com If Napster is a community of listeners, Thump Radio is a legal-hassle-free community of clubbers, artists and labels, all neatly pulled together by streaming audio shared by all. Lots of opportunities to check out new DJs or established DJs' new stuff, then tell your friends about...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Dec 12, 2000

The best of the year that was

The concert scene in Japan tends to slow down a bit in the winter months, so this week I'll present my pick of this year's Japanese releases, and in my next column, releases from around the world.
JAPAN / CABINET INTERVIEW
Dec 9, 2000

Better education system hinges on revision of law: Machimura

The 53-year-old Fundamental Law of Education needs to be revised if Japan is to lay the foundations of a better education system in the 21st century, according to newly appointed Education Minister Nobutaka Machimura.
EDITORIALS
Dec 3, 2000

Handsome is as handsome does

What would we do without social scientists? Creeping about with their clipboards and calculators, they are forever coming up with solemn, statistic-studded pronouncements about things so obvious we were practically born knowing them. And yet there is something satisfying about having our assorted prejudices...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 3, 2000

Middle-class myth comes tumbling down

This is the eighth of a 10-part series on contemporary Japan.
JAPAN
Nov 12, 2000

Money-strapped NPOs must learn to use Internet: expert

KYOTO -- The proliferation of the Internet is spurring many groups to aggressively try to keep up with sweeping changes, and nonprofit organizations are no exception.
LIFE / Travel
Nov 8, 2000

Blood brothers, blood feuds

"In the year Sakalat 185, year of the Horse, the Thai came to tattoo all the inhabitants of the Lao cities." -- Oden Meeker, "The Little World of Laos"
CULTURE / Books
Nov 7, 2000

From great fiction, more fiction still

THE TALE OF MURASAKI: A Novel, by Liza Dalby. Doubleday, 2000, 424 pp., $25.95. What if the author of "The Tale of Genji" had written an autobiography and it had remained undiscovered until now? What would it be like?
JAPAN
Nov 4, 2000

Six receive honor from Emperor

Nobel laureate Hideki Shirakawa and five others were awarded this year's Order of Culture by the Emperor at the Imperial Palace on Culture Day on Friday.
JAPAN
Nov 3, 2000

Khatami urges people of Japan, Iran to be closer

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami on Thursday urged the people of Japan and Iran to draw closer by overcoming differences in culture, language and mentality.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2000

Mori hails Khatami's efforts to reform, build new ties

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, in an informal meeting with visiting Iranian President Mohammad Khatami on Wednesday morning, expressed support for Iran's domestic reform efforts and improved ties with the international community.
COMMUNITY
Nov 2, 2000

Healthy diet, healthy mother's milk

Last in a series
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 31, 2000

A lonely voice calls for shared values

It is one of the ironies of our time that the very process that is tying the world's disparate peoples together is at the same time generating friction between them. Globalization may be spinning a vast web of relationships as it builds a single world market, but as it does so, citizens are accentuating...
CULTURE / Art
Oct 29, 2000

Local boy makes good on his own

It is practically impossible to beat the odds and attain major recognition and success in Japan as an individual artist. When an artist does achieve success it is usually the result of a miracle -- or nepotism. It is not uncommon for gallerists who want to promote a particular artist to arrange a show...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 24, 2000

Revealing the nation one grain at a time

THE POLITICS OF AGRICULTURE IN JAPAN, by Aurelia George Mulgan. London & New York: Routledge, 2000, 856 pp.,82 British pounds/$125 (cloth). In 1890, a young German academic agreed to evaluate a survey of landowners in the German provinces east of the Elbe River. Overcoming the limitations of biased...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2000

Bidding goodbye to the monoculture myth

Some years ago I was sitting at the counter of a rather exclusive sushi restaurant in the Roppongi district of Tokyo when I noticed that a middle-age man a few stools along was making monosyllabic comments each time I ordered a morsel of sushi or slipped one into my mouth.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Oct 22, 2000

All you ever wanted to know about voodoo

Gaston Jean-Baptiste, known as "Bonga," is a voodoo priest and a conga player. Bonga has been touring Japan giving workshops on Haitian music and teaching the traditions of Haiti. Luckily, one of the stops on his tour was my living room. A small, amiable man with dreadlocks, Bonga spoke from his "zabuton":...
CULTURE / Music
Oct 21, 2000

Songs and sausages in Balkan backwoods

KOPRIVSHTITSA, Bulgaria -- Bulgaria may be one of the worst places to visit in Europe if you're looking for an advanced level of economic development, but it is a great place to go if you want a music festival where you can take off your shirt.
JAPAN
Oct 11, 2000

Scholar hits execs' Bangkok flings

When Yoko Kusaka moved to Bangkok with her family in 1996, she decided to pursue postgraduate studies in sociology, focusing on the corporate entertainment practices of Japanese companies in the city.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear