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CULTURE / Stage
Feb 13, 2000

'Seasons' marks 35 years of Tokyo Ballet

On Feb. 4-5, the Tokyo Ballet premiered a new ballet by John Neumeier of the Hamburg Ballet in Germany. "Seasons -- The Colors of Time" was the latest in the company's series of commissioned works to celebrate the 35th anniversary of its establishment.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 1, 2000

Japan's real conglomerate

RUINS OF IDENTITY: Ethnogenesis in the Japanese Islands, by Mark J. Hudson. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999, 324 pp., with maps, graphs and line drawings, unpriced. Just as we attempt to create who we individually are by various assumptions and appropriations, so too do nations presume an...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 1, 2000

Because of memory, because of hope

BRIDGE ACROSS BROKEN TIME: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory, by Vera Schwarcz. New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1998, 232 pp. (cloth). Staff writer Rarely does a book challenge a reader -- or a reviewer -- as this one does. "Bridge Across Broken Time" is equal parts academic study, meditation...
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2000

Team attempts Khmer software to computerize Cambodia

Staff writer When you send e-mail, either in English or Japanese, you assume it can be read on the recipient's computer screen without any problems. But if the message is in Khmer, chances are that it will be turned into a series of symbols that make no sense. "What is common in Japan (and other industrialized...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 10, 2000

Asia's forgotten civilization

THE MONS: A Civilization of Southeast Asia, by Emmanuel Guillon, translated and edited by James V. Di Crocco. Bangkok: Siam Society, 1999, 900 baht. Every student of Southeast Asian culture is bound to become aware of a kind of empty chapter that is nevertheless pregnant with meaning and substance....
LIFE
Jan 6, 2000

Lives spent in high and low places

Having recently returned from six months in a monastery in Tibet, Ruriko Hino is eager to talk about how she first became interested in devoting her life to the study of Tibetan Buddhism and eventually to becoming a Buddhist nun. "I was 19 years old, and working in a hostess bar," she says, making a...
COMMENTARY
Jan 1, 2000

Japan looks for a purpose

The 1990s is said to have been a "lost decade" for Japan. That may be true. In May 1991, Japan's economy plunged into a slump that would be called the "Heisei Recession." In October 1993, the economy "bottomed out," but ever since then it has remained in the doldrums. The protracted slump has had extensive...
JAPAN
Dec 16, 1999

DDI, KDD and IDO merge against NTT

DDI Corp., KDD Corp. and IDO Corp. have agreed to form a three-way merger in October in an effort to create a comprehensive telecom carrier that can compete with the dominant NTT group, top officials of the three carriers announced Thursday. The merger will combine the corporate resources of the three...
JAPAN
Dec 9, 1999

U.K. envoy upbeat on ties

Staff writer What a difference a decade makes. In 1990, BBC television aired a documentary series that chronicled Japan's economic miracle. In January, it will air a followup series examining the nation's economic demise, titled "Bubble Trouble." A contrasting, yet perhaps an even more insightful British...
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Dec 4, 1999

The buzz in Washington: New Millennium parties and would-be new presidents

WASHINGTON -- I experienced some interesting feelings as I typed in the date on this piece. We writers and pundits will have an emotional ride during the next few weeks as we put pen to paper -- or fingers to keyboard -- for the last time in this century and millennium. The temptations are rife: to be...
JAPAN
Dec 1, 1999

Grocers' group aids family businesses

Staff writer
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 / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 24, 1999

Gilded lilies of the Tokugawas

EDO: ART IN JAPAN 1615-1868. Edited by Robert Singer, foreword by Earl A. Powell III. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998, with assistance from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Japan Foundation. 480 pp., 281 color plates. Unpriced. THE EYES...
JAPAN
Nov 15, 1999

Photos urge students to study selves

Staff writer
JAPAN
Oct 21, 1999

State not fighting gender bias: activist

Staff writer
JAPAN
Sep 20, 1999

Fashion followers scoff at danger of super-high soles

Staff writer
JAPAN
Sep 3, 1999

Sshhhhh -- he's an 'enka' fan

South Korean Prime Minister Kim Jong Pil has admitted that he is a fan of Japanese popular songs, which are officially still banned in his country by a policy that limits the entry of Japanese culture.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 31, 1999

Buddhist riffs that are and aren't poetry

For some time now, the trappings (if not the tenets) of Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy have been making their way into the popular Western consciousness.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 28, 1999

Getting past the glitter in daily life

In Japan heavily forested mountains cover over 70 percent of all the land, and the Japanese have taken advantage of wood since ancient times.
LIFE / Travel
Aug 11, 1999

Celebrating opening of old doors

NEWPORT, R.I. -- It's hard to faze the sophisticated residents of Newport, R.I., but Konishiki succeeded. The former ozeki was the star attraction at the Black Ships Festival here July 22-25.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Aug 9, 1999

A learning experience

It is interesting to follow the drinking culture of Japan. In times when "Japaneseness" is being emphasized, sales of "Nihon-shu" (sake) and "shochu" (an indigenous distilled beverage that uses a variety of things that will ferment but mainly sweet potatoes) tend to increase. Beer is seldom affected...
COMMUNITY
Jul 15, 1999

Behold! The 'fashion bible' cometh

Long before there were Versace minis, Gucci stilettos and Chanel nail polish in Vamp, Vogue was there -- watching, documenting and dictating the trends to the fashion-savvy masses.
COMMUNITY
May 23, 1999

Whaling town Taiji dreams for miracle IWC reprieve

TAIJI, Wakayama Pref. -- Nestled between clear Pacific waters and richly forested mountains and valleys, Taiji and it's pristine surroundings have remained largely unspoiled thanks to the town's isolation in southeast Wakayama and the community's long-standing relationship with the sea and its resources....
CULTURE / Books
May 18, 1999

Progress is fleeting in the fight for sexual equality

THE MOUNTAIN IS MOVING: Japanese Women's Lives, by Patricia Morley. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1999, 240 pp., $39.95 (cloth). The mountain is moving, according to Patricia Morley, but mountains are, by nature, difficult to budge, and this particular one is demonstrating a firm...
COMMUNITY
May 16, 1999

Yokota base gives Fussa its multicultural charm

Living next to a foreign military base may not seem like an ideal situation, given the antibase rallies in Okinawa, antinoise lawsuits elsewhere and new Tokyo Gov. Ishihara's calls for the return of Yokota Air Base.
CULTURE / Books
May 11, 1999

Coming of age, piece by piece

NAMAKO: Sea Cucumber, by Linda Watanabe McFerrin. Coffee House Press, 1998, 256 pp., $14.95 (paper). Like the sea cucumber, Ellen, the multicultural 9-year-old narrator of Linda Watanabe McFerrin's delightful first novel, cannot be easily classified. Animal or vegetable? Living and feeling, or merely...
LIFE / Travel
Apr 15, 1999

Healing society's ills from the roots up

BANGKOK -- As Thailand rapidly converts from agrarian state to economic dragon, a growing number of Thai people are looking for solutions to modern society's own brand of ills. The Bangkok-based Spirit in Education Movement (SEM) points to the country's traditional Buddhist roots for answers.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 7, 1999

Fading hopes for faltering Japan

JAPAN TODAY, by Roger Buckley. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999, (3rd edition), 233 pp. This is a succinct and reliable introductory survey of post-World War II Japanese history. This third edition is substantially rewritten and updated by the inclusion of recent material and analysis....
JAPAN
Mar 26, 1999

Nostalgia buffs pay homage to 1918 brothel-turned-restaurant

When Tadafumi Yoshizato was in junior high school, his friends hocked his watch so they could go to Osaka's Tobita Shinchi district to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. Now, Yoshizato, a 61-year-old illustrator, goes to enjoy pleasures of a more nostalgic nature.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 17, 1999

Last glimpses of a vanishing people

THE VANISHING TRIBES OF BURMA, by Richard K. Diran. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 240 pp., $60. Coffee-table photo books are usually too expensive, space-consuming or indistinguishable in content from the art of the glossy postcard for most of us to consider buying. Every once in a while, however,...

Longform

A mushroom cloud from the atomic bombing on Hiroshima taken from a U.S. military aircraft on Aug. 6, 1945. Copying the photo without permission is prohibited.
80 years on, a Japanese American hibakusha recalls the day the bomb dropped