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Japan Times
Features
Sep 12, 2004

Heights of cleanliness

What must it be like to stand on top of the world's highest mountain? To battle through driving snow and across deadly glaciers, to scale icy rock walls and risk falling thousands of meters while being hit full-on by raging, freezing winds -- aware that an avalanche could, at any moment, swat you into...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 12, 2004

The cool aesthetics of Edo

KUKI SHUZO: A Philosopher's Poetry and Poetics, translated and edited by Michael F. Marra. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004, 358 pp., $56 (cloth). THE STRUCTURE OF DETACHMENT: The Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Shuzo (with a Translation of "Iki no Kozo"), by Hiroshi Nara, with essays by J. Thomas...
Features
Sep 12, 2004

Mount Fuji: Symbol of beauty; mountain of shame

Thinking "green" may seem to be a modern notion, but in Japan it's as old as the hills -- at least those ones climbed by innumerable yamabushi ascetics on grueling mountain pilgrimages in search of enlightenment.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 10, 2004

OPENING: Kanto

TOKYO Picasso: "La metamorphose de la forme" is a display of 120 oils, sculptures, watercolors and sketches from the Jacqueline Collection, most of which will be showing in Japan for the first time; Sept. 4-Oct. 24.
CULTURE / Music
Sep 5, 2004

Russian pays tribute to music of motherland

Novelist Leo Tolstoy, poet and novelist Boris Pasternak, dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev and choreographer George Balanchine were all distinguished Russians in their own fields. Although they lived in different times, they are bound together by their deep love for music.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 29, 2004

Prospects for altering the status quo in Japan

THE STATE OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN JAPAN, edited by Frank J. Schwarz and Susan J. Pharr. Cambridge University Press, 2003, 392 pp., $25 (paper). This impressive and wide-ranging collection of essays explores the problems and potential of Japan's increasingly robust civil society. In analyzing institutional...
BUSINESS
Aug 27, 2004

Highway toll discounts to be expanded

Japan Highway Public Corp.'s highway toll discounts only for cars equipped with the electronic toll collection system will be expanded to 220 billion yen a year from the current 40 billion yen in September, government officials said Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Aug 26, 2004

Clarifying the cyber-crime fight

Japan is set to become an active party to an international treaty designed to combat computer crime. The Diet, which earlier this year approved the Convention on Cyber-crime, is in the process of debating a set of revision bills for related domestic laws, including the Criminal Law. Given the rapid rise...
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2004

Ministry eyes more ETC interchanges

The transport ministry plans to request 7.5 yen billon next fiscal year to build highway interchanges catering exclusively to vehicles outfitted with electronic toll collection system equipment, ministry officials said Saturday.
BUSINESS
Aug 21, 2004

Highway body to get 60 billion yen injection despite '01 promise

The government plans to use 60 billion yen in state funds to cover reductions in expressway tolls on money-losing rural highways, officials said Friday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 20, 2004

On the path of poets

Utter silence, Piercing the stone walls, The cicada's cry
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Aug 20, 2004

The Gathering 2004 preview

After dozens of hours of copious, nail-biting research, I have deduced that there is absolutely no connection whatsoever between Respect for the Aged Day and the ending date for Gathering 2004, except that vigorous dancing has been medically proven to reverse the aging process.
COMMUNITY
Aug 15, 2004

Serendipty with suds

Forget that Kanto has a GDP bigger than Italy's. What really fills me with a sense of civic pride is the knowledge that my Tokyo is home to the only museum in the world dedicated to laundry.
COMMUNITY
Aug 15, 2004

Lanvin cuts a new dash

Only a couple of years ago, no self-respecting fashionista would have been caught dead in Lanvin. A brand stuck in the past, it had plenty of pedigree -- but was about as chic as white socks and sandals.
Japan Times
Features
Aug 15, 2004

Lanvin cuts a new dash

Only a couple of years ago, no self-respecting fashionista would have been caught dead in Lanvin. A brand stuck in the past, it had plenty of pedigree -- but was about as chic as white socks and sandals.
Features
Aug 15, 2004

Serendipity with suds

Forget that Kanto has a GDP bigger than Italy's. What really fills me with a sense of civic pride is the knowledge that my Tokyo is home to the only museum in the world dedicated to laundry.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Aug 15, 2004

Life in a Russian namesake

MOSCOW -- To be a namesake of a celebrity is a curse. A person who bears the same name as a baseball star or a TV anchorman invariably finds himself a target of countless unkind comments that demean his intellect, looks and savings account, and even make fun of the car he drives. No matter how hard he...
Japan Times
Features
Aug 8, 2004

The art of seeing

Photographer Jun Akiyama is taking ostrich strides down a Tokyo sidewalk, snapping pictures on a flimsy-looking tourist camera. Click! A child's curious glance is frozen in grainy black-and-white. Click! Akiyama catches a moment of anxiety on an old woman's face.
JAPAN
Aug 7, 2004

Proposed emissions trading, carbon tax set to be hard sell

The introduction of an emissions trading system and a carbon tax would be effective in reducing Japan's greenhouse gas emissions, an Environment Ministry panel said in an interim report released Friday.
JAPAN
Aug 7, 2004

Proposed emissions trading, carbon tax set to be hard sell

The introduction of an emissions trading system and a carbon tax would be effective in reducing Japan's greenhouse gas emissions, an Environment Ministry panel said in an interim report released Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 3, 2004

Japan diet risks on rise

When Hiroyuki Suematsu left medical school in the early 1960s eating disorders were still rare in Japan. During his own childhood after the Pacific war binge eating would have been almost unthinkable.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2004

Privatizing Japan Post could lead to profit hike

Splitting up and privatizing Japan Post into four independent units could increase profits by up to 900 billion yen a year, according to a recent estimate presented to the government's postal privatization preparatory office.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 24, 2004

Morio Matsui

In times of difficulty and pain, Morio Matsui says he has always been saved by his painting.
JAPAN
Jul 20, 2004

Expressway discount services planned for ETC users

Japan Highway Public Corp. will offer a variety of discount services starting in fiscal 2005 for users of the electronic toll collection system.
Features
Jul 18, 2004

Universities put on a show

University museums have long been part of the cultural landscape in many western countries, serving not only academic communities but the general public too.
JAPAN
Jul 16, 2004

Publisher must pay redress over suicide

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court ruling ordering Bungeishunju Ltd. to pay 9.2 million yen in damages to the family of an archaeologist who killed himself in 2001 because of reports in the publishing company's weekly magazine.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 16, 2004

Fishmarket Taproom: Chugging down the coast

The Food File does not often leave Tokyo. Why should we, when there's so much great eating to be had within the sprawling confines of this massive city? But when it comes to good drinking, that's a different story altogether. We will gladly go the extra mile (or 70) if there's a pint or two of fine ale...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 13, 2004

The big squeeze

The news from Japan these days is untypically sunny. The economy is performing at its sharpest clip for 13 years, investment and profits are up and analysts are gingerly forecasting a sustained recovery.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 11, 2004

Bedroom poetry beckons

EROTIC HAIKU (bilingual), edited and translated by Hiroaki Sato, illustrated by Emi Suzuki. Tokyo: IBC Publishing, 2004, 114 pp., 1200 yen (paper). Since Eros was the god of love, in the sense of sexual desire, so "erotic," the dictionary explains, means "arousing or concerned with this." The cover of...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Jul 9, 2004

A tale of two Pichons

Our favorite scene in "Tampopo," Juzo Itami's 1985 cult film about gastronomic excess, begins with two bums finding an expensive-looking bottle behind a Shinjuku hotel with a bit of wine left in the bottom. They deliver it to a compatriot, a sommelier who'd apparently seen better days but still has sharp...

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji