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CULTURE / Books
Sep 23, 2001

The struggle for a strategic prize

THE ORIGINS OF THE BILATERAL OKINAWA PROBLEM: Okinawa in Postwar U.S.-Japan Relations, 1945-1952, by Robert D. Eldridge. Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London, 2001, 280 pp., $85.00 (cloth) Of all the issues plaguing Japan's relationship with the United States, none is as contentious as the U.S....
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Sep 23, 2001

Getting lost in the Shibuya triangle

When railways and expressways are carved through an existing urban grid, awkwardly shaped scraps of land are often left in their wake. In central Tokyo, if the fragment is big enough for a single room and a stairwell, something will be built. Architects need to think both laterally and vertically to...
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2001

84% of drivers are buckling up

A study released Thursday by the Japan Automobile Federation shows that 84 percent of drivers wear seat belts, an increase for the eighth consecutive year.
CULTURE / Film
Sep 19, 2001

Tinseltown, meet Chinatown

Rush Hour 2 Rating: * * * Director: Brett Ratner Running time: 90 minutes Language: English Now showing
CULTURE / Music
Sep 19, 2001

They'll do it theeeeeeir way

Girl bands . . . you've gotta love them.
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Sep 19, 2001

Prepared for blastoff

The title of British pub-rocker Nick Lowe's 1978 album "Pure Pop for Now People" aptly describes the sound of Tokyo-based band The Cymbals. The trio's music is bright, intelligent, catchy and easy on the ears -- but with enough of a rock punch to avoid saccharine overkill.
JAPAN
Sep 19, 2001

Bomb threats made against offices, hotels

Bomb threats were made Tuesday afternoon against major hotels and office buildings housing U.S. banks in and near Tokyo, but the Metropolitan Police Department said it believes they were pranks.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 19, 2001

Art with some things to say

When the Yokohama Triennale opened a couple of weeks ago, several people asked which of the pieces I particularly liked. When pressed, from the works of more than 100 artists on show, I singled out Yoko Ono's "Freight Train" and Casagrande & Rintala's "Bird Cage," two large outdoor installations located...
LIFE / Travel
Sep 17, 2001

Riding the Silk Road up to the sky

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- Throughout the former Soviet Union, the architectural barbarities of communist civilization have inflicted a dreadful sameness on disparate lands and peoples.
COMMUNITY
Sep 16, 2001

Your future dished up at fortunetelling pub

If this taste for new uranai has left you hungry for more, then izakaya uranai may be just the thing. A virtual Japanese pub found on the Web not only defines your personality type, but also your drinking habits and even your "lucky izakaya dish" -- all on the basis of your selections from an izakaya...
LIFE
Sep 16, 2001

In touch with your inner squid

Aquarium uranai (book; Magazine House) uses your birth date and blood type to determine your token "sea creature" from a list of 16, including sea bream, blowfish and jellyfish. Your personality type and behavioral patterns are defined, as is your compatibility with other sea creatures.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 16, 2001

The ideology of Japanese identity

MULTIETHNIC JAPAN, by John Lie. Harvard University Press, Cambridge University Press, 2001, 248 pp. $35 Japan and many of its observers have avoided the confusion and contention associated with diversity by assuming, asserting and elaborating a monolithic, monoethnic Japan that jostles uncomfortably...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Sep 16, 2001

Some hairy ordeals

Fans of the long-running historical drama series "Mito Komon" (Mondays at 8 p.m. on TBS) may have been slightly put off last spring when Koji Ishizaka, the actor who had just assumed the title role, opted to play it without the character's famous wispy white beard. Mito Komon just wasn't Mito Komon without...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 16, 2001

Documenting an unprecedented disaster

Crises, it is often said, bring out the best and the worst in people. In the case of the terrorist attacks that took place in the United States on Tuesday, the best was illustrated by citizens waiting five hours to donate blood, while the worst was exemplified by service stations gouging customers for...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 15, 2001

Kazuko Ogawa

BRIDGEMERE, England -- The garden center in Bridgemere is said to be the largest of its kind in Europe. In the quiet of Cheshire's spreading plains, it is its own world of year-round flowers and plants, trees and garden ideas. It has greenhouses, fish in tanks and rustic furniture. Additionally, and...
JAPAN
Sep 14, 2001

Fukuda hints at change in reading of Article 9

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda hinted Thursday that the government may seek to alter the interpretation of part of the nation's postwar Constitution.
BUSINESS
Sep 13, 2001

Fear, shock push Nikkei below 10,000

Tokyo stocks fell sharply Wednesday, as shock and fear pushed the benchmark Nikkei average of 225 leading stocks below the psychologically sensitive 10,000 mark for the first time in 17 years, closing at 9,610.10.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Sep 13, 2001

Shaping up the economy: more parks, fewer highways

One of the joys of visiting the United States is having a chance to check out the alternative press. This summer, while in Vermont (which some say is a state, and some a state of mind), I picked up a free copy of "Green Living: A Practical Journal for Friends of the Environment."
JAPAN
Sep 13, 2001

'Today, our nation saw evil'

WASHINGTON, Sept 11 - Following is the text of a speech to the nation by President George W. Bush on Tuesday following the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon:
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2001

Psychiatric care still mired in Dark Ages

Staff writer Unlike the common image of mental institutions with tight security and barred windows, the Yowa Hospital in Nerima Ward, Tokyo, looks no different than a general hospital.
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2001

Typhoon Danas lashes Tokyo

Typhoon Danas hit land near Kamakura in Kanagawa Prefecture on Tuesday morning and went on to buffet Tokyo and its vicinity, police and the Meteorological Agency said.
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2001

National health premiums to rise: ministry official

The health ministry in August told officials in charge of national health insurance at local governments that they can count on higher premiums, according to government sources.
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Sep 12, 2001

You ain't nuthin' but a henjin

What a wacky guy Junichiro Koizumi is. When he's not battling bureaucracy or trying to revive the ailing economy, Japan's unprecedentedly popular prime minister likes nothing better than to chill out and listen to the music of the King: Elvis Presley.
JAPAN
Sep 11, 2001

Tanaka apology seen as a start

Former American POWs and their supporters greeted Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka's apology delivered to them Saturday in San Francisco with mixed reactions, saying it was a good start but still a long way from a solution.
JAPAN
Sep 11, 2001

15-year term sought for '70 JAL hijacking

Prosecutors on Monday sought a 15-year prison sentence for former Red Army Faction member Yoshimi Tanaka, who is on trial at the Tokyo District Court for the 1970 hijacking of a Japan Airlines jet and other charges.
JAPAN / WEEKEND WISDOM
Sep 9, 2001

Takarazuka chief pins group's success on Japan's decline

The success of the extravagant, all-woman Takarazuka theatrical troupe over the past decade owes a great deal to Japan's economic decline since the bubble economy of the late 1980s burst, according to Shinji Ueda, president of the Takarazuka Revue Co.

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo