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JAPAN / Politics
Jun 8, 2004

Power of LDP support groups waning

About 5,000 people gathered in Sapporo on May 23 to attend a convention of the national association of special post office chiefs, a longtime supporter of and the biggest vote-gathering machine for the Liberal Democratic Party.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jun 5, 2004

Roger McDonald

A man of many parts, Roger McDonald wove the different threads of his life together when he became a freelance curator. He said: "One of the triggers for me was helping organize an exhibition as part of UK98 at Kiyosato. I brought over some fiery young artists from England, and that experience showed...
BUSINESS
Jun 2, 2004

Fiscal 2003 tax revenue may exceed target

The nation's tax revenue for fiscal 2003 is expected to top the government target of 41.786 trillion yen due to rising corporate profits and personal consumption, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday.
JAPAN
May 31, 2004

SMBC recovered loans day before firm sought protection

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. collected billions of yen in loans it had made to Morimoto Corp., a midsize general contractor, one day before the Osaka-based firm filed for protection under the Civil Rehabilitation Law last fall, sources close to the case said Sunday.
BUSINESS
May 26, 2004

NCB execs face 4 billion yen bill for issuing doomed loans

The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday ordered 10 former executives of collapsed Nippon Credit Bank to pay 4 billion yen in damages to Resolution and Collection Corp. for causing heavy loan losses to NCB.
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2004

AIDS: China's titanic threat

NEW YORK -- The recent warning by the Chinese government that HIV/AIDS is spreading rapidly in the country and that new and urgent measures are needed to combat the infection marks an important step in the fight against HIV/AIDS. This is particularly remarkable because, at the beginning of the epidemic,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 21, 2004

Osaka's west side story

In the cult-film classic "Death Ride to Osaka," there is a scene in which tough Tokyo yakuza drag a Western hostess kicking and screaming out the door. The hostess has just been banished from the bright lights of Tokyo's Ginza to the foul backwater of Osaka.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 19, 2004

Surreal adventures of the image kind

The current special exhibition at the Yokohama Museum of Art deftly achieves two goals dear to public institutions everywhere: it educates the public -- and does so on a shoestring budget.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 9, 2004

Steve Kimock: more than a feeling

A friend of mine calls improvisational guitarist Steve Kimock "The Master," constantly marveling at his shimmering harmonics, dynamic swings and musical "feel." What does Kimock have to say to this straightforward sort of hero worship? (Think Wayne's World's "We're not worthy!")
COMMENTARY / World
May 5, 2004

China can't stop counterfeit DVD sales

LONDON -- Some months ago I was coming out of a classroom at Fudan University in Shanghai when a man sprinted past me with a suitcase under his arm. He was closely followed by a policeman, who suddenly leaped at him in a rugby tackle and brought him down. The suitcase went up in the air and came crashing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 2, 2004

Lighters up for rocker Jack Black, an American classic

I've been told that I look like Jack Black. I don't see the resemblance myself. What these people probably mean is that I "remind" them of Jables, and I can understand why. We both love good American rock music and good American food, we're both uninhibited and funny, and we both wear size 40 BVD white...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Apr 30, 2004

Abramovich learning that money can't buy the Premiership

LONDON -- In the year of the comeback it should be no surprise if Chelsea manages to overturn the 3-1 first-leg deficit when it meets Monaco in the Champions League semifinal, second-leg match at Stamford Bridge next week.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Apr 30, 2004

When your kids are cooperating, but the weather isn't

Special to The Japan Times You're ready to spend some quality time with the kids. It's raining cats and dogs. Here are 10 places to drag the little ones to when the weather isn't cooperating:
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 30, 2004

Ramen makers go upmarket in search of fresh clientele

Customers with Prada handbags and Gucci sunglasses sometimes stand in line for hours and hungrily wait outside the restaurant door, feasting their eyes on the delicacy that awaits inside: a bowl of ramen.
JAPAN
Apr 28, 2004

Lower House OKs four expressway bills

The House of Representatives approved government-sponsored bills Tuesday to privatize four expressway corporations with the backing of the ruling coalition.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 28, 2004

Between blue and gray, love finds a way

Cold Mountain Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Director: Anthony Minghella Running time: 152 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Sixty-some years after Scarlett O'Hara clutched that handful of earth and swore she would never go hungry again, another...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Apr 26, 2004

Antimonopoly Law must be reformed to fit 21st century

The Fair Trade Commission is contemplating making a revision to the Antimonopoly Law in hopes of being able to submit a bill to the Diet, which is now in session. However, the contents of the revision are still up in the air.
Events
Apr 25, 2004

KANSAI: Who & What

30 travelers a day can win Seto bridge pass: Every tourist who crosses the Seto Ohashi Bridge will have a chance to win, via a drawing, a prepaid expressway card between April 29 and May 5.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 24, 2004

The Catch in publishing posters, cards, calendars

Meeting Frances Koston in May 2003 after a gap of years, she presented me with a clutch of postcards bearing beautifully printed images of early hand-tinted Japanese photographs. Just last month she came up with a collection of greeting cards of century-old textile prints, again originating in Japan....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Apr 23, 2004

Jazz retreat for night and day

Volontaire is a soothing retreat for jazz lovers that has stood its ground for the last three decades in Harajuku -- a neighborhood where bars change like the season's fashions. In Yuri Sakanoue's 27 years behind the counter, she has seen them all come and go. Unmoved, she has steadfastly maintained...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 21, 2004

Artist and model, framed

The girl with a pearl earring, whoever she may be, is safely at home in the Netherlands. There, she's the centerpiece of the Mauritshuis collection in The Hague, although her identity is as much of a mystery as ever -- art history favored one of Vermeer's daughters, until Tracey Chevalier wrote her best-selling...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 20, 2004

The green machine

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, "Nakano spy school" turned out thousands of spies, propaganda chiefs and commandos to serve in the furthest corners of Asia during the Pacific War.
Japan Times
Features
Apr 18, 2004

Hanging by a thread

Spurned by many top Japanese designers, patchy in quality and sprawling over a month at a mishmash of venues, the twice-yearly Tokyo Collections -- whose fall/winter 2004/05 shows end this week -- still lay claim to being the highpoints of Asia's fashion year. But are Tokyo's days numbered as the `Paris...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 11, 2004

Stereolab

With their Francophone vocalist and doctrinaire allegiance to analog synthesizers, Stereolab tread a fine line between arty brilliance and frothy silliness. The Marxist proselytizers who emerged on their early albums have evolved into lounge aesthetes who still know a rock tune when they play it. Tim...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 11, 2004

On a High with Teens

Friday, March 19: There's an explosion of noise and color in the heart of the Ten-jin district in Fukuoka City and the locals don't know what has hit them.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Apr 9, 2004

A glass act that's proved hard to follow

A brief stint as an apprentice glassblower on Sado Island in the late '80s left me with a great appreciation of the aesthetics of a well-made wineglass. The weight, the balance, the cut of the lip, the curve and thinness of the bowl -- and the subtle ring after a toast -- are all factors that, when they...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 6, 2004

Otaku proud of it

I wouldn't be offended if someone called me an otaku," says Koichi Nakayasu, ". . . because I am."
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 4, 2004

Oppressive flag of Pan Asian liberation

TENSIONS OF EMPIRE: Japan and Southeast Asia in the Colonial & Post-Colonial World, by Ken'ichi Goto. Ohio University Press, 2003, 349 pp., $24.95 (paper). The media has devoted considerable coverage to the Dr. Feelgoods of Japanese history who have vainly struggled to assert a vindicating and exonerating...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Apr 4, 2004

Robert Whiting: Outside the box

Back in 1972, a 30-year-old New Jersey native who had recently graduated from Tokyo's Sophia University was in New York City, trying to talk to anyone who would listen about politics and life in Japan. Nobody was interested.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight