Search - people

 
 
EDITORIALS
Nov 8, 2001

Better, cheaper welfare goods needed

About 18 months have passed since the introduction of long-term care insurance based on the principle of the "socialization of care." From October, elderly people aged 65 and over have been paying the full insurance premium. This is an important period for solidifying the system. The Ministry of Health,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 4, 2001

Isabella Bird's letters from Japan

UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN: An Account of Travels in the Interior Including Visits to the Aborigines of Yezo and the Shrines of Nikko, by Isabella L. Bird. New York: ICG Muse, 2000, 1,700 yen, 342 pp. (paper) "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan" documents the journeys of Isabella Bird, an extraordinary woman for...
JAPAN
Nov 3, 2001

Health ministry to start rubella vaccination drive

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has decided to take steps to assist people who were not vaccinated against German measles, a dangerous illness for pregnant women, due to an amendment of the Preventive Vaccination Law, ministry sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Oct 31, 2001

Jobless rate hits record 5.3%

The unemployment rate soared by 0.3 percentage point in September to a record 5.3 percent, the government reported Tuesday.
JAPAN
Oct 27, 2001

Technology aids creation of new peace activism

Helmets, chanted slogans and clashes with police -- a common scene in Japan during demonstrations against the Vietnam War. Those days may be long gone, but after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States a new style of peace activism using the Internet and other technology has quietly been created....
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2001

Cult brush tars modern faiths

Almost half a year after Nissan Motor Co.'s Murayama plant was shut down, the automaker announced in July it was considering selling a large portion of the 1.39-million-sq.-meter property to a Buddhist organization.
Events
Oct 16, 2001

Forum eyes water management scenarios

KYOTO -- By 2025, it is predicted that nearly 5 billion people worldwide will face a severe shortage of water. A resource people take for granted may become as precious as diamonds or gold, according to a panel of experts who took part in a symposium last week in Kyoto.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 14, 2001

Country roads take them to new homes

Get away. Away from squeezing yourself into a packed train, making your way in a slow-moving human tide up stairs and through ticket gates. From walking in a crowd like a soldier ant, trotting ahead to avoid cigarette smoke from a man in front, only to breathe in foul diesel fumes at intersections on...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 7, 2001

Soaking up history

In a quiet residential area of Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward, half hidden by a large maple tree, stands an impressive, castlelike wooden structure that is like a portal to another time. With old-fashioned kawara tiles on its pagoda-style roof, and its curliculed surrounding stone wall, the building is evocative...
Events
Oct 2, 2001

Cancer patient promotes artistic expression's force

NARA -- When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999, Yuko Kozono, 40, found people's reactions somewhat familiar.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 23, 2001

The city within

There are three things that stir the heart of every true Tokyoite: sento (public baths), mazelike roji (alleys) and matsuri (festivals). Over the last couple of decades, all three have been gradually fading from the city scene, though there are still pockets in the megalopolis where they can be found...
COMMUNITY
Sep 16, 2001

Can blood type determine character?

If you're a recent arrival to Japan, don't worry if a new friend asks "What's your blood type?" Your inquisitor is unlikely to be a vampire. Here, blood type is believed to tell a lot about a person in just a letter or two: A, B, O or AB.
JAPAN
Sep 13, 2001

Programs for mentally ill out of hospitals fall short

Staff writer A typical busy morning at this "bento" delivery shop in Tokyo's Taito Ward starts at 9 a.m., when around 15 workers come to prepare over 100 boxed lunches to be delivered to nearby office buildings.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 9, 2001

This is the season of our national discontent

Last week's edition of Aera (Sept. 3) looked at the current "Age of Discontent," while Bungei Shunju published a special issue in August on ways to find happiness. Both themes currently feature on the shelves of Japanese bookstores as well.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Sep 9, 2001

Katsuya Takasu, holding back the years

Katsuya Takasu regards his body as a vehicle to carry his mind. So what he had done to his face two years ago was, as he puts it, "just like fixing an old jalopy."
COMMUNITY
Sep 2, 2001

Who needs meat?

In 1984, Carl Lewis won four gold medals at the Los Angeles Olympics. At the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo, he set a world record of 9.86 seconds for the 100 meters. By the time he retired in 1996, he had bagged nine Olympic gold medals and had written himself indelibly into the list of all-time...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 26, 2001

Tuvalu: first casualty of climate change

HONOLULU -- It's too late for Tuvalu, a small island nation in the Pacific. Ten thousand people, Tuvalu's entire population, are packing their bags as their homes among nine low-level atolls are being swallowed by the rising sea. These are the facts of life: The Earth is warming, sea levels are rising,...
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2001

Options over last rites sought

When a citizens' group scattered human ashes at sea 10 years ago, they revived a burial practice unseen in Japan for more than 400 years.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 19, 2001

Environmental destruction dooms us all

"Environmental security" has three different meanings. First, it can be used to explain conflict. Resources can be causes, tools, or targets of warfare. Disputes over water can cause conflict between nations. Upstream states can use water as a tool of warfare by manipulating shared river basins to inflict...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Aug 16, 2001

Five years later, a friend remembered

He was probably the greatest basketball player you have never heard of. Such was the fate of my friend Derek Smith, who died five years ago last week at the age of 34, while on a cruise from New York to Bermuda.
JAPAN
Aug 15, 2001

Text of Koizumi's Yasukuni statement

The following is the Foreign Press Center translation of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's statement on his visit to Yasukuni Shrine:
JAPAN
Aug 11, 2001

War historian cuts past flag-waving gloss

Historian Tadatoshi Fujii has one main worry about today's Japanese: their ignorance of the basic facts about the Imperial armed forces and the nature of the wars they waged.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 9, 2001

Feelings run deep about Yasukuni

Staff writer Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi says he simply wants to pay his respects for those who died for Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 4, 2001

Reflections on a most unexpected career abroad

So often you hear of people who come to Japan for a few months and wake one day to find that many years have flown by. How comforting then to find that it also works in reverse.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Elderly seen warming to overseas home-stays

Yujiro Hamada, 77, is typical of a rising number of middle-aged and elderly Japanese who have rejected more common overseas package tours in favor of extended stays abroad.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jul 26, 2001

Environmentalist on the stump

Despite the sky-high popularity of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, suspicion remains that his Liberal Democratic Party has simply cloaked its wolfish heart in a soft perm. Many environmentalists fear that after Sunday's election the LDP will step up efforts to stimulate the economy by undertaking the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 21, 2001

Life through the lens in Seoul, Paris and Tokyo

It is hard to imagine Mi-Yeon producing art prints of such emotion and refinement amid the familial clutter of her apartment, but maybe this is the mark of the true artist: beauty can be created against all odds. "My daughter's at kindergarten," she offers as explanation.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 15, 2001

A spoonful of Koizumi helps the medicine go down

The continuance of Junichiro Koizumi's administration beyond the summer seems like a sure bet: Support for his Cabinet is over 80 percent, his e-mail magazine is being read by hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and every time the opposition questions one of his pronouncements, they are deluged with...
COMMENTARY
Jul 5, 2001

It's all too lonely at the top

LONDON -- As predicted, the Labour Party won the June general election, giving Tony Blair a second term as prime minister. This is bad news for the media monster which, as we all know, has a voracious appetite but nonetheless a fastidious and restricted diet: sleaze, scandal, violence, betrayal. A large...

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan