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Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 2, 2003

How the 'modern' code was cracked

The headless body of a woman in her 50s was laid on a straw mat inside a hut at Kotsukahara in Edo's Senju area. Born in Kyoto and nicknamed "Aochababa," sketchy court records indicate the woman had been convicted of killing her adopted children. She had been executed by beheading that very morning,...
BUSINESS
Feb 1, 2003

Mizuho told to boost loans to small firms

The Financial Services Agency on Friday ordered Mizuho Holdings Inc., the world's largest banking group in terms of assets, to increase loans to smaller companies and submit guidelines for doing so by the end of this month.
JAPAN
Jan 31, 2003

Newspapers and plays feature in report on polishing Japanese

A panel of experts advising the education minister on use of Japanese has issued an interim report on how to improve command of the language among elementary and junior high school students.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jan 29, 2003

Kimya Dawson: "I'm Sorry That Sometimes I'm Mean"

The biggest star to emerge from New York's antifolk scene is Beck Hansen, but before King Loser went legit he was more of a hanger-on than a guiding light. The Moldy Peaches -- 30-year-old Kimya Dawson and 21-year-old Adam Green -- embody the antifolkies' art-is-fun credo more convincingly, and having...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / GARDEN PATHS
Jan 23, 2003

The bare essentials

This column is the first in a series of articles to take us strolling along some garden paths. Hopefully, along the way, we will come across some good ideas for our own patch of greenery, whether that is a garden, containers on a balcony, or just a few potted plants on the kitchen window.
LIFE / Digital
Jan 23, 2003

Move over MP3; purists demand 'lossless'

There's a whole industry built around the MP3 data-compression format, but did you know that by using MP3s to burn music CDs, you lose part of the original recording as the data compressor does its work?
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2003

Highways to abolish high-priced toll cards

Four public expressway corporations said Tuesday they will stop selling high-priced prepaid expressway cards at the end of February.
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2003

Review of moneylender interest rate caps triggers tug of war

A tug of war is under way over a government plan to review the upper limit on interest rates that consumer finance firms and other nonbank moneylenders can levy.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 21, 2003

Gadgets gnaw at polite society

A funny thing happened to me on the train home the other day. I had a conversation with a total stranger.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 20, 2003

The folly of inflation targets

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said recently the next governor of the Bank of Japan must take aggressive action to fight deflation, giving rise to expectations of inflation targeting among government and ruling coalition officials. I doubt, however, that inflation targeting will cure deflation. In...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2003

Britain's far right poses a rising threat

BRUSSELS -- The press in England has had a field day over the past 20 years chronicling the rise of the Continent's far right. The first chance came in the early 1980s with the emergence of France's National Front led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, a man who believes the Americans built the gas chambers in the...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2003

Thais create Buddhist studies landmark

CHIANG MAI -- Against a background of terror, conflicts and violence worldwide, during times when consumerism and materialism have been elevated as never before on pedestals surrounded by a divine aura, a small group of modest but dedicated Thai scholars, monks and nuns have worked quietly and efficiently...
EDITORIALS
Jan 13, 2003

In the year 20, or maybe 33, A.I.

Maybe you missed it amid the noisy merriment of the New Year, but Jan. 1 marked a birthday worth observing. Twenty years ago on New Year's Day, the Internet as we know it was born, ushering in the era of the World Wide Web -- the closest humanity may ever get to a version of J.R.R. Tolkien's mythic global...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 12, 2003

Art that arose from the ashes of World War II

JAPANESE PRINTS DURING THE ALLIED OCCUPATION: 1945-1952, by Lawrence Smith. London: The British Museum Press, 2002, 128 pp., 40 color and 75 black-and-white illustrations, £35 (cloth) At the end of the Pacific portion of World War II, Japan was occupied by the wartime Allies, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 12, 2003

Facing economic facts, even if it hurts

STRADDLING ECONOMICS AND POLITICS: Cross-Cutting Issues in Asia, the United States, and the Global Economy, by Charles Wolf Jr. Santa Monica, CA.: Rand, 2002, 210 pp., $20 (paper) You have to give Charles Wolf credit. It takes courage to reprint articles when some of the predictions included are flat-out...
BUSINESS
Jan 10, 2003

FSA imposes operation ban on Unum Japan

The Financial Services Agency said Thursday it has ordered Unum Japan Accident Insurance Co. to halt operations for 30 days beginning Jan. 20. During the suspension, the nonlife insurance company will be banned from marketing and concluding insurance contracts.
EDITORIALS
Jan 8, 2003

Inducing banks to get on board

Japan's efforts to clean up the banking system will enter a new phase this spring when the government sets up a new body to help revive overly indebted but potentially viable borrowers. The "industrial revitalization corporation" will buy doubtful loans from creditor banks (excluding main creditor banks)...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 8, 2003

Calling to the gods with a true, independent female voice

The career of composer, vocalist and dancer Makiko Sakurai has followed a unique path. She is the only woman who has been trained in shomyo -- the Buddhist liturgical chanting that dates back to the ninth century and is traditionally practiced only by males.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 8, 2003

Music of the saints

Someone once said that the best way to start building a jazz collection would be to buy a couple albums from each decade that Miles Davis was recording and, after that, choose a sideman from each of these selections and buy one of his solo albums. The same could be said of John Zorn and his collaborators,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jan 5, 2003

Rock 'n' roll that's as good as it gets

OK, the best album of 2002 goes to a bunch of teenage upstarts from Merseyside, England, but the place to be was underground in Japan. Veterans Shonen Knife and Guitar Wolf delivered their best albums to date, Salt Water Taffy and All Tomorrow's Party kick-started the indie-guitar revival with heart-melting...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 29, 2002

Mt. Fuji observed, and revealed

FUJI: Images of Contemporary Japan, by Chris Steele-Perkins. New York: Umbrage Editions, 2001, 136 pp., 104 color plates, $45 (cloth) Ukiyo-e master Hokusai established a tradition when he traveled around Mount Fuji in the 19th century, illustrating his 36 views of the mountain. He made it the locus...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 29, 2002

Koma Square -- a new years' tale by RK

1997-99 He woke to the sound of a prerecorded voice booming from the nationalists' minitruck rolling through their neighborhood, making the windows rattle. Shirtless on the tatami, his bare back pressed to the ribbed weave, he heard the voice as part of his dream and then part of the day, and then...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Dec 25, 2002

The Pascals: "The Pascals Go"

The Pascals are a quirky collection of outstanding Japanese musicians whose tunes are penned in the spirit of the French composer Pascal Comelade.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Dec 19, 2002

Ride a dream wave

Kelly Slater is a real surfer -- the high-profile world champion credited with helping reform the sport's image. But "Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer," a new game for PlayStation2, Xbox, and GameCube from Activision, is not about real surfing.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 15, 2002

On the trail of a killer in ancient Kyoto

RASHOMON GATE, by I.J. Parker. St. Martin's Minotaur: New York, 2002, 336 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Scholars who pen historical mystery fiction must tread a fine line between being faithful to the materials they research and creating stories and characters that will appeal to contemporary readers. It's by...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Dec 11, 2002

In search of the real artist-potter Ogata Kenzan

"Sensational art finds are both desired and feared: desired because they become a form of pleasure and capital; feared because they displace something or somebody. Japan has had its share of such moments."

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