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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 14, 2005

Playing in the shadows

"Self-effacing" is not an adjective one normally uses to describe a rock band, but everything about the English quartet Electrelane seems designed to draw attention away from the individual players. In Electrelane's case this is particularly significant since all four members are young women, and there...
JAPAN
Oct 8, 2005

Philippine NGO head seeks help for poor

Mutually Reinforcing Institutions, said the lending arm of the group, CARD Bank, extends small unsecured loans to 152,000 poor women who have families in rural areas of the Philippines. The loans, which are repaid in small installments, helps borrowers launch businesses in handicrafts, food retailing...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Oct 8, 2005

Conor Hanratty

Conor Hanratty of Ireland says there is obvious benefit in studying a subject ranking amongst the less sought-after. When he enrolled in Royal Holloway, University of London, for his master's degree in Greek theater performance, he was one of only four in his class. Undoubtedly he did not require individual...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 8, 2005

Giant new store gives Akihabara a wakeup call

The mammoth outlet opened by Yodobashi Camera Co. in Tokyo's Akihabara district in mid-September appears to have become a catalyst for change in an area renowned for its cut-throat retail electronics competition.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Oct 4, 2005

At what point is a child being too active?

Current media is full of warnings that kids are being overbooked, overstimulated and, ultimately, overwhelmed. While articles on stress used to invariably feature the children of Japan, taxed by the country's rigorous academic pressures and long hours of juku (cram school), the focus now is going international....
JAPAN
Sep 30, 2005

'Cool Biz' popular enough for another try

The sight of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in an open-collar shirt was much more familiar this month than in June, when the government kicked off the "Cool Biz" casual-dress campaign for reducing air-conditioner use.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Sep 27, 2005

Watches, stains and health food

Keep watching Jim in Kansai notes that it is several weeks now since we ran his request for suggestions on repairing his old Seiko watch, but still no response. "I knew it was a long shot, but I'd like to thank you anyway, for trying."
BUSINESS
Sep 27, 2005

Zama to be Nissan global design hub

Nissan Motor Co. said Monday it will build a 5.1 billion yen facility near Tokyo to consolidate its global production engineering functions at one site.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Sep 13, 2005

Arihiro and Kimiyo Fujita

Arihiro Fujita and Kimiyo Fujita, owners of the award-winning Takasagoya Pork Shop in Tokyo's Tsukishima, know their pork. These two 65-year-olds also know what makes a relationship work. They've been married and working together for 40 years -- without, they claim, even one argument.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 13, 2005

Scales of justice

Spare a thought for Hiroyuki Cho. The 39-year-old purported "mastermind" behind the theft of large fiber-glass Peko-chan dolls in broad daylight from outside one of Japan's most famous confectionery chains was last week handed a 7-year prison sentence for his crimes.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 11, 2005

The curious Mr. Longfellow

LONGFELLOW'S TATTOOS: Tourism, Collecting, and Japan, by Christine M.E. Guth. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004, 256 pp., 123 illustrations, $29.95 (paper). After the new Japanese government was officially installed in 1868, only a decade or so after the country had been, more or less, forcibly...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Sep 7, 2005

'Palookaville' gets gallery treatment

I was chatting with old friends in Toronto last week, and our conversation came round to the subject of Japanese manga. I made clear my reservations regarding the popularity of pulp manga in Japan, and bemoaned the fact that many manga artists have even had gallery shows here.
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2005

ANA captain held in theft of jetliner manuals

An All Nippon Airways pilot was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of stealing jumbo jet flight operation manuals that were later sold to the general public by an aircraft goods dealer via the Internet, police said.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 28, 2005

The face of joy and happiness

OTAFUKU: Joy of Japan, by Amy Sylvester Katoh, photographs by Yutaka Sato. Singapore: Tuttle/Periplus, bilingual (English and Japanese), 2005, 192 pp., many illustrations, 1,700 yen (cloth). Most of us know Otafuku without knowing her name. She is the full-faced folk figure we see all around us in Japan,...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Aug 23, 2005

Old clothes and capsule delight

Waste not, want not Elizabeth in Kyoto Prefecture is leaving Japan in a month's time, having spent two years here.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 20, 2005

Beef brouhaha dampens appetites: poll

Nearly half of the respondents to a farm ministry survey said they have changed their diets since the first case of mad cow disease was found in Japan in September 2001.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 18, 2005

Four illegal crocodiles take a bite out of crime

Tokyo police have arrested a reptile wholesaler from Shizuoka and two other people on suspicion of illegally breeding and falsely registering four false gavials, a type of endangered crocodile, it was learned Wednesday.
JAPAN
Aug 13, 2005

Nostalgia wave sees '60s 'anime' hits going DVD

A string of animations aired during Japan's miraculous economic boom of the 1960s is gradually regaining popularity with people in their 40s to 50s.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 13, 2005

Koka Fukushima

"One day I came across a solitary white dandelion growing on a high stone wall. That was my first encounter with plants, and amongst my earliest childhood recollections," said Koka Fukushima.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Aug 12, 2005

Keeping your wines alive in the heat

As it becomes warm enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, owners of large wine collections, or even a few special bottles, should be asking themselves, "Just how hot is too hot?"
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 11, 2005

Okunoshima: poison gas past belies isle's bucolic serenity

OKUNOSHIMA, Hiroshima Pref. -- With its turquoise waters, quiet forest paths, palm trees and spectacular views of the mainland and other islands of the Inland Sea, Okunoshima Island has the feel of a resort somewhere in the Aegean Sea or the South Pacific.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 9, 2005

Bad boys, bad boys

Dangerous encounter Two friends and I found ourselves in front of Okayama station last week where a bunch of cars were being driven recklessly. We were on the verge of calling it a night when one friend saw a handbag lying next to a flower pot.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Aug 9, 2005

Staying mobile and Book-Off

Used CDs John Mackin says the Book-Off store near his home in Kawasaki not only buys and sells books, it also buys and sells CDs, DVDs, WalkMans, iPods, TVs, PCs, clothes, women's handbags -- you name it.
JAPAN
Aug 3, 2005

Cops campaign for info on Setagaya slaying

Police began a major campaign Tuesday in front of the Keio Line's Seiseki-Sakuragaoka Station in Tokyo to solicit any information from passersby that could solve the murder of a family of four in Setagaya Ward in late 2000.
Japan Times
Features
Jul 31, 2005

Retail mecca reborn

Many of Japan's thousands of shotengai (mom-and-pop retailers' districts) are struggling these days as customers desert them for major department stores, discount shops and suburban malls. The Osu district of Nagoya, though, is a notable exception. Bucking the nationwide downturn, this area is popular...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 29, 2005

15 abductees alive in '91, spy tells Diet

A former Pyongyang spy told a Diet panel Thursday that 15 abducted Japanese were alive in North Korea between 1988 and 1991 and suggested one of the five repatriated in 2002 has information about many of those still missing.

Longform

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The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan