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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 5, 2005

'O-baa-chans' on the loose in Bali shops

I recently had the opportunity to accompany two Japanese women to Bali, Indonesia. This is not the first time I have been a personal tour guide for Japanese going to Bali, but this time was different because I was taking two very special people: my next-door neighbor Kazuko and another islander, Hiroko....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 4, 2005

In search of the real flavor of Yokohama's Chukagai

In some quarters it's become almost knee-jerk to denigrate Yokohama's Chinatown. Too clean and tidy, they sneer, it feels like a theme park. It's just for tourists. And, the most serious charge of all, the food just isn't authentic. To which the Food File would retort: Perhaps so; not necessarily; and...
COMMUNITY / LIFELINES
Feb 1, 2005

Used CDs, pensions and a good resource

More used CD info On the subject of where to buy and sell used CDs in and around Tokyo, there are a number of shops that will take your old discs off you as well as Recofan (mentioned in our column of Jan. 18).
Japan Times
Features
Jan 30, 2005

'Curiosity' at the core of days packed with lots to chew on

Atsuko Tanuma's day begins at 5 a.m. It's a routine she has followed for 17 years, since she started preparing lunch-boxes for her first son when he began kindergarten at the age of 4.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 29, 2005

All good things come to those who wait

Judy Ishizu holds up her latest English textbook, "Sekando Raifu no Eikaiwa" ("Second Life English Conversation"), and can scarcely contain her enthusiasm. "It's a dream come true to be in print. This is not my first book, however, but the fifth. To date the second -- "Eigo de Imi . Kangae wo Ieru Hyogen"...
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2005

Kobe remembers earthquake with candlelight vigil

KOBE -- This city on Monday morning marked the 10th anniversary of the January 1995 earthquake that resulted in the loss of 6,433 lives, with ceremonies paying tribute to reconstruction efforts and offering condolences and promises of further assistance to survivors of national and international disasters....
Japan Times
JAPAN / 10 YEARS AFTER
Jan 18, 2005

City's new face conceals unhealed wounds, a sense of communities lost

KOBE -- A decade after the massive Kobe earthquake, there remains little visible trace of the damage to this port city.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Jan 16, 2005

Wota lota love

The 90-minute event on the eighth floor of an electronics shop in Tokyo's Akihabara district one recent Sunday afternoon was unlike anything you'd expect to encounter in the bubble-gum world of Japanese teen fashion.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 11, 2005

Habitat destruction, work gear and photos

A distressing end to 2004 . . . off to a resilient and positive start in 2005.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jan 9, 2005

NTV's "87 percent — My Five-Year Chance of Survival" and more

A new year means a whole new set of drama series, though the themes remain the same. Fans of terminal illness stories will find a lot to cry over in "87 percent -- My Five-Year Chance of Survival," which premieres Wednesday on Nihon TV at 10 p.m. Yui Natsukawa plays Akiko, a 35-year-old insurance saleslady...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Jan 6, 2005

Buckwheat booze lifts locals' spirits

The first flurries of snow usually fall here where I live in Kurohime in mid-November, just at the start of the hunting season.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 4, 2005

Racism is bad business

The Community Page has commented at length on socially-sanctioned exclusionary practices in Japan. However, it has rarely touched upon their quantifiable, longer-term effects.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jan 1, 2005

These are a few of my favorite things

One duty of all foreign residents of Japan is to pick up a bunch of Japanese "things." You know, the knickknack, bric-a-brac, give-the-junk-a-home type of stuff that is probably cluttering up your dwelling even now.
Japan Times
Features
Dec 26, 2004

The voice

The first time he met her she told him everything, but he wasn't listening to the words.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Dec 26, 2004

Rip, burn, play: crucial tunes in 2004

Here is the definitive list -- albeit a bit fuzzy (it's been a tough few weeks of pre-Christmas partying) -- of the best albums of 2004. I wish there were more Japanese bands here, but in 2004 most of my favorite bands -- The Gimmies, The Saturns, Melt-Banana, Thee '50s High Teens, Watusi Zombie, etc....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 22, 2004

Making love from the inside out

Vital Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Shinya Tsukamoto Running time: 86 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] When Shinya Tsukamoto released his first feature, "Tetsuo," in 1989, many critics compared the crazed black-and-white speed dream...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Dec 18, 2004

Talking (and talking) about talking

"Did I ever tell you about the time I was kidnapped by Gypsies?"
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 18, 2004

Japanese firms wake up to wonders of fair trade

Japanese corporations have begun to sell fair trade-certified products in a belated effort to catch up with an international movement that has existed for nearly two decades.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 17, 2004

Raising a glass to the Food File's faves

The goose is getting fat and so too is your humble correspondent, after another year of gobbling his way through some of the best dining that Tokyo has to offer -- not to mention a sizable dollop of the mediocre and worse. But it's not just gluttony that keeps the Food File going, nor merely devotion...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Dec 16, 2004

Serendipities abound in a wintery wonderland

Recently I spotted a Quetzal from Central America, a Snowy Owl from the Arctic, a Short-tailed Albatross from a remote Pacific island -- and a hovering Skylark. Amazingly they were all together, along with woodpeckers and barbets, thrushes and flycatchers, finches, frigate birds, other albatrosses and...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Dec 15, 2004

2005 schedule reflects big changes in Japanese baseball

The 2005 Japan pro baseball schedule was released last week, and one look at the table gives you an idea there will be a whole new ball game next season. Three separate slates were unveiled, one for each of the Central and Pacific Leagues as usual, with Japan's first-ever interleague calendar tacked...
LIFE / Travel
Dec 14, 2004

Mongolia: Land of yesterday and tomorrow

ULAN BATOR Mongolia has been called "one of the last unspoiled travel destinations in Asia," and, indeed, the traveler feels not only in another country but in another century.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 12, 2004

Wrapping things up in time for Christmas

Tokyo bibliophiles will no doubt look back at 2004 as the year in which a revered Tokyo institution -- the Maruzen book store -- moved from its original location in Nihombashi, where it had operated since 1870, to a new home on the first through fourth floors of the OAZO Building in Marunouchi. While...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 12, 2004

Revealing 'The Japanese Sensibility': Innocence

How can innocence and worldliness coexist in a people? Does not the black whip of cynicism, with its burr and sting, send naivete sailing for more gentle and accommodating shores?
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 11, 2004

Slipper prophecy: My life, my toilet!

It all started last summer in a yakitori shop in Kyushu. I went into the bathroom and the toilet slippers greeted me with a chirpy English phrase written on them: "My life, my toilet!" This humored me greatly at the time. However, I have learned my lesson. I will not laugh next time.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 9, 2004

Confessions of a biker girl -- those were the days!

Despite my current overworked, wage-slave status, I still remember when I was able to wield some power.
BUSINESS
Dec 9, 2004

Economy watchers' index declines again

Business confidence of workers with jobs sensitive to economic trends worsened for the fourth consecutive month in November, the government said Wednesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 8, 2004

Dark clouds over Japan

Lady Joker Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Hideyuki Hirayama Running time: 121 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Why do films about salarymen tend to be either heavy-footed, with the principals rarely cracking a smile or otherwise dispelling...

Longform

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