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ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Sep 23, 2004

Good stuff, people and advice on how to tailor your consumption

It's back-to-school time again, and whether you are going back, sending your child off, or just getting swept up in the streams of backpack-wielding kids, change is in the air. Time for new books, new people and new gossip, and time to clear the desk even if only for a place to rest your head.
COMMENTARY
Sep 20, 2004

'Fat liberation' movement declares war

WASHINGTON -- Another civil-rights movement is stirring in America. A "fat liberation" movement. Complains Marilyn Wann of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, "We're living in the middle of a witch hunt."
Japan Times
Features
Sep 19, 2004

Cream-puff heaven is open to all

First it was Chinese dumplings that got the theme park treatment at Ikebukuro Gyoza Stadium in 2002. Then, last year, up popped Ice Cream City. So, what was to be this year's gastronomic addition to the menu of attractions at Namco Namja Town in Sunshine City?
Japan Times
Features
Sep 19, 2004

A flavor of Lima with Fujimori to the fore

Visit any Latin dance club and you'll hear the salsa music blaring well before you get through the doors. But this month at dance clubs across Japan there'll be another sound as well: the buzz over a new, free-of-charge magazine on Peruvian life in this country that's being distributed not only at clubs...
Japan Times
Features
Sep 19, 2004

Talkin' 'grassroots social reform'

"Anybody got a question? Any question?" hollered a young spiky-haired man in a gray T-shirt and black chinos one evening the other week outside the ticket gates at JR Totsuka Station in Kanagawa Prefecture. The sky was darkening, and shoals of commuters were flowing in and out of the suburban station....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 11, 2004

Matthew Zuckerman

BATH, England -- In a two-hour walk, you can take in all the major features of interest in Bath, an attractive compact city in southwest England. The Romans, here 2,000 years ago, left behind several relics that center on a magnificent temple and a bathing spa where hot water still gushes. Bath's great...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 11, 2004

India continues to shine for only a few

MADRAS, India -- One important cause for the debacle of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition in the recent Indian general elections was their slogan, "India Shining." Some analysts feel that it alienated the country's millions of poor people.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 10, 2004

Dodging tourist traps in Kyoto

Ebisugawa has a vast array of small shops that sell dozens of varieties of high-quality green tea and traditional Kyoto sweets, as well as bric-a-brac stores that are a bargain-hunter's dream.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Sep 5, 2004

Takafumi Horie: Livedoor whiz kid sets a new style

Takafumi Horie, 31, has been the man in the news since the end of June, when he announced that his Tokyo-based Internet service firm, Livedoor Co., was in the market for Osaka's debt-ravaged Kintetsu Buffaloes baseball team.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 1, 2004

Shaking it up on Sado

SADO ISLAND, Niigata Pref. -- Step one: right leg forward, left leg back.
BUSINESS
Aug 25, 2004

Apple's iPod mini proves big hit

The iPod mini, a digital music player made by Apple Computer Inc., has proved extremely popular since hitting the Japanese market a month ago.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 20, 2004

On the path of poets

Utter silence, Piercing the stone walls, The cicada's cry
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Aug 19, 2004

Down in the grim intertidal zone

A coffee-shop friend of mine recently summed up his appreciation of our local lowland forest just outside Sapporo, saying: "You know, it's wonderful here; every season is the best season." And, you know, he has a powerful point.
BUSINESS
Aug 14, 2004

DoCoMo, KDDI give number service

NTT DoCoMo Inc. and KDDI Corp. will begin a free recorded message service to give out a subscriber's new telephone number when the person switches to their services.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 11, 2004

Artist builds from zero

Suspicious of the pervasive role of Western culture in his homeland, Katsushige Nakahashi resolved to become a "Japanese artist."
BUSINESS
Aug 10, 2004

Man on the street upbeat over economy last month

The business confidence of workers with jobs sensitive to economic trends improved in July, due partly to brisk retail sales spurred by sweltering summer temperatures and the Athens Olympics, the government said Monday.
Japan Times
Features
Aug 8, 2004

The art of seeing

Photographer Jun Akiyama is taking ostrich strides down a Tokyo sidewalk, snapping pictures on a flimsy-looking tourist camera. Click! A child's curious glance is frozen in grainy black-and-white. Click! Akiyama catches a moment of anxiety on an old woman's face.
BUSINESS
Jul 27, 2004

Like NTT phone fee, line brokers face extinction

Kanji in the window of a three-story building near JR Okachimachi Station in central Tokyo advertise "denwa tokubai" (discounted telephone lines).
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 25, 2004

Cashing in on ideas

Thomas Edison's electricity, Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, the Wright Brothers' creaky biplane, H.G. Wells' time machine (OK, that last one hasn't happened yet), but through these world-changing discoveries, our daily lives have been made easier. Flick a switch and light banishes the darkness, pick...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 18, 2004

Hard-boiled and stuck to Thai ways

"When I finish a book I collapse and say, 'That's it. Never again,' " sighs Bangkok-based author Christopher G. Moore. "About three, four months later the demons pull me back, and the whole mad process starts over."
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 11, 2004

Bedroom poetry beckons

EROTIC HAIKU (bilingual), edited and translated by Hiroaki Sato, illustrated by Emi Suzuki. Tokyo: IBC Publishing, 2004, 114 pp., 1200 yen (paper). Since Eros was the god of love, in the sense of sexual desire, so "erotic," the dictionary explains, means "arousing or concerned with this." The cover of...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 10, 2004

Jewelry shops ready for foreign onslaught

Facing intense competition from foreign rivals selling brand-name products, Japanese jewelry stores are countering with their own initiatives.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Jul 9, 2004

Dancing in the streets

South of the Chinzanso/Four Seasons Hotel on the Kandagawa -- where our walk finished last month -- Kagurazaka is a vibrant town named after its sloped main street, The Kagurazaka. This hilly area has a maze of lanes and short but steep hills, making it a thrilling adventure for urban walkers. In pockets...
COMMUNITY
Jul 3, 2004

Japanese antique textiles taking over life and home

For any enthusiast keen to know the state of the Japanese antique textile market in the U.K., Marilyn Ratcliffe knows more than most. When we talk -- her already soft Cheshire burr blurred by hay fever ("they just mowed the grass in fields nearby") -- she has just the day before returned from a vintage...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 27, 2004

Nothing like vintage tech

It's been said that the musical style now referred to as "electro" wriggled to life in the early '80s, when the heavy thump of funk collided with burgeoning synthesizer technology. Jittery, bass-heavy and bombastic, electro lurked on the half-courts and back-alley clubs of New York City, embraced mostly...

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?