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Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 9, 2001

Falling off a Kawasaki cliff, building an ashram

Sister Eugenie Fumiko Fujita went to bed toward the end of last year's rainy season, her life enlivened by a month of mold but still basically in order. She awoke before dawn July 8 to mayhem, her home hanging off the edge of a landslip.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jun 9, 2001

Pablo Javier

Last evening, Philippine ambassador Romeo Arguelles opened an art exhibition in the embassy. Held in conjunction with the celebration of the republic's Independence Day, the exhibition features the oil paintings of Pablo Javier. "I am very proud to be giving this one-man show of my Western-style paintings,"...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 3, 2001

It's all about manners (cough, gasp), not health

It's not surprising that the local media glossed over the World Health Organization's 14th annual World No Tobacco Day last Thursday. The government, a member in good standing of the United Nations and a conscientious contributor to its causes, didn't start preparing a seminar to mark the occasion until...
JAPAN
May 29, 2001

Japanese scientist finds clues of earlier mass extinction

A mass extinction of life on Earth may have occurred 10 million years before the largest known extinction took place around 250 million years ago, a Japanese scientist said Monday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 26, 2001

Thunderbird set to make history for second time

Charlotte Kennedy-Takahashi, as much at home in Tokyo's American Club as her local "izakaya," refutes any description of herself as the first non-Japanese woman to start her own business in Japan. But she does acknowledge herself as a pioneer, heading the first company founded by a foreigner to be granted...
CULTURE / Film
May 23, 2001

Women under the confluence

Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her Rating: * * * 1/2 Director: Rodrigo Garcia Running time: 110 minutes Language: EnglishNow playing as the late show at Bunkamura Le Cinema in Shibuya "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her" is a sleek omnibus film, with five separate but loosely interwoven...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
May 17, 2001

Darwin's uncomfortable facts

As we wander the natural world, from mud flat to mountain top, from river bed to rocky outcrop, the life that we encounter falls into readily recognizable forms or, as we know them now, species. The similarities and differences between species help even the layman to recognize the extent of their relationship....
EDITORIALS
May 13, 2001

Short guide to a long career

An old man died in Nebraska last week. The event was noted briefly in newspapers across America, and people reading about it over their breakfasts probably experienced two sensations: a moment of surprise and then a rush of wry, affectionate memories. The old man's name was Clifton Keith Hillegass, not...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 2, 2001

Arrested Development

The name of Arrested Development could have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Bringing intelligent life to the hip-hop scene in 1992 with its debut, "Three Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of . . . ," this Atlanta-based unit deftly detoured around gangsta rap's dead end while keeping the messages...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 28, 2001

Clothes from heart shaping up for Golden Week

As dusk falls on an unseasonally cold and rainy Saturday, Michiyo Masago is bent over her computer. We meet at her atelier now because she is just returned from Yokohama, and tomorrow she flies to Okinawa -- direct to Ishigakijima, from where she will take a boat to Iriemote.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 28, 2001

Jospin still far from the top

PARIS -- Created 43 years ago by Gen. Charles de Gaulle, France's Fifth Republic has had 14 prime ministers but only five presidents. Most of these premiers have harbored an ambition to become head of state, but only two of them managed to fulfill this dream. Will Lionel Jospin be the third?
COMMENTARY
Apr 26, 2001

Antiglobalism guarantees poverty for all

WASHINGTON -- Despite the worst efforts of violent protesters in Quebec, Canada, leaders of countries throughout the Western hemisphere concluded their Summit of the Americas by proposing a broad free-trade agreement. Bringing more of the world's poor into the global economy is the best hope for raising...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 18, 2001

A seductive city reveals its essence

One of the places where a little Vivaldi would make perfect background music is the exhibition "Venetian Paintings of the 18th Century," now at the Ueno Royal Museum.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 16, 2001

Understanding the message in the madness

Human history is rife with examples of natural phenomenon radically changing his existence — the ice ages and smallpox, to name two. The AIDS virus has had a profound effect on the sexual behavior of many people the world over. Now, a mysterious protein, the prion, is about to change the eating habits...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 15, 2001

At long last, Tokuda Shusei

ROUGH LIVING, by Tokuda Shusei, translated by Richard Torrance. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, April 2001, 184 pp., $45 (hardcover), $21.95 (paper). This is, I think, the first translation into English of a novel by a writer that Japanese think is one of their finest. Tokuda Shusei (1871-1943)...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Apr 15, 2001

Eyeballing a personal language coach

Upon first meeting my wife-to-be, my entire future flashed before me. Already I could foresee this girl as my life partner, the mother of my children and the person I would wrestle with for legroom in the kotatsu.
COMMENTARY
Apr 14, 2001

Clinton's shadow over India

NEW DELHI -- Scarred by his ignominious final acts in office, former U.S. President Bill Clinton stepped out of the shadow of scandal to try and be a healer during his just-completed tour of the earthquake-ravaged western Indian state of Gujarat. In New Delhi this week, Clinton was welcomed by another...
CULTURE / Film
Apr 4, 2001

The genius boy in a bubble

My mother used to say that she could read me like a book. A compliment? At the age of 15, I didn't think so -- I didn't want anyone "reading" me, let alone dear old Mom. Worshipping at the altar of cool, I wanted to be an inscrutable, unflappable James Bond, not a hapless innocent walking down the pitiless...
Events
Apr 3, 2001

Japanese films shown with English subtitles

The Japan Foundation's Kyoto office is holding free weekly screenings of Japanese films for foreigners starting at 2 p.m. each Wednesday this month at its office in Kyoto's Nakagyo Ward.
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2001

Universal Studios opens in Osaka

OSAKA -- The power of Hollywood arrived in Osaka on Saturday as the Universal Studios Japan theme park opened its doors to the public.
LIFE / Travel
Mar 31, 2001

Graffiti blasts Beijing demolition

Under the cover of darkness and armed with a can of spray paint, Zhang Dali pedals his bicycle around the quiet Beijing streets with the intention of giving the city a new face -- sometimes two or three.
JAPAN
Mar 29, 2001

HIV-hit hemophiliacs fight on

When the government began allowing hemophiliacs to self-inject blood-clotting agents in 1981, Satoru Ienishi thought "spring had finally come" to a life plagued by problems stemming from the condition.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 27, 2001

Poetry for every mood and season

RYOKAN: Selected Tanka, Haiku, translated by Sanford Goldstein, Shigeo Mizuguchi & Fujisato Kitajima. Kokodo, 2000, pp. 218, 2 ,000 yen. LOVE HAIKU: Masajo Suzuki's Lifetime of Love: Translations by Lee Gurga & Emiko Miyashita. Brooks Books, 2000, pp. 112, 1,600 yen. UTSUMUKU SEINEN /LOOKING DOWN:...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 23, 2001

How diplomats express Japan

An Australian diplomat found modern Japanese weddings exciting and representing of the adaptability of the nation's culture, while a British participant described how much he loves "onsen" hot springs. And both did so in smooth Japanese.
JAPAN
Mar 23, 2001

Straining under their weight, bank behemoths strive to survive

All-out competition will break out among Japan's four major banking groups next month in an arena that will host some of the world's largest banks in terms of aggregate assets.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 20, 2001

Shanghai, the heart of China

NEW SHANGHAI: The Rocky Rebirth of China's Legendary City, by Pamela Yatsko. Wiley, 2001, 298 pp., 2,300 yen (paper). Few doubt that Shanghai is the nerve center of China's second "Great Leap Forward." This metropolis -- long considered the most cosmopolitan of all Asian cities -- is the cornerstone...
CULTURE / Film
Mar 18, 2001

Donald Richie: being inside and outside Japanese cinema

In his five decades as a writer, Donald Richie has investigated everything from the glories of noh to the mysteries of the Japanese tattoo, while attempting everything from the travel narrative ("The Inland Sea") to the historical novel (the meticulously researched, wittily engaging "Kumagai"). He is...

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years