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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / CLOSE-UP
Aug 3, 2003

Activist draws on his talents to expose U.S. militarism

American sociologist and antiwar activist Joel Andreas, 46, is the author of "Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can't Kick Militarism."
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 2, 2003

A day at the beach -- Japanese style!

Today, we're going on a trip. Are you ready? OK, here's a list of things we'll need: a large vinyl ground sheet, portable picnic tables, a tent, boxed lunches, a cooler for the beer and a thermos for the cold tea. Have you guessed where we're going yet? No, not camping. A few more hints. We'll also need...
EDITORIALS
Jul 27, 2003

Demystifying the meow

So, the geniuses at Takara Co. Ltd. who last year gave this country the "Bowlingual," the gadget that supposedly translates dogs' thoughts into human language, have now announced a November launch for "Meowlingual," which is touted as doing the same for cats. (One sign that the inventors might actually...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 27, 2003

Just go with the flow

You know the summer routine: The sun comes up, the mercury goes up . . . and the heat and humidity get you down, down, down.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2003

Iraq's long-suffering people desperately need the international community's help

"From now on it is each man for himself." Having said that, our colleague from UNICEF Iraq quietly locked our car's doors. We had just passed the final checkpoint between Kuwait and Iraq.
COMMUNITY
Jul 20, 2003

Being nasally challenged is nothing to be sniffed at

To be honest, I never gave much thought to noses, ne'er even my own, until my sense of smell departed.
EDITORIALS
Jul 16, 2003

For now, focus on legislative agenda

The political situation in Japan is heating up amid growing speculation that the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership contest in September will open the way for a general election. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who is also president of the LDP, is already openly challenging his rivals in the party,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 16, 2003

In your nightmares . . .

"In Room 101 is the worst thing in the world," Winston Smith's torturer told the defiant hero of George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984." Now, rooms 1-4 of the Bridgestone Museum of Art's temporary exhibition galleries are hosting a whole array of the world's "worst things."
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jul 13, 2003

The Cumbrian sense of fair play

For most of the year, Appleby is a sleepy little English market-town in eastern Cumbria, not that far from the Scottish border. Surrounded by green fields spotted with sheep, Appleby is dominated by a castle that overlooks a gently sloping high street flanked by small shops. It has lots of benches with...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 10, 2003

Let's all open a window and see what happens

I'm depressed. And hyperventilating. This is because I just came back from visiting my cousin and his wife in their new Tokyo manshon (condo) that boasts among other things, a fully automatic kuchoki (air adjustor) that comes with a year's free supply of shinsenna sanso (fresh oxygen).
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 9, 2003

Everything under the sun at Tokyo lost-and-found

If it can be lost on the teeming streets of Tokyo, it can be found in the city's cavernous lost-and-found center, where everything from diamond rings to dentures and billions of yen in stray cash await their rightful, if forgetful, owners.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 6, 2003

The linden city turns over a new leaf

LEIPZIG, Germany -- German cities, even the larger ones, are associated with -- among other things German -- linden trees. In addition to the memory of Frankfurt's linden-lined streets, I remember a joyous summer evening in the city a few years ago when I had supper out in the courtyard of a local restaurant,...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 28, 2003

Resona shareholders divided over bailout

OSAKA -- Resona Holdings Inc. shareholders were split Friday into those who excused the banking group for being bailed out with taxpayers' cash and those who demanded former executives take further responsibility.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 25, 2003

An all-star cast -- but if only they'd let 'Hamlet' be

As the Beckham typhoon swept through Japan last week, so Japan's theater world was taken by storm by its biggest event of the year to date.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 25, 2003

Under the spell of Tiki, the Polynesian man-god

I'm in a trendy Berlin eatery. The chef has sat down at my table and is expounding on archeology, and everything he is saying is wrong.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jun 15, 2003

Life, in 22 million forms, in a bottle

Goggling out of its jar with dead, bulbous eyes, stained a ghastly yellow by its embalming alcohol, is a mutated octopus. Just behind it is another octopus, also in a jar. To its left is a bottled shoal of sea bass.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 10, 2003

Stadium serves up reusable cups

Not everyone gives in to today's throwaway society by discarding the drinking cups, food containers and chopsticks they use, but the proliferation of these products makes their use virtually unavoidable.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 10, 2003

Stadium serves up reusable cups

Not everyone gives in to today's throwaway society by discarding the drinking cups, food containers and chopsticks they use, but the proliferation of these products makes their use virtually unavoidable.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 7, 2003

Freelance photo-journalist follows way of dragon

When you have made your name in photo-reportage with the Los Angeles Times, where the hell do you go next?
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 7, 2003

If you love someone, give a slime stocker

The instructions were clear: Choose anything from the catalog, fill out the form, and it will be delivered to you for free. Anything from kitchen appliances to pearl necklaces. This was my landlord's way of thanking me for letting him stay in his own house for a weekend. He had already given me plenty...
COMMENTARY
May 29, 2003

Change hasn't halted decline

LONDON -- I was invited recently to Japan to speak to two Japanese audiences about the Japanese economy as seen from London and what should be done to ensure Japanese economic recovery. I prepared a speech that was pessimistic. This was inevitable as British reporting on the Japanese economy is full...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
May 22, 2003

Political scientist gained key perspective in Japan

On March 19, just hours before U.S. forces began their raids on Baghdad, more than 50 U.S. government intelligence experts as well as scholars and embassy staff from several South Asian countries assembled in a top-floor room at John Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies for a...
CULTURE / Books / THE BOOK REPORT
May 22, 2003

Book Off chief rolls with the blows as status quo publishers complain

The Japanese may love a hardworking and unassuming company man who out of nowhere wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, but they are still wary of the true entrepreneur who is willing to take risks and shake up long-established ways of doing things.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 18, 2003

From romance to murder

Already an established writer of romantic novels, Natsuo Kirino (nom de plume of Mariko Hashioka, born in 1951), burst onto the mystery scene with "Kao ni Furikakaru Ame" ("The face on which rain falls"). The novel took the prestigious Japanese crime fiction award, the Edogawa Rampo Prize, in 1993.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 17, 2003

Family links are relative for third-culture kids

Here's a challenge for you:
LIFE / Digital / NETWISE
May 15, 2003

Is your wireless network airtight?

I'm sitting with my ThinkPad in a Starbucks near Akasaka. The cafe isn't advertised as a WLAN hot spot, so I'm pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying high-speed Internet access courtesy of some nearby wireless network.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 8, 2003

O-soji: the way of the Japanese housewife

A lot of things baffled when I attended a Japanese school for the first time at the age of 14. Lot's of things baffled me, but the custom of soji -- or cleaning -- of the classroom and school buildings everyday after the last bell, seemed outrageous.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 5, 2003

Japanese referees adhere to a different set of laws

There are those that will say that last week's 37-31 win by Waseda University over the touring New Zealand Universities side on April 27 was a sign that there is nothing wrong with the local rugby scene.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 4, 2003

Still howling with emotion

HOWLING AT THE MOON: Poems and Prose of Hagiwara Sakutaro, translation and introduction by Hiroaki Sato. Kobenhavn & Los Angeles, Green Integer, 2002, 316 pp., $11.95, (paper) Hagiwara Sakutaro is one of Japan's most important, and most cherished poets. His first volume of poetry, "Howling at the Moon"...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 3, 2003

Tit for tat in the game of Japanese gift-giving

"Beware of Japanese bearing gifts!"

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb