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Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 18, 2002

Performing 'rakugo' in English provides a true test of 'character'

OSAKA -- Clad in a bright pink kimono and blue obi with matching color accessories in her neatly tied blonde hair, English-language "rakugo" comic storyteller Diane Orrett appeared on stage recently in front of a mostly Japanese audience in central Osaka.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 17, 2002

The magic of Disney creates a jungle on ice

SAPPORO -- Disney may not be everybody's dreamland. For some, especially children, Disney's movies and theme parks are a fantasy world; for others, though, they seem more like slick merchandising opportunities.
MORE SPORTS
Jul 16, 2002

Japan qualifies for Rugby World Cup finals

SEOUL -- Japan maintained its proud record of having appeared at every Rugby World Cup finals when it beat South Korea 55-17 at Tondaemun Stadium, Seoul on Sunday to ensure it finished top of the Asian qualifying group.
BUSINESS
Jul 12, 2002

FTA with Chile just isn't in the cards

Widely known as a feverish operagoer, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi may politely but disappointingly tell an exasperated Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, "Please wait patiently until the fat lady sings."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 7, 2002

You don't know us, but . . .

The new live album from psychedelic folk duo Damon and Naomi recalls a bygone era. One can almost imagine them sharing a double bill with the Baez sisters in a smoky Greenwich Village coffee house: he hunched over his guitar, she dwarfed by her bass, her dark hair and white complexion looking naturally...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 6, 2002

Aussie cameraman's show highlights art of nature

Journalist Paul Murray was slightly thrown when his photographic teacher told him to forget using a macro lens. "He said the best photographers technically were Japanese, so I might as well give up before I started."
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Jun 30, 2002

Matches made in Tokyo

From California-style cafes to French bistros, international restaurants in Tokyo possess world-class wine lists. But if consumers' experience of wine is limited to their forays into international gourmet dining, it will remain an exotic, special-occasion beverage. To establish a comfortable home for...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Jun 20, 2002

Where 'Green Peach' blossomed

The woodcut print shown here depicts a rural idyll northwest of Edo. A meandering river nourishes an expanse of rice paddies on the left-hand side. Two men are crossing a bridge, and more people are walking by the riverside. On the rising ground behind them, a cluster of thatched houses identified as...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jun 20, 2002

The ants' workaday world is wherever you look

Despite the name, I didn't see any ants in Antarctica, though it's the only place I've been that I haven't seen any. Everywhere else, from Alaska to Australia, from Norway to New Zealand, I have encountered them. Ants are an extraordinarily numerous and successful group.
EDITORIALS
Jun 16, 2002

Thank God it's Monday

'A good name is better than precious ointment," according to the Bible. These days, that can mean more than just a good reputation, especially in business. It can mean a snappy title, too: something that will both stick in people's minds and make them smile.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Jun 16, 2002

Big world sprouts from tiny grains of rice

When you travel between one small town and another in Japan often the panorama is a vast plain of flooded fields or a towering terraced mountain of rice paddies. In early June, up and down the Japanese archipelago, rice has been planted and the glistening paddies are teeming with life. Along with the...
SOCCER / World cup
Jun 12, 2002

Ireland storms through with 3-0 win

YOKOHAMA -- Ireland qualified in second place in Group E for a spot in the Round of 16 -- where it will meet the winner of Group B -- after a 3-0 win over Saudi Arabia in Yokohama on Tuesday night.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 12, 2002

Life of the party

Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija has an original recipe for success: "I can't paint," he said, "but I can cook."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jun 12, 2002

Tom Harrell: 'Live at the Village Vanguard'

The Village Vanguard in New York has long been jazz's sanctum sanctorum, a sacred space where jazz secrets were revealed nightly to the faithful. A list of players showcased at the club since the 1950s would form a musical family tree. Classic recordings there by John Coltrane, Bill Evans and Art Pepper,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 12, 2002

Two for one at the Tokyo Opera City Gallery

Tokyo's Opera City Art Gallery has taken a novel approach with its summer show: Instead of the usual one-man or themed group exhibition, it is running a couple of concurrent but totally unrelated one-man shows at its Shinjuku exhibition space.
BUSINESS
Jun 11, 2002

Domestic retailers brace for Seiyu-Wal-Mart impact

Japan's retail industry, suffering from a decade-long economic slump and the advance of powerful specialty discount stores, is gearing up to compete with another formidable player.
JAPAN
Jun 8, 2002

Diet mulls fate of mentally ill criminals

The Diet is now debating a bill that would create a system whereby medical doctors and judges would decide together whether someone with a psychiatric disorder who commits a serious crime should be hospitalized.
BUSINESS
Jun 7, 2002

Takenaka confirms that businesses are likely to get tax break

Economic minister Heizo Takenaka told top ruling coalition policymakers Thursday that a plan to cut the effective tax rate for companies will be included in a tax reform package to be compiled by a key economic panel Friday.
BUSINESS
Jun 5, 2002

Hitachi, IBM to integrate their hard disk operations

Hitachi Ltd. and International Business Machines Corp. on Tuesday announced an agreement to integrate their hard disk drive businesses under a joint company to be majority-owned by Hitachi.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Jun 3, 2002

Can a nation learn from Nissan's success?

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- The twin announcements that Nissan made a record profit of 372 billion yen last year and that Carlos Ghosn has been appointed chief executive officer of the parent company, Renault, as well as retaining the presidency of Nissan, are an extraordinary landmark.
EDITORIALS
Jun 3, 2002

Mr. Arafat's failures

Real peace between Palestinians and Israelis will be preceded by two conditions: an Israeli withdrawal from most, if not all, of the occupied territories and genuine democracy in the Palestinian Authority. Attention has usually focused on the first factor, but it has become increasingly evident that...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 2, 2002

Looking behind life-or-death situations

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the murder of eight young children at the Ikeda Elementary School in Osaka. Shortly after that, a young man killed a child in a Kyoto schoolyard before killing himself when faced with arrest, thus reinforcing the fear among the general public that Japan's schools...
BUSINESS
Jun 1, 2002

Japan, China need cooling-off period before launching cooling-off forum

When they met during an international business conference on the southern Chinese island of Hainan in March, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his Chinese counterpart, Zhu Rongji, agreed to inaugurate a high-level comprehensive forum for dialogue on economic topics.
COMMENTARY
May 31, 2002

Closer cooperation benefits all

HONOLULU -- The scheduled appearance of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chinese President Jiang Zemin alongside South Korean President Kim Dae Jung at the opening ceremonies of the 2002 World Cup in Seoul later this month symbolizes much more than mere cooperation on the field of athletic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 29, 2002

Master at the cutting edge of art

Japan is often seen as a blend of the advanced and the archaic. But this combination is nothing new, as a visit to an exhibition of swords now on at the Nezu Museum in Tokyo's Omotesando district makes clear.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 21, 2002

The hermit opens up to visitors

PYONGYANG -- It's not difficult to find your way around Pyongyang. The city has few tall buildings and wherever you go, the imposing monolith of the Tower of the Juche Idea -- topped by a red "flame" that glows at night -- enables visitors to get their bearings.
COMMENTARY
May 20, 2002

Dispel the end-of-era mood

An interesting new book by Edo Period literary expert Takehiko Noguchi, "Bakumatsu Kibun" (The Mood in the Last Days of the Tokugawa Shogunate), details how shogunate officials and citizens of Edo indulged themselves in lavish consumption and entertainment as they faced the demise of the government....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 15, 2002

Weird science, but great art

It's the old quantity-versus-quality problem. Though there are only a couple of private contemporary-art museums in Tokyo (the Watari-Um and the Hara), their shows are almost always good and focus on providing authoritative coverage of some of the domestic and international art scenes' most important...
COMMENTARY / World
May 13, 2002

Unilateralism is not the way

CANBERRA -- As the sole remaining superpower, not only does the United States have no peer competitor, its dominance is unmatched across a whole range of issues and areas of activity in world affairs.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami