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CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 27, 2002

Suffering for one's art

BUSHIDO: Legacies of the Japanese Tattoo, by Takahiro Kitamura and Katie M. Kitamura, with photos by Jai Tanju. Atglen, Pa., Schiffer Publishing, 2000. 160 pp., color and b/w plates, $29.95 (paper) In this interesting and beautifully illustrated account of the Japanese tattoo, the authors' intent is...
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Jan 24, 2002

A case for campaign finance reform

WASHINGTON -- Controversy is raging about the Enron collapse. Is it a political story? Is it a criminal story? Is it a business story? Is it a story about personalities? The Enron story is all three. The real question is which category is the most important. and that all depends on your perspective....
Events
Jan 22, 2002

Relief group to come to Herat's rescue

KYOTO -- The road from the Iranian border town of Dogaroun to Herat in northwest Afghanistan is a dusty, bumpy track lined with land mines much of the way.
EDITORIALS
Jan 20, 2002

The Segway's Japanese roots

At the end of December, Emeritus Professor Kazuo Yamafuji of Tokyo's University of Electro-Communications had something interesting to add to the buzz of talk about the Segway Human Transporter, the self-balancing robotic scooter unveiled earlier in the month by U.S. inventor Dean Kamen.
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Jan 20, 2002

A heavenly match made in Tsukishima

Ajisen strikes you as special before you even walk in the door. Great care has been taken in creating the entrance itself -- a good sign of the good things to come.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 19, 2002

Paul Lucas

His potted biography as it appeared last year in a theater program reads: "Paul Lucas has been eight years in Tokyo, doing all this 'drama stuff.' A Seattle native, and consequently a Starbuck's addict, Paul has been 'doing' Tokyo's Starbuck's a lot lately to learn his lines. Once in a while his portable...
JAPAN / PROTOCOL PURSUIT
Jan 18, 2002

Emissions-trading plan put on back burner

Staff writer Until recently, trading in carbon dioxide emissions seemed destined for early introduction in Japan. The launch of such a system, however, is being put off as the government postpones key policy decisions to curb global-warming emissions.
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2002

New Year's poetry-reading ceremony held at Imperial Palace

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko on Tuesday attended the annual New Year's poetry recital at the Imperial Palace, where poems by members of the Imperial family and the general public were recited in traditional style.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 15, 2002

Effects of Sept. 11 on marketing policy

WASHINGTON -- The terror of Sept. 11 is a key fissure in American lives. At Georgetown's McDonough School of Business, we investigated the repercussions of the terror on international marketing policy and corporate practices. We found a new era of common sense characterized by five key dimensions.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Jan 14, 2002

Still hurtling down the nationalist track

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- In early 1997 I was hosting a reception at a Geneva hotel following a workshop on trade issues when a Japanese official took me aside. Looking at me conspiratorially, he whispered, "Professor Lehmann, I have an important question to ask you: How long do you think it will be before...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2002

The blackest summer in Sydney's history

SYDNEY -- The pall of eucalyptus-scented smoke that has smothered Australia's largest city since Christmas Day is lifting. More than 11,000 evacuees are returning to the burned-out bush where their homes once stood. The cost of Sydney's worst-ever bush-fire season? Who dares count?
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2002

Bureaucrat breaking mold to give public more of a voice

Until six years ago, Nobutaka Murao says, he was just another central government bureaucrat. Then he was posted to the Mie Prefectural Government in July 1995, on loan from the Finance Ministry, and everything changed.
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Jan 10, 2002

Forget agents, get a comedian

Yakult Swallows pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii obviously didn't know what to do.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jan 9, 2002

Alec Empire

Alec Empire is a terrorist, let there be no question about that. Slide one of his records onto your grandmother's gramophone while she's making a cup of tea and then, on lowering the needle, watch her writhe in agony until she can take no more and commits seppuku with a knitting needle. Then again kids,...
LIFE / Language
Jan 6, 2002

Kids: They've got it figured out

The year's end is a natural time for reflection. Every December, I take a break from the hectic activity of the season and sit down for a quiet cup of tea. I look back at the year passed and reflect on the year to come.
EDITORIALS
Dec 30, 2001

Little bags of luckiness

Just about a month ago, at the start of the holiday shopping season, consumers in Japan and other affluent countries were being urged to sit on their wallets for "Buy Nothing Day," the now annual and global act of homage to self-restraint. Get in the habit of buying only what you need, not what you want,...
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Dec 30, 2001

Party on, to the break of the new dawn

I was going to make just one recommendation for New Year's Eve -- the countdown party at Milk, a freestyle club in Ebisu. I have had a couple of great New Year's Eves there -- including one special moment making mochi (traditional rice cakes) as the first tendrils of dawn crept across the sky in the...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 30, 2001

Tokugawa diplomacy: Foundering in the waters of distrust

PRISONERS FROM NAMBU: Reality and Make-Believe in 17th-Century Japanese Diplomacy, by Reinier H. Hesselink. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001, 215 pp., $47.00 (cloth), $24.95 (paper) The Dutch presence in Japan during the Edo Period is one of the most intriguing episodes of Europe's global...
COMMUNITY
Dec 23, 2001

Everlasting allure of gems shines on

Gems are among the most gorgeous examples of nature at work, even though the jewels we admire get a helping hand not afforded to phenomena like sunsets and snow-capped peaks.
JAPAN / Media / CHANNEL SURF
Dec 23, 2001

Remembering the year that was

It's the penultimate week of the year, which means regular variety shows get to save a bit of money by looking back at the year's highlights. "Sanma's Karakuri TV" (tonight at 7, TBS), a mix-and-match assembly of out-of-studio comedy skits hosted in-studio by Osaka funnyman Sanma Akashiya, presents an...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Dec 23, 2001

An o-tososan a year keeps the doc away

It's a rare occasion or ceremony that does not include some sake in Japan, and that harbinger of renewal, New Year's Day, is no exception. Although sake figures prominently in o-shogatsu celebrations from morning to night, opening the year with a prayer for health in the form of drinking o-toso is perhaps...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 18, 2001

Sowing the seeds of revolution

Does the end of Taliban rule mean that the people of Afghanistan can now look forward to a new era of peace and freedom? Not according to the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, who believe that unless all fundamentalist groups in the country are disarmed, a repeat of the brutality...
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 12, 2001

Celebrating 'doing the rounds'

David Leveaux, the English director of "The Blue Room," has been working regularly in Japan since 1993. In these highlights from a lengthy discussion last week, TPT's artistic director speaks about his work here, Japanese audiences . . . and the message of "The Blue Room."
Japan Times
Events
Dec 11, 2001

Ghanaian's culinary odyssey leads to running Kyoto eatery

KYOTO -- Tucked away in the quiet neighborhood of Nishikyogoku in Kyoto is Ashanti, one of the Kansai region's finest, if least-known, international restaurants.
ENVIRONMENT
Dec 9, 2001

The climes they are a-changin'

Smokers probably have something to teach us about why it's so hard to believe in global warming.
CULTURE / Music
Dec 9, 2001

Soundtrack to life on the edge

Mexicali, Baja Calif., and Calexico, Calif., have been called poster children for NAFTA. Though divided by the Mexican-American border, they are in fact one sprawling megalopolis. Neither fully American nor fully Mexican, and not yet a comfortable mixture of the two, they are geographically and psychically...
JAPAN
Dec 6, 2001

Women call on Crown Princess to do it her way

The 37-year-old Crown Princess, who gave birth to a girl Saturday, should be free to raise her child in any manner she sees fit, according to several of her female contemporaries across the country.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Nov 29, 2001

Deafness givin' them good vibrations

The Italians got it right about some of the important things in life, like olive oil and coffee. But they got it right about something else, too, something that brain researchers have only just realized. The Italian for "to hear," sentire, is the same (in its reflexive form) as the verb "to touch," (sentirse)....
SOCCER / THE BALD TRUTH
Nov 27, 2001

Only fools and Boca up for Toyota Cup

The circus is back in town for tonight's World Club Cup (otherwise known as the Intercontinental Cup, Toyota Cup or Mickey Mouse Windshield Trophy) between Germany's Bayern Munich and Boca Juniors of Argentina.

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