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LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Dec 27, 2000

Reay for the end of the year?

www.nenga.co.jp One of the biggest New Year's traditions is entering your friends in a lottery by sending them special nengajo greeting cards printed by the post office. This year it moves to the Internet. Sort of. You're not gonna make any of your friends a millionaire, and the prizes come from the...
LIFE / Travel
Dec 27, 2000

Running on Soviet time

In December 1991, Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian leaders met at a hunting lodge in western Belarus. There they signed the Belavezha Agreement, which had no small historical significance. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was being consigned to the dustbin of history -- the same contemptuous...
BUSINESS
Dec 23, 2000

Nippon Life, Sumitomo Mitsui in insurance tieup

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., to be launched in April through the merger of Sumitomo Bank and Sakura Bank, will tie up with the Nippon Life Insurance Co. group to sell insurance products at its outlets, industry sources said Friday.
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 23, 2000

Anything but ordinary

With the title "Raj Packet -- Everything But Ravi," you can't help but be curious about the performance. "Raj" possibly indicates something to do with British sovereignty over India in the last century;"packet" could be compendium, maybe a selection box of performance chocolates; "everything" as in "everything...
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Dec 22, 2000

The Captain reaches down deep into his inner funk

Funk usually brings to mind a heaving beat, thick, slapping bass lines and fashions straight out of "Shaft."
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
Dec 21, 2000

Refresh your soul with the scent of eternal rebirth

For me the special warmth, freshness and magic of this time of year is beautifully embodied in its piny scents. The pine of Christmas trees and wreaths segues nicely into the pine of Japanese New Year displays.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Dec 20, 2000

Glaciers prove ecological succession

That powerful forces have shaped the world we live in is somehow easier to grasp when one lives in a country wracked by earthquakes, dotted with calderas and pocked with active volcanoes.
ENVIRONMENT
Dec 13, 2000

Slowing down to the pace of nature

Looking for an unusual vacation this winter? How about floating along a river deep in the jungles of Borneo?
LIFE / ALTERNATIVE LUXURIES
Dec 7, 2000

Traditions found anew

"It's only recently that the great mass of Indians have begun to feel that rising in the world and becoming rich was a good thing, a valuable thing," says Asha Amemiya.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 7, 2000

SMAP star finds true love, new role

When the public recently learned that 28-year-old idol Takuya Kimura was marrying singer Shizuka Kudo, who is already four months pregnant with his child, the SMAP-man's image immediately changed from sex symbol to . . . well, actually, the image still seems to be under construction.
JAPAN
Dec 6, 2000

Mori names new Cabinet

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori unveiled his new Cabinet on Tuesday evening, retaining six key ministers and making a surprise decision to appoint former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto ahead of a major administrative realignment that will take place on Jan. 6.
CULTURE / Music
Dec 5, 2000

Blues for the new millennium

The new CD puts a contemporary spin on classic blues-rock. "It's a ticket to the show." That's how Canadian band leader Robin Suchy describes the newly released CD he produced with his 10-man blues band, the Howling Loochie Brothers.
COMMENTARY
Dec 3, 2000

Britons going nowhere fast

LONDON -- Is Britain in crisis? Many people think so, after a month in which large swathes of England have been inundated by filthy flood water. Television news showed comic snippets of boats in the streets rescuing old ladies and dogs, snaps of sturdy men and women counting their blessings as the flood...
CULTURE / Music
Dec 3, 2000

Maazel wears multiple hats, but looks best in conductor's

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Nov. 2, Wolfgang Gieron conducting in Suntory Hall -- "The Ideal," from Two Portraits for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 5/1 (Bela Bartok, 1881- 1945), Music for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 12 (Lorin Maazel, b. 1930), Gypsy Caprice (Friedrich Kreisler, 1875-1962), all featuring...
CULTURE / Music
Nov 28, 2000

Embracing both past and present, shakuhachi gala blows up a storm

KYOTO -- A gala concert by shakuhachi grandmaster Genzan Miyoshi Dec. 3 at the Kyoto Concert Hall promises something for everyone: An array of traditional and modern pieces performed as solos, "hogaku orchestras" and everything in between.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 27, 2000

Asia debates the merit of political debates

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- I don't want to add to the endless debate over the chances of the two U.S. presidential contenders. Rather, I want to focus on the debates and some possible corollaries for Asia.
JAPAN
Nov 24, 2000

Tougher Juvenile Law best remedy?

Despite the swirling pros and cons, legislation to revise the Juvenile Law for the first time in more than 50 years is expected to be enacted next week.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Nov 24, 2000

From the underground up

Ryoji, the charismatic frontman and mastermind behind skacore group Potshot, has the impossibly skinny, graceful physique of a true rock star. Think Mick Jagger in 1969 or Kurt Cobain 20 years later: the ugly duckling reborn through the grace of a power chord.
COMMENTARY
Nov 23, 2000

Japanese politics come up short again

Politics in Britain is characterized by a confrontation between the Conservative Party and the Labor Party. Each has its own policy platform, and voters choose between them, forcing changes in government. Likewise in the United States, the Republican and Democratic Parties alternate in power, running...
JAPAN
Nov 19, 2000

Kato defies LDP expulsion threat

The tug-of-war between supporters of Koichi Kato's revolt against Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and Liberal Democratic Party elders continued Saturday as both camps prepared for a showdown Lower House vote Monday on a no-confidence motion against Mori.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Nov 15, 2000

Developing a finer sense of pace: the evolution of a party animal

When I was younger, I used to be a party animal.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 15, 2000

Taking inspiration where you find it

TOKUSHIMA -- Californian furniture maker Cynthia Kingsbury works in a 100-year-old timber storage building at the foot of a lushly forested mountain in Tokushima Prefecture. Dried sticks are piled like kindling beneath her worktable. Her dog Tingi, a black Labrador-Doberman mix, is sprawled across a...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Nov 15, 2000

The secretive rabbits of Amami

Hunting rabbits is something I have only ever done on one island. When I say hunting, I don't mean with a gun; I mean armed with a spotlight, binoculars and notebook. The rabbits I hunt stay alive. That's rather crucial, because I am talking about the rabbits to be found marooned on an isolated island...
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 12, 2000

Evening of Marlovian erotica celebrates English literary great

English literature flowered magnificently during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The various writers of the time represent a phase in the development and flexibility of poetry, prose and drama that achieved a beauty and exuberance unmatched in invention and style.
EDITORIALS
Nov 8, 2000

Reform is key to winning IT race

The world is gripped with IT fever. Despite linguistic differences, IT, shorthand for information technology, is a buzzword even here. It is believed to hold the key to the future development of the Japanese economy. That is why Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is leading the drive for an IT revolution. ...
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2000

Cyberspace expo to be tough on your mouse, not your feet

The government is preparing to launch a cyberspace exposition on the last day of 2000.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 7, 2000

No chippie off the old block

WOODBLOCK KUCHI-E PRINTS: Reflections of Meiji Culture, by Helen Merrit and Nanako Yamada. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000, 284 pp., profusely illustrated, $65. That category of woodblock print called the "kuchi-e" has not been widely investigated. In the large bibliography that concludes...
COMMUNITY
Nov 2, 2000

Exhibiting style around Japan

Just ahead of the Tokyo collections, in which over 50 designers will show their spring/summer 2001 collections this week and next, here are some things to do if your name's not on the invite list or if you are looking for a fashion-related event to attend on a rainy day.
COMMUNITY
Oct 22, 2000

ZERI student volunteer recalls Expo experience

Agreeing to be interviewed but only 18, Ikuko Sato brought along her elder sister Kyoko for support. Actually, Kyoko had her own motive for joining us. Soon to visit a Filipino friend in England, she wanted information on traveling in the U.K.: "Is there a special rail pass for tourists? And what do...

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.