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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jun 19, 2003

Tiger keelback

* Japanese name: Yamakagashi * Scientific name: Rhabdophis tigrinus * Description: The tiger keelback is so named for the beautiful colored pattern of its scales. The snake's head and body are basically olive green, but its flanks are orange, and there are several rows of black spots running down the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 15, 2003

Shades of good sense

Parasols are peculiar things. Meaning "to ward off the sun" in Latin-based languages, these lightweight umbrellas were long ago the height of coquettish fashion in Europe. Until recently though, in Japan they were the preserve of its distinctly uncoquettish obasan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 13, 2003

Dean & Deluca: A slice of NY in Marunouchi

The gentrification of Marunouchi continues apace. No longer a staid salaryman ghetto, it has reinvented itself as some of the most sophisticated commercial real estate in the city. The latest arrival in the neighborhood is the sleek steel-and-glass Mitsubishi Trust building, rising high above the venerable...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jun 11, 2003

Mamai Keita and Marc Minelli: "Electro Bamako"

According to the liner notes of "Electro Bamako," a collaboration between Mamai Keita, a former singer in Salif Keita's band (no relation), and French producer Marc Minelli, this album presents "Malian songs mixed with electro jazz on pop structures but with a rock sound." Translation: slick, hip music...
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2003

Five-year plan to improve social infrastructure gets nod

The Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry said Friday it has drafted a new five-year program to improve social infrastructure, giving weight to 15 priority targets.
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Jun 5, 2003

Back on the fast track

Sega's Sonic The Hedgehog, the video-gaming world's fastest little blue rodent in tennis shoes, has returned in style. After a string of games that have ranged from old hat to downright disappointing, "Sonic Advance 2" -- a new game created by Sega for Game Boy Advance -- serves as a good reminder of...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jun 5, 2003

Japanese marten

* Japanese name: Nihon ten * Scientific name: Martes melampus * Description: Martens are weasel-like animals but much larger and more powerfully built. Males are 45-49 cm long (females 41-43 cm) and the tail adds another 17-20 cm. They weigh 1.3-5 kg. In winter they have orange fur and a white face,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 4, 2003

Saint Phalle, in living color

Imagine the blue of a desert sky, the rich greens and browns of an old-growth forest, the rainbow hues in a bowl of tropical fruit -- and you can appreciate how diminished our world would be without color. But as you contemplate the wonder of color, the characteristics of differing wavelengths of light...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 3, 2003

Sony suffers telling fall in Vaio computer sales

Sales of Sony Corp.'s Vaio personal computer, which was a hit when introduced in fiscal 1997, have fallen off, with shipments in fiscal 2002 plunging below the previous year's levels for the first time.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 1, 2003

Travel or reality show? A bit of both and neither

The TV Tokyo series, "Inaka ni Tomaro" ("Let's Spend the Night in the Countryside"; Sunday 7 p.m.), which started several months ago, is categorized as a travel show, but its appeal is similar to that which characterizes reality shows, namely the spectacle of people placed in real-life situations that...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 30, 2003

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon: Is it worth the wait? Mais bien sur!

As soon as the hype and crowds at Roppongi Hills subsided (a bit, anyway), we ventured in. Not to mill around alongside the gawping multitudes, but to make a beeline to the door of L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon. It's not every day that a new restaurant opens from the man who was hailed in his native France...
BUSINESS
May 28, 2003

Coalition task force approves bill to bolster stock-purchasing body

A coalition task force scrutinizing financial policies on Tuesday approved a legal amendment aimed at reinforcing the functions of a stock-purchasing body, lawmakers said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 28, 2003

Arab Strap: "Monday at the Hug and Pint"

The Scottish duo Arab Strap are the poet laureates of alcohol-induced sexual torpor. Vocalist Aidan Moffatt's slurred, sotto voce ramblings about unpretty girls picked up in seedy bars and bedded in a haze of beer and E would normally be an acquired taste, but in the U.K. the group's songs have graced...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / FRONT-RUNNERS
May 27, 2003

Toilet manufacturer plucks success from depths of despair

Failure is but a stepping stone to success. The proverb rang dramatically true in the process of developing a new product at Toto Ltd., the major toilet manufacturer based in Fukuoka Prefecture.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / NOTES FROM THE SMOKE
May 27, 2003

Japan's cup, it runneth over

This week, Notes From the Smoke features a saucy deviation from the usual format.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 25, 2003

Kansai rides the onsen wave

It's a sunny Saturday afternoon, and Spa World in Osaka's Naniwa Ward is crowded with people of all ages drawn to its 16 different kinds of baths. True to its name, it's an onsen theme park with a global approach.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 25, 2003

A blow to Russo-Japanese relations

When, in 1891, Tsarevich Nicholas reached the age of 23, his father Czar Alexander III sent him on a tour of the Far East to "round out his political development," recalled Russian politician Count Sergei Witte some years later.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 25, 2003

Soaked in the city

Though you may not have seen Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-winning animated film "Spirited Away," which is set in an opulent bathhouse for the gods, even the most fleeting acquaintance with Japan will have made it clear that soaking in a hot tub is an almost celestial experience for the inhabitants of these...
BUSINESS
May 24, 2003

Fuji Heavy banking on new Legacy

Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., which makes Subaru vehicles, launched a remodeled Legacy wagon on the domestic market Friday, hoping the key product will reinvigorate the carmaker's sluggish sales.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
May 22, 2003

Katydid

* Japanese name: Sesuji tsuyumushi * Scientific name: Ducetia japonica * Description: Katydids (also known as bush crickets) belong to a family of grasshoppers and crickets called the Tettigoniidae. The insects in this family have very long antennae, like threads, sometimes two or three times the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
May 22, 2003

EA scores big time with 'MVP Baseball'

Who knows what burr got under Electronic Arts' saddle, but the biggest name in sports games is really sharpening its act. The publisher of such megahits as "John Madden NFL Football" and "FIFA Soccer," EA has always kind of stunk at baseball. Not anymore.
BUSINESS
May 21, 2003

Honda blows horn about world's first car-crash detector

Honda Motor Co. said Tuesday it has developed the world's first system capable of predicting vehicle collisions.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
May 15, 2003

Big-mouth bulbuls time it just right

Second of two parts Imagine, if you can, an opinion poll of Japanese forest plants. Question: which bird is most important to you? The brown-eared bulbul, or hiyodori, would have to take a bow.
EDITORIALS
May 14, 2003

A landmark trade deal for Asia

The United States and Singapore last week concluded a free-trade agreement, the first ever between the U.S. and an Asian nation. The deal has political and economic significance, and holds out both promise and peril. While the FTA reaffirms the U.S. commitment to Asia, it could also constitute a threat...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 14, 2003

New Pornographers: "Mass Romantic"

In the liner notes of the New Pornographers' debut album, "Mass Romantic," the anonymous band member who wrote them betrays confidence that the record is a good one while continually confessing that most of the details -- such as who played what on which track -- are not clear. The album was recorded...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 13, 2003

Off-the-wall fiction feeds weird ideas about Japan

If you review novels set in Asia, as this writer does, it follows that you read a lot of books. To call some of them "terrible" may be putting it kindly.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 11, 2003

Koreans make good moves

THE KOREAN DIASPORA IN THE WORLD ECONOMY, edited by C. Fred Bergsten and Inbom Choi. Washington D.C.: Institute for International Economics, Special Report 15, January 2003, 180 pp., $25 (paper) In recent years, increasing attention has been given to the social and economic role of diasporas -- communities...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
May 8, 2003

Japanese weasel

* Japanese name: Nihon itachi * Scientific name: Mustela itatsi * Description: Japanese weasels are fairly small mammals in the mustelid family (a large family of animals that includes otters, badgers, stoats, polecats, martens and skunks). Males are 29-37 cm long, females 20-26 cm. The fur is an orange-brown...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 30, 2003

Time to 'think different,' says Pierre Boulez

In the world of architecture, celebrated composer and conductor Pierre Boulez sees a relevant analogy to contemporary classical music.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 30, 2003

A gathering of Kyoto's ancient masters

Before the advent of 20th-century brand-name designers such as Kenzo, Miyake or Mori, there was Kenzan of Kyoto -- back in the Edo Period that is. His instantly recognizable signature was not found on any trendy kimono or handbag of the day, however, but on clay vessels.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past