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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 20, 2005

The aesthetics of the Korean noblewoman

Korean aesthetics can be summed up in one word, mot. Used frequently in casual conversation, the term refers to stylishness, elegance and the state of being chic.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 2, 2005

Timeless complement of form and function

INSPIRED SHAPES: Contemporary Designs for Japan's Ancient Crafts, by Ori Koyama, translated by Charles Whipple, photographs by Mizuho Kuwata. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2005, 112 pp., 3,900 yen (cloth). Life in urban Japan is so suffused with artificial, factory-produced materials that the soul can...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / LIFE LAB
Sep 27, 2005

Breathe deep, don't worry, it's only O2

As soon as I accepted the assignment I realized I had a problem. My task was to test Tokyo's latest fad, the oxygen capsule. The trouble is I'm claustrophobic. Elevators make me tense. When watching reruns of "Star Trek," I have to avert my eyes when anyone gets sealed into a stasis chamber. There was...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 20, 2005

Sindhura Gadde

When jewelry designer Kazuo Ogawa conceptualized "Wings of Love," he said, "In all cultures and civilizations, birds have always been significant in mythology and philosophy, literature and poetry, dance and music, art and crafts, fashion and jewelry." The third annual "Wings of Love" charity event,...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 20, 2005

Lessons learned over the rainbow

Late August marks the anniversary of my arrival in Japan, this time totaling 28 years. So the question would seem to be, "What have you learned, Dorothy, in your long stay over the rainbow?"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 20, 2005

'S wonderful: Wiling away the time with Caetano Veloso

Caetano is here. Caetano Veloso. The man who has been hailed for decades in his native Brazil as a singer, composer, poet and revolutionary, and commonly celebrated abroad as the 'Bob Dylan of Brazil,' despite his dislike for such labels.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Apr 20, 2005

The Koreans who potted in Kyushu

Japan has long been fascinated with outside influences, and voraciously absorbs them in order to create something totally unique. This can be found in almost all aspects of Japanese industry and culture -- and it is nowhere more apparent than in the pottery born in Kyushu. Of course, ancient kilns dating...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 13, 2005

Jakuemon: A man for the ladies

NAKAMURA JAKUEMON IV: The Art of Onnagata Acting, by Rei Sasaguchi, photos by Yutaka Umemura, Akira Iwata, Fumio Watanabe. Designed and published by Rei Sasaguchi, 2004, 116 pp., 3000 yen (cloth). This very interesting, beautifully designed book is an essay on the art of onnagata, the kabuki actor playing...
Japan Times
Features
Nov 28, 2004

Revealing 'The Japanese Sensibility': Modernity

Who was this man who wrote, "When I die I forbid the erection of anything resembling a monument, and if erected I am vehemently opposed to any words being engraved into it, and if people must engrave words into it I absolutely despise when they gush on and on, because I'd rather that someone just rolled...
Features / WEEK 3
Nov 21, 2004

Lolitas' bard is sitting pretty

The morgue-like, air-conditioned lobby of Tokyo's Keio Plaza Hotel is the haunt of businessmen in crisp black suits who sip $10 coffees and nod along to conversations that never rise above a murmur. But the studied cool is broken when Novala Takemoto swishes in, drawing faces in his direction like sunflowers...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Nov 13, 2004

Tsutomu Kasai

Dartmoor in southwestern England is an extensive national park of open skies and wild moorland. Granite rocks, peat bogs and heather characterize the land, where wild ponies run free. When Okehampton, a small town on the edge of Dartmoor, was planning a new hospital, garden designer Tsutomu Kasai of...
Japan Times
Features
Sep 26, 2004

Abandoned misfit who found peace in prose and his new land

In the West, Lafcadio Hearn is largely unknown outside of small circles of Japanophiles and aficionados of Gaelic writers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Aug 9, 2004

Japan's tea pots made by an American potter

The stereotypical image of a chadogu (Way of Tea) potter is of an elderly gentleman with a wispy beard and sharp piercing eyes, clad in a samue (artist's working clothes). You would assume he had come from a family dating back generations and that his lineage was of supreme pride and importance in Japan's...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 4, 2004

Utagawa Hiroshige: Around the provinces in 69 plates

HIROSHIGE'S JOURNEY in the Sixty-odd Provinces, by Marije Jansen. Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2004, 160 pp., 70 full-page plates and other illustrations, $34.95 (paper). Here is a beautifully printed and edited reproduction of the complete "Famous Views of the [Sixty-odd] Provinces" (Rokujuyoshu meisho...
COMMUNITY
Jul 3, 2004

Japanese antique textiles taking over life and home

For any enthusiast keen to know the state of the Japanese antique textile market in the U.K., Marilyn Ratcliffe knows more than most. When we talk -- her already soft Cheshire burr blurred by hay fever ("they just mowed the grass in fields nearby") -- she has just the day before returned from a vintage...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 29, 2004

Miyajima to Oshima: sailing back in time

"The Inland Sea is a dangerous one unless the ship has a pilot of the greatest skill and one who thoroughly knows the channels," wrote my great-grandfather on his passage through the sea in 1900.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 22, 2004

Queen of Orlane turns 70 (but who'd know it)

In 1960, Reiko B. Lyster answered a "help wanted" classified ad placed in this paper by Max Factor. She had no particular interest in working for a cosmetics company, but (having helped Marlon Brando on a film set just the year previously) the job as a translator appealed.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 19, 2004

Spirited away to a romance from the past

Sekai no Chushin De Ai o Sakebu Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Isao Yukisada Running time: 138 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] What does the audience want? What does it really want? The easy answer for producers has always been "more...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 13, 2004

Barbie has the perfect body, biologically speaking

A woman with large breasts and a small waist. It's what all men want, isn't it? Western men are often cited as -- or accused of -- being obsessed with the large breasts/small waist ideal. It objectifies women, some women say.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 5, 2004

Re-presenting the modern by any means

"So what's modern art all about?" is a question I am often asked. It's about as easy to answer as "What is the meaning of life?"
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 22, 2004

The Great White Yonder: Japan's 'Siberia'

Once upon a time, there was a chilly little town by the sea. It had ice and snow to spare, but not a single winter resort facility. Its fading downtown managed to be both antiquated and charmless. Fishing, once the lifeblood of the town, had seen its best days, and for every new inhabitant, more than...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 16, 2004

Your geisha fantasy fulfilled

It was high time for a break from the pressures of jobs and family.
CULTURE / Books / THE BOOK REPORT
Nov 6, 2003

'Grotesque' cuts too close to the bone

Do the suffocating pressures of Japanese society produce monsters? Does trying to live by men's rules drive women crazy? These are two of the questions posed by Natsuo Kirino in her powerful new novel, "Grotesque."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 21, 2003

Kin of suspected abductees fight uphill war

OSAKA -- On the morning of July 7, 1973, 18-year-old Noriko Furukawa of Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, left home for a beauty parlor appointment without telling her mother, with whom she had promised to go shopping that afternoon.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 22, 2003

Net sidesteps ban on leaking personal info

After police took a junior high school student into custody earlier this month in the July 1 slaying of a 4-year-old boy in Nagasaki, a raft of information appeared on the Internet about the 12-year-old suspect -- in the face of a general ban on the media divulging data on minors involved in crimes....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 18, 2003

Plain as blue and white

In the 16th and 17th centuries, China produced exquisite porcelain that remained a virtual secret to the outside world -- most of it was commissioned for the exclusive use of Japanese patrons. A new exhibition at the Seikado Bunko Art Museum, "Chinese Porcelains of the Late Ming to Early Qing Dynasties,"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jun 11, 2003

Why perfection isn't enough

Light, cool, sleek and refined describe the large celadon bowl that won 1 million yen and the Grand Prix Katsura-no-Miya Prize at the 17th Biennial Japan Ceramic Art Exhibition. This juried exhibition showcases some of the finest works in this "pottery oasis" of Japan and offers a tasty smorgasbord for...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 28, 2003

When heaven's riches rivaled Russia's czars

Church and State have, down history, done battle for wealth and power.
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.

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