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JAPAN
Jun 16, 1999

Amnesty slams Japan for prison abuses

Amnesty International criticized Japan for mistreating prison inmates and suspects under police custody and in detention houses in its annual report on worldwide human rights concerns released Wednesday.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Jun 12, 1999

Open door to a world of dreams

David Wheeler, shakuhachi performer, teacher and writer on Japanese music, will be presenting a shakuhachi recital June 19 at Hamarikyu Asahi Hall.
EDITORIALS
Jun 4, 1999

Ten years after Tiananmen

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the tragic climax of the 1989 demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. It has been a long decade. The world is much changed, as is China. Deng Xiaoping, "the Little Helmsman," the man who set China on the path to economic transformation, is dead. His legacy survives...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jun 2, 1999

But are you experienced?

Remember how online art used to be one of ballyhooed features of our new and improved lives on the Internet? We talked of visiting faraway museums, browsing rarely seen masterpieces, hyper-annotated with curatorial notes and historical contexts. Similarly enticing was the promise of new media and art...
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jun 2, 1999

Among the ruins of the Mayan Paris

You wouldn't have wanted to watch a ball game at the close of the season in the ancient Mayan city of Copan.
COMMUNITY
May 19, 1999

Redevelopment fiasco leaves locals in limbo

KOFU, Yamanashi Pref. -- The home of Yutaka Endo (not his real name) resembles one in a lesser-developed nation. His living room walls are stained where the rain has leaked through cracks; the wind whistles through warped window and door frames.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
May 19, 1999

Journeying into the valley of death

"Death Valley," noted our guidebook, "is an inhuman environment: barren and monotonous, burning hot and almost entirely without shade or water." In short, the ideal antidote to Japan's rainy season, which is why we went.
CULTURE / Books
May 18, 1999

Tracing a profile of the new Japan

REGIME SHIFT: Comparative Dynamics of the Japanese Political Economy, by T.J. Pempel. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1998, 263 pp. I'm confused. On the one hand, we're told Japan has undergone tumultuous change since the beginning of the '90s. The Liberal Democratic Party lost its 38-year-long...
CULTURE / Art
May 16, 1999

Doors of modest home open to lessons of the past

Slide open the door to a two-story wooden house in Tokyo's Ota Ward and enter into the life of an ordinary family in the mid-Showa Era, when people lived in homes with mostly tatami rooms, wooden furniture, traditional cooking tools and fetched their water from a well.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
May 14, 1999

U.F.O. travels the globe in style

With their natty suits and sleek musical grooves that fuse jazzy samples with dance beats, U.F.O. has epitomized a certain perception of Tokyo as fashionable and cosmopolitan, ever since "I Love My Baby (My Baby Loves Jazz)" catapulted across the world's dance floors in 1991.
EDITORIALS
May 7, 1999

A brush with history

Mallory, Hillary.... The airwaves have been buzzing this week with two of the best-known names in mountain-climbing history. Some people even reportedly got confused, thinking the body found near the summit of Mount Everest May 1 was that of Sir Edmund Hillary (who is very much alive in New Zealand)...
COMMUNITY
May 2, 1999

Seed money no problem at Flower Bank

MIYASHIRO, Saitama Pref. -- While many Japanese banks are struggling to overcome their tainted image, at least one is enjoying an increasingly favorable reputation.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
May 2, 1999

A remarkable lady

There should be trumpets. On May 8 at 10 a.m., Music for Youth will celebrate its 60th anniversary. The program with the New Japan Philharmonic will repeat MFY's first concert in 1939, which was designed to help young people enjoy and appreciate classical music. In this program, Schubert's "March Militaire"...
CULTURE / Art / ARTS AND ARTISANS
Apr 24, 1999

Combing through antiquity for quality

Unlike in those days when everyone wore kimono, Tsutomu Takeuchi's customers today are somewhat limited in number: hairdressers for sumo wrestlers, theatrical coiffeurs and makers of Japanese coiffure bridal wigs, and a few longtime aficionados.
CULTURE / Art
Apr 17, 1999

Life lessons in pottery and prints

KOBE -- Traditional Japanese art aficionados in Kansai will have a rare chance to learn the finer points of both Bizen pottery and ukiyo-e woodblock prints through a double exhibit of John Wells' Bizen works and Peter Ujlaki's ukiyo-e collection at the Community House and Information Center (CHIC) on...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Apr 13, 1999

A Japanese musician's songs in 'The Homes of Donegal'

Hiroshi Yamaguchi of the group Heat Wave looks like any other worker at his manager's office. He sits at a desk, busily working away on a computer. After a few words, however, it's clear he could never be just any other worker. "I hate it here," he half confesses, half jokes. "I've never had to come...
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 8, 1999

An old street favorite makes good

Okonomiyaki: It's the ultimate street food, stomach-filling, easy to prepare and just as fast to consume. Born amid the rubble of postwar Osaka (according to one version of the legend) but rapidly embraced by the entire nation, no other style of Japanese cooking comes close in terms of being so cheap,...
CULTURE / Art / ARTS AND ARTISANS
Apr 3, 1999

Block-printed paper beauty

Chiyogami is colorful handmade paper printed with Japanese traditional patterns or designs, and is usually used by girls for making kimono-clad dolls, small boxes, or bookmarks.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Apr 3, 1999

Shamisen ballads bridge the musical and spiritual

Kioi Hall's large hall will be used for a concert of classical Japanese music April 6, for the first time since its opening in 1995.
COMMUNITY
Apr 1, 1999

Strike a pose, posing questions -- Klein's vogue

We've all seen the sexy, sultry, precarious, provocative and often preposterous poses of fashion models in fashion magazines. But rarely do we think about the person at the other end of the camera -- the fashion photographer. In the world of fashion, he (and they are mostly men) has become an icon on...
JAPAN
Mar 25, 1999

Gubernatorial campaigns kick off

Campaigning for gubernatorial elections slated for April 11 in 12 prefectures, including Tokyo and Osaka, started Thursday, kicking off the first round of the quadrennial unified local elections.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Mar 24, 1999

Degrees of separation

You could say they have an affliction. You've probably bumped into them on the street. That is, they bump into you, because they often walk with their eyes fixated on their task, oblivious to any obstacles in their path. You've definitely overheard them chatting on trains, in coffee shops, perhaps even...
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 20, 1999

Passing time and timeless passion

The Kabukiza this month features such outstanding actors as Danjuro Ichikawa, Koshiro Matsumoto, Kikugoro Onoe, Jakuemon Nakamura and Tamasaburo Bando.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 20, 1999

Tokyo says 'Bravo!' to tango explosion

The hottest song now in Japan is undoubtedly "Dango 3 Kyodai," which humorously depicts the story of three dumpling brothers. Though originally composed for a children's TV program, the song appealed to adults as well, and 3 million CDs have been sold so far.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Mar 17, 1999

The hills are alive with wild fungal growths

The Field Studies Council (FSC) is a British not-for-profit organization that has as its slogan: "Environmental understanding for all!"
CULTURE / Books
Mar 17, 1999

Last glimpses of a vanishing people

THE VANISHING TRIBES OF BURMA, by Richard K. Diran. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 240 pp., $60. Coffee-table photo books are usually too expensive, space-consuming or indistinguishable in content from the art of the glossy postcard for most of us to consider buying. Every once in a while, however,...
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 17, 1999

Disputed territory is a paradise in peril

Any Japanese schoolchild can wax eloquent about the Hoppo Ryodo or "Northern Territories," the tiny islands Japan has demanded back from Russia since World War II. And with Japan keen to resolve its border dispute with Russia and wrap up a peace treaty by the end of next year, the issue looks likely...
JAPAN
Mar 4, 1999

Minivehicle sales up for fifth month

Japan's sturdier and sassier minivehicles posted a 26.1 percent increase in sales in February compared with the previous year for the fifth consecutive month of rise, the Japan Mini Vehicles Association said on Thursday.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Mar 3, 1999

Belize offers cay to a good vacation

Belize City (population 60,000) sucks. Crack addicts, muggers, deranged loafers, unprovoked verbal abuse of the anti-whitey variety. A spoonful of water from its rancid canals, if strategically distributed, would wipe out the People's Republic of China. Belize City's got the lot.
JAPAN
Mar 1, 1999

Recruit sells building to U.S. firms

Recruit Co., a major information service company, has sold its office building in front of JR Kawasaki Station to two U.S real estate firms as part of efforts to reduce its huge debts, informed sources said Monday.

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