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Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 27, 2001

The quest for sleep

It's 5 a.m. and you've spent the past hour staring at the ceiling.
BUSINESS
May 26, 2001

Youth favors new Fuji chief

Kyoji Takenaka, the incoming president of Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., is determined to make the company a full-fledged global player with "premium brand" vehicles.
JAPAN
May 23, 2001

Loan firms linked to rise in personal bankruptcies

With colorful billboards at train stations, TV commercials showing Brazilian soccer legend Zico or a carefree, successful young woman, major consumer loan firms seem to have shed the shady images that previously haunted them.
CULTURE / Stage
May 23, 2001

Dankikusai passes torch to a new generation

For the month of May, the Kabukiza Theater in Tokyo is presenting a special program celebrating the Dankikusai (Danjuro-Kikugoro Festival). The afternoon program features "The Tale of Genji, Part II" in three acts, and the evening program includes two strikingly intense plays, "Gappo's Abode" and "Ise...
MORE SPORTS / THE DUKE OF HAZARDS
May 22, 2001

Jumbo starting to consider his mortality

I used to be critical of some of Jumbo Ozaki's performances, especially outside Japan when he seemed to be so weak compared to his strong showings at home.
CULTURE / Music
May 20, 2001

You gotta fight for your right to freedom

Adam Yauch, MCA of the Beastie Boys, has come a long way since 1986's "License to Ill," the obnoxious, wildly juvenile album that launched the careers of the punk-turned-hip-hop trio from New York. And not just musically. He's become one of the voices of a worldwide political movement, one heard in Tokyo...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 20, 2001

Audrey Hepburn's neck

"I don't understand cats and I don't understand women," confessed a foreign friend, half to me and half to his mug of beer. I leaned in closer to listen.
EDITORIALS
May 17, 2001

Hanging up on 3G

Information anytime, anywhere: That is the promise of the IT revolution. The next step in the march toward the networked world was supposed to take place this month, when NTT DoCoMo and British Telecommunications launched the world's first third-generation (3G) cellphone services. We are marching in...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 13, 2001

Death and the maidens

TBS's "Sekai Fushigi Hakken," currently the longest-running quiz show on commercial TV, was also one of the first series to combine education and entertainment in a way that didn't compromise either. Whereas the previous record-holder, "Naruhodo the World," which went off the air several years ago, presented...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
May 12, 2001

Hiromi Akatsuka

Tomorrow at 2 p.m. in the Ishibashi Memorial Hall, Ueno, Tokyo International Singers with the L'Esperance Singers will present a concert of French music. The two groups will perform Faure's "Requiem" and Gounod's "St. Cecilia Mass." They will spotlight three soloists, an organist and an electone player....
SOCCER / J. League / ON THE BALL
May 11, 2001

A Hans-on look at Japan's soccer squad

ALMERIA, Spain -- When Japan played Spain in Cordoba on April 25, one spectator, who had driven up from his home on Spain's Costa del Sol, had a particular interest in the Japanese team.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
May 10, 2001

Long-protected holy mountain to be gutted by highway project

Japan's Environment Minister, Yoriko Kawaguchi, recently told Mick Corliss of The Japan Times that she would like to incorporate an "environmental perspective" into public-works projects. If she is serious, there could be no better place to begin than Mount Takao.
JAPAN
May 8, 2001

New Cabinet a breath of fresh air

The newly formed and enormously popular Koizumi Cabinet picked up another accolade Monday when a group of antismoking advocates noticed it contains only one smoker, the least number of any recent Cabinet.
COMMUNITY
May 6, 2001

Think you're safe? Think again

Japan has long enjoyed a reputation for being one of the safest countries in the world. It's said that you can trust your neighbors here. That there's little need to be constantly worried about your belongings. That you can walk the streets safely at night.
LIFE / Travel
May 6, 2001

Britons aim for Pacific rowing record

Two corporals in the British Royal Marines have struck out into the unforgiving North Pacific Ocean in a 7.9-meter rowing boat called Crackers this weekend, aiming to complete the 8,000 km crossing from Japan to California in a record 120 days.
JAPAN
May 4, 2001

Todai chief laments decline in academic standards

Japan may lose out in the international arena, especially in scientific and technological research, if no appropriate steps are taken to stem the decline in Japanese university students' academic abilities, warns the new president of the prestigious University of Tokyo.
JAPAN
May 2, 2001

Japan to launch first Venus probe in 2007

Japan plans to launch its first unmanned space probe to Venus in 2007, with the probe expected to begin orbiting the planet in 2009, according to project members at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science.
Events
May 1, 2001

'Memoirs of a Geisha' muse vents spleen at author

KYOTO -- Arthur Golden's "Memoirs of a Geisha" sold over 4 million copies and lingered on the New York Times best seller list for 58 weeks. The story of a country girl sold into virtual slavery who rises to become one of Japan's most celebrated geisha captivated the world.
LIFE / Travel
May 1, 2001

The end of a British institution?

LONDON -- The sleekly dressed man brandishing the Koran and standing on an upturned crate is getting very worked up. He points at a man in the crowd and shouts a retort, furious.
COMMENTARY
Apr 30, 2001

A real chance for change?

LONDON -- Is Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi so different from other Japanese politicians that he can succeed in enforcing radical change in the political and economic system of the country?
EDITORIALS
Apr 29, 2001

Going somewhere in Golden Week?

If it's Golden Week, it must be time to dust off those travel statistics again. Every year, government and tourist-industry number-crunchers tell us the score on the number of Japanese traveling abroad in the madcap first week of May, as opposed to those who travel inside Japan or, most sensibly of all,...
CULTURE / Books / POETRY MIGNETTE
Apr 18, 2001

Poet forging links from East to West

The longest running English poetry journal in Japan, Poetry Nippon, was founded in the fall of 1967. Edited by Sapporo-based poet and translator Yorifumi Yaguchi, it has helped forge links between Japanese, British and American poetry for over 30 years.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 15, 2001

Cracks in the great wall of China

CHINESE SOCIETY: Change, Conflict and Resistance, edited by Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Selden. London, Routledge, 2000, 249 pp., $27.99. A single image dominates Western perceptions of the regime in China since the Tiananmen massacre of 1989: that of a government willing to crack down mercilessly...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 15, 2001

Bush's Spanish narrows gap with Latinos

In the late 1800s, U.S. President James Garfield, a former classics professor, amused friends by translating simultaneously an English document into Greek with his left hand and Latin with his right hand. President George W. Bush cannot match this linguistic ability, but his use of Spanish and his family...
JAPAN
Apr 13, 2001

Whaling should not overshadow trade talks: Clark

While Wellington and Tokyo must agree to disagree over Japan's whaling program, the issue should not impede trade ties, visiting New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said Thursday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 7, 2001

Paper and gold yield a life

PAPER SON: One Man's Story, by Tung Pok Chin, with Winifred C. Chin, with an introduction by K. Scott Wong. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000, pp. 184, 15 b/w photos, $15.96. In this account of his tribulations and triumphs in Gold Mountain (the Chinese immigrant's euphemism for the United...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Mar 26, 2001

Never say you've apologized too much

When Ursula Smith, my publisher friend up in Vermont, wrote to say, "I can't close without offering some (futile) form of apology, as one national to another, for that unfortunate accident off Hawaii," I said there was no need to apologize to me. It was an accident, and I wasn't too clear about the meaning...
EDITORIALS
Mar 25, 2001

Ghosts on the loose

You may have thought that the big story out of Hong Kong last week was the slumping Hang Seng Index or continuing pressure from Beijing to crack down on the Falun Gong. But no, something much more fascinating was going on, and it was going on right inside one of the places that break, but don't usually...
BUSINESS
Mar 23, 2001

Imports to be curbed via quarantine crackdown

In an effort to curtail surging vegetable imports to Japan, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry will effectively introduce curbs on the volume of products that are permitted to clear quarantine, ministry sources said Thursday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 23, 2001

Mori planning major overhaul for BayStars

It's been said that life is all about truth and time. Well, truth be told, new Yokohama BayStars manager Masaaki Mori would prefer to spend as much of the time he has left on Earth doing what he loves most -- working in baseball.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear