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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Apr 12, 2005

Do you think national health insurance is worthwhile for foreigners in Japan?

Elly Perkins ALT, 24 It has been for me. It's saved me a lot of hassle because I live in a small town up north where no one speaks English. I just have to give them my name and my card.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Apr 12, 2005

Credit card fraud, bike attacks and clothes swap

More on accidents Last month, two people in different parts of Tokyo -- teacher Kristin Newton (who had to use a cane for three weeks) and natural healer/nutritionist Daniel Babu (still suffering headaches) -- were hit by bikes ridden by Japanese teenagers who then fled.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 11, 2005

Invest to bolster peace in southern Sudan

KHARTOUM -- Cereal trader Said Abubaker has a simple explanation for the fast-rising price of the local staple sorghum in the town market at Warawar in southern Sudan: "Peace has been a stranger in our land for so long that now that it has come, nature does not know how to welcome it."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2005

Dalai Lama arrives, urges followers to fulfill late pope's wishes for peace

Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, arrived Friday in Japan, urging people to carry on Pope John Paul II's legacy of peace as the world prepares for the pontiff's funeral.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 6, 2005

U.S., Vietnam draw closer

HONOLULU -- An American warship steamed slowly up the Saigon River last week to mark the gradual forging of normal political, economic and even military relations between the United States and Vietnam 30 years after the end of their long and bloody war.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Apr 5, 2005

Burned out, wills and tax advice

Fire! Last week our house had a fire We had just moved into a rental house and paid all the key money, real estate fees etc. and nine days later our neighbor's house had a major fire, which spread to ours. The neighbor's house is completely burned, and one person died. My family all escaped unhurt,...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Apr 4, 2005

Expo no ordinary economy booster

Aichi Expo 2005 -- the first world exposition of the 21st century -- has attracted tens of thousands of visitors since it opened March 25. Under the theme of "Nature's wisdom," the expo is providing the governments, companies and people of the 120 participating countries a place to exchange ideas and...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 3, 2005

So much food that we don't know what to do with it

The media didn't quite know what to make of that bizarre story last month about the elderly Sapporo man who allegedly killed his wife following a dinnertime spat. One might expect a husband to become angry over not getting enough food, TV commentators implied, but in this case the situation was the opposite....
Rugby
Apr 1, 2005

Rugby fans tell IRB: Give the 2011 World Cup to Japan

If the Japan Rugby Football Union is on the lookout for a theme song for its bid to host the 2011 Rugby World Cup, it could do a lot worse than the Ray Davies penned, "Give the People What They Want."
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2005

Tokyo wants safety assurances for soccer team

Japan said Thursday it wants Japanese soccer players and fans to have their safety guaranteed when the national team plays a World Cup qualifier against North Korea in Pyongyang on June 8.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 29, 2005

Exhausted Kurds desperate to leave

Two large portraits adorn the walls of the otherwise colorless apartment in a Tokyo charity home that Meryem Dogan shares with her two young children.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 27, 2005

Ten years of tero in Japan: Notes on usage

Japanese language purists carp about the surfeit of katakana, but as with all cultural manifestations, from bossa nova to breakfast cereals, the Japanese manage to make these linguistic borrowings their own in an unmistakable way, the most obvious being abbreviation.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 27, 2005

First, stop, look and listen

THE SINGLE TONE: A Personal Journey into Shakuhachi Music, by Christopher Yohmei Blasdel, Tokyo: Printed Matter Press, 2005, 168 pp., with photographs and glossary, 1,500 yen (paper). In the summer of 1972 Christopher Blasdel first came to Japan. He was from West Texas, "a landscape dominated by strip...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 26, 2005

Dr. Tutu & Tame Iti project paints cultural theft

When Lisa Salmon was introduced to Jeff Root by an old high school friend in California, they found they had Japan in common. Jeff taught here in the early 1990s, and was then head-hunted out of Chicago in 2001; Lisa came initially on the JET program in 1996.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 23, 2005

A great selection from the Electors' finest treasures

Dresden -- from the Sorbish, meaning "dwellers in the marshy forest," was transformed in the late Renaissance from a Slav village to the jewel in the crown of the Duchy of Sachsen. This evolution had much to do with the art patronage of two monarchs, Frederick Augustus I, Elector of Saxony (1670-1733)...
COMMUNITY / LIFELINES
Mar 22, 2005

Positive credit card results

There was great interest in last week's Zeit Gist column on credit cards in Japan by Vanessa Mitchell. We'd like to pass on some experiences of card usage in Japan sent in by readers as well as give some information on no-charge cards that there wasn't enough room for last week.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Mar 22, 2005

What's the best purchase you have ever made?

Mie Kawano Travel agent, 28 My ferrets. I have three. One of them is an albino. They are so adorable. When they're little, they bite, but you can train them. I can take them for walks on a leash or sitting on my shoulders.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Mar 19, 2005

Unraveling the mysterious choo-choos

Japan is a nation obsessed by trains. Every time you turn on the TV, there is a program about trains. Not necessarily high-speed trains, either. These programs cover trains around the world, celebrities traveling across Japan by train, or just trains choo-chooing peacefully through mountain scenery to...
BUSINESS
Mar 15, 2005

Current account surplus fell 28.2% in January

The nation's current account surplus shrank 28.2 percent in January from a year earlier to 774.9 billion yen for the first contraction in two months, the Finance Ministry said Monday.
EDITORIALS
Mar 13, 2005

From Pretoria to Tshwane

Last week the city council of South Africa's capital, Pretoria, decided it was time the place had a name change. If the South African Geographic Names Council approves, as expected, the city as a whole will henceforth be known as Tshwane, which according to its Web site means "We are the same" or "We...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Mar 12, 2005

Respect carries a high price tag in Asia

I often meet people who are taking off a few months to travel through Asia. These people spend months traveling through China, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, etc., but they invariably skip Japan.
Japan Times
Features
Mar 6, 2005

Issey Ogata: Comic chameleon

Issey Ogata is nothing if not versatile. Alone on an empty stage, he has audiences in fits as he performs his seriously funny one-man shows portraying characters as diverse as a classic sarariman (office worker) and a folk-song diva -- one after another.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Mar 4, 2005

Happy in the haze of a hanami hour

The 1830s wood-block print below depicts hanami (cherry-blossom viewing) on the banks of the Sumida River. A group of young women and girls are on an excursion, and, with their elaborate hairstyles and fancy, uniform kimono, it appears they are apprentice geisha from licensed quarters nearby. Like teenage...
COMMENTARY
Feb 28, 2005

Police have let trust escape

The Japanese police system was once regarded as one of the best in the world, but that is no longer true. In a spate of scandals, some officers are said to have created slush funds with public money while others have falsified internal reports to improve their performance records.
COMMENTARY
Feb 27, 2005

Let trade cement Indo-Pakistani peace

ISLAMABAD -- After more than 57 years, an agreement by India and Pakistan to allow people within the divided state of Kashmir to cross the border by bus, beginning in April, is the most important confidence-building measure yet achieved in the two countries' yearlong peace process.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 26, 2005

Special Olympics bridges Japan, Arab nations

Madeleine Jalil Umewaka, of MJU public relations, was at Narita Airport early Wednesday morning. She was there to welcome the Special Olympics team of 12 athletes from her native Lebanon, and travel with them to Iida in Nagano Prefecture.
EDITORIALS
Feb 21, 2005

New airport tilts toward Asia

With the opening of Central Japan International Airport (Chubu airport) last week, Japan's aviation industry entered a new age. The new terminal will serve as a gateway to the 2005 World Exposition (Aichi Expo), which opens next month. Chubu airport is a new symbol of Nagoya, a vigorous commercial and...
Features / WEEK 3
Feb 20, 2005

Operation Evacuation

Not only are they a biodiversity disaster, but the millions of sugi (cedars) planted as official policy in the postwar years to yield cheap timber -- but which are now more expensive to harvest than the cost of imports -- have become a serious health hazard across Japan.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji