Search - about-us

 
 
COMMUNITY
Sep 22, 2002

William Tyndale: A martyr's memory heals old wounds

ANTWERP, Belgium -- William Tyndale, the first translator of the Bible into English from its original Greek and Hebrew texts, is making a comeback that -- if not miraculous -- is considered by many to be at least long overdue.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 22, 2002

Author takes a trip into darkness

THE SHORE BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL: A Report from Inside Burma's Opium Kingdom, by Hideyuki Takano. Kotan Publishing, 2002, 264 pp., $23.95 (cloth) "The Shore Beyond Good and Evil" is a book about a little-known region called Wa. "The name 'Wa' is not indicated on maps," writes author Hideyuki Takano. "Yet,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 22, 2002

Hsia Yu: modern, universal and refreshing

FUSION KITSCH: Poetry by Hsia Yu, Translated by Steve Bradbury. Zephyr Press, Massachusetts, 2001, 131 pp., $13 (paper) The title of this book, the first bilingual collection of work by Taiwanese poet Hsia Yu, is apt. In fact, translator Steve Bradbury, a professor at National Central University in Taiwan,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Sep 22, 2002

Yes, you too can roll your own raw fish at home

Even after several years apprenticing in professional Japanese kitchens, I feel inadequate when it comes to slicing raw fish for presentation. This possibly comes from an intimate knowledge of the expertise of my mentors — though even my most astute customers may not notice a difference in quality....
Japan Times
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Sep 22, 2002

Suffer the little children; endure the fitness freaks

TV personality Tetsuko Kuroyanagi recently made her 20th journey overseas as a special ambassador for UNICEF. This time she went to Somalia and, as always, a TV Asahi crew followed her as she looked into the plight of children in the war-torn country. An account of her trip will be broadcast Sunday at...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 22, 2002

Pecs, posing and living sculpture

"The main thing I want people to understand is that bodybuilding is the real thing. Bodybuilders are doing what all athletes are doing -- dieting, working out. There are no secrets to it. But, if all people see is a bunch of oiled, near-naked guys striking poses up on stage, they're going to think it's...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 22, 2002

Soseki's later years

INSIDE MY GLASS DOORS (156 pp.); THE 210TH DAY (96 pp.); SPRING MISCELLANY (184 pp.), by Soseki Natsume, translated by Sammy Tsunematsu, with introductions by Marvin Marcus. Tuttle Publishing (Boston, Rutland, Tokyo), 2002, all volumes 2,300 yen (paper) with black-and-white photos In 1915, having just...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 22, 2002

The fallout of Japan's national energy policy

In Japan, Fumiko Kometani, the wife of American screenwriter Josh Greenfeld and mother of journalist Karl Taro Greenfeld, has a reputation for being a grouch. A longtime resident of the United States, she writes for a number of Japanese publications and very rarely has anything nice to say about either...
COMMENTARY
Sep 22, 2002

Al Gore's amnesia on abuse of liberties

WASHINGTON -- Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is apparently on the hunt for votes in the 2004 presidential race. He criticized the Bush administration on just about every ground at a recent dinner hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus. The greatest moment of unintended hilarity came when he said...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 22, 2002

Museum, design firm will form joint research unit

The University Museum of the University of Tokyo and leading design firm Tanseisha Co. will join forces to to provide research into running museums, museum and company officials said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 22, 2002

The man's on FAAAY-YA!

"It was only four tracks on the machine," Jamaican music legend Lee "Scratch" Perry once said of an early mixing board, "but I was picking up 20 from the extraterrestrial squad."
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2002

Finance firm searched over illegal loan scam

OSAKA -- Police searched on Friday the offices of an Osaka financial company suspected of improperly collecting at least 3 billion yen loaned by its affiliates to the elderly at illegal interest rates.
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2002

Media coverage of abductions criticized

OSAKA -- Korean residents of Japan expressed concern Friday over what they feel has been excessive coverage by the Japanese media of the North Korean abductions but comparatively scarce debate over Japan's legacy of its colonial rule of the Korean peninsula.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ENERGY EQUATION
Sep 21, 2002

Public role key to green-energy foothold

OSAKA -- While nuclear power provides about one-third of Japan's electricity, the government's goal for raising the share of alternative energy sources is a modest one -- from the current 1.2 percent to a mere 3.2 percent by 2010.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2002

Abductee may have been executed after tutoring plane bomber

Yaeko Taguchi, one of the Japanese abductees whom Pyongyang admitted died in North Korea, may have been executed after serving her purpose as a language instructor for the female agent who blew a Korean Air jetliner out of the sky in 1987, relatives said Friday.
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2002

Koizumi hints rice aid to North Korea may resume

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi indicated Friday that Japan may resume rice aid to North Korea before normalization of bilateral relations.
COMMENTARY
Sep 21, 2002

Underestimating the players

SEOUL -- The success of Tuesday's Japan-North Korea summit in Pyongyang shows just how much critics underestimated both Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Both demonstrated a considerable amount of diplomatic skill, and courage, during this historic one-day...
Japan Times
JAPAN / BABY BUST
Sep 21, 2002

Isolation poses major danger to modern mothers

Yumi, the mother of a 17-month-old girl in Tokyo, said she started feeling the burden of raising a child even before she became a mom.
MORE SPORTS
Sep 21, 2002

Serena wastes little time getting into semis

This one didn't resemble a best-of-three tennis match. Apparently, a 1-hour, 3-minute match in the second round of the Toyota Princess Cup wasn't short enough for Serena Williams.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 21, 2002

Alternative secondary school meets special needs

The first floor of the building that houses International Secondary School (ISS) in Tokyo's Meguro Honcho is deserted. This is English Studio, a conversation school for toddlers and tinies that starts late afternoon.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 21, 2002

Tokyo Game Show 2002 exhibits latest software

Japan's biggest video-game software show kicked off Friday at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba, with 85 domestic and overseas software companies exhibiting 500 new products.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2002

Woman left off list of abductees probably nurse

The Japanese woman abducted to North Korea who was not on Tokyo's official list of 11 is probably a nurse from Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture who vanished along with her mother in 1978, sources said Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 21, 2002

Ian Bailey

SHROPSHIRE, England -- A plaque over the porch of a remarkable black-and-white house in a small hamlet in Shropshire gives the date 1636. This records the age of the front of the house. Parts of the rest are older. Owner Ian Bailey has documents that are dated 1589, when the first known inventory was...
BUSINESS
Sep 21, 2002

Government will draft new measures in October to cull bad loans: Koizumi

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Friday the government will devise measures next month to accelerate the disposal of nonperforming loans held by the nation's financial institutions.
BUSINESS
Sep 21, 2002

Inose slams road entity, private firm links

About 700 firms that have hired retired officials from Japan Highway Public Corp. received annual orders totaling more than 1 trillion yen from four road-related semigovernmental bodies in each of the past five years, it was learned Friday.
JAPAN / ENERGY EQUATION
Sep 20, 2002

Energy goals, needs, realities not in sync

OSAKA -- It was another sweltering summer day in Den Den Town here, with the temperature expected to climb above 30 and humidity at nearly 80 percent.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 20, 2002

Abductees' families kept in dark

North Korea gave Japan the dates eight of its abducted nationals died, but the Foreign Ministry withheld the information from the next of kin until it was reported in a newspaper, government officials said Thursday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 20, 2002

Court dismisses inventor's patent claim but will consider reward

The Tokyo District Court on Thursday acknowledged Nichia Corp.'s ownership of the patent for a key semiconductor device, rejecting a suit filed by the inventor, now a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 20, 2002

Three Kyushu assemblies agree to request probe into abductions

Three local assemblies in Kyushu separately adopted written opinions Thursday pressing the central government to fully investigate North Korea's abductions of Japanese citizens.

Longform

A mushroom cloud from the atomic bombing on Hiroshima taken from a U.S. military aircraft on Aug. 6, 1945. Copying the photo without permission is prohibited.
80 years on, a Japanese American hibakusha recalls the day the bomb dropped