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COMMENTARY / World
Jul 4, 1999

To buy or not to buy Russian?

Advertising is the third oldest profession after prostitution and journalism. Pyramids of ancient Egypt sold the promise of afterlife. Alexander the Great kept founding one Alexandria after another. Roman palaces advertised state authority. The multicolor banners of kings and princes promoted the glory...
JAPAN
Jul 1, 1999

Telecom Realignment: Will breakup fuel competition?

Fourth in a series
JAPAN
Jun 28, 1999

Telecom Realignment: NTT set to enter global fray

First of a five-part series on reorganizing the domestic telecommunications industry
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jun 23, 1999

On the fringe of the fray

I had dinner with two friends last week and eventually the conversation came around to the Web (I generally try to avoid the topic in polite conversation but what can you do?). Anyone overhearing our conversation might have thought we were a trio of hopeless geeks, or digerati wannabes, but the truth...
LIFE / Travel
Jun 23, 1999

Vices and virtues of Pompeii exposed

Imagine if an entire town could disappear yet be preserved intact, sealed timeless in eternity. Then imagine that surprised excavators nearly 1,700 years later uncover this natural time capsule to reveal what life was really like in the ancient world.
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Jun 23, 1999

Sapporo garden faces climatic challenge

Sapporo Municipal Botanic Garden, better known as Toyohira Garden, is well off the tourist trail, but highly recommended. The garden is situated in Toyohira-ku, approximately 3 km south of Sapporo Station, just across the wide Toyohira River.
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 19, 1999

Exploring tropical forests of poetry

Stephen Forster has released a new volume of poetry titled "The Good Mouth." In this collection of poems, Forster takes the reader on an imaginative journey to distant lands where conquistadors in tropical forests meet their savage doom, or to places where the omniscient voice of a child uttering the...
JAPAN
Jun 10, 1999

Sri Lankans find way to share the scholarship

In the small southern Sri Lankan town of Kataragama, high school student Gamini Nawaratne eagerly awaits his monthly mail from Japan.
CULTURE / Music
Jun 10, 1999

Rockers get down for Tibet Freedom weekend

What do an 11th-century Tibetan saint and a member of one of the world's more popular hip-hop groups have in common?
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

State may draft Aum-specific law

The government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party will consider creating a law to specifically curb Aum Shinrikyo's activities, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka said Friday.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

Police shut down gangs after Tokyo-area shootings

Police ordered Japan's largest underworld organization, Yamaguchi-gumi, and Tokyo's Kokusui-kai syndicate to suspend the use of five of their offices in the wake of a series of shootings reported this week in Tokyo and neighboring areas, they said.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jun 2, 1999

Island life a short cut to evolution

Japan is not just an island; it is an archipelago.
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.
JAPAN
Jun 2, 1999

Price said not everything in IDC bidding war

Toyota Motor Corp. President Hiroshi Okuda reiterated Wednesday that his firm will take workers' job security and international relations into consideration along with bid prices in deciding what offer to accept for its shares in International Digital Communications Inc.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
May 28, 1999

A rebel yell from the Northwest

Whether it's the rainy weather or beautiful scenery, there is something about Washington state that has made it one of the most fertile places for independent music. Though Seattle may have a higher profile, indie labels are as numerous as nose piercings (and that means plenty) in the state capital Olympia,...
COMMUNITY
May 27, 1999

Tokyo market's quiet riot of color

Beneath cascades of purple orchids, ferns uncoil like emerald snakes. Tokyo's wholesale flower market is a quiet riot of color.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
May 23, 1999

Whoever knows

A few columns ago I wrote about pen pals. A Japanese woman who had spent many years in the United States found readjustment to Japan difficult. She discovered she had little in common with her former Japanese friends; to them, she was a foreigner. Her American friends wanted to communicate by e-mail...
JAPAN
May 19, 1999

Ramsar signatories aim to extend treaty's scope

Staff writer
COMMUNITY
May 19, 1999

Memories of old Honmoku

This is a story of Honmoku Motomachi, my hometown in Yokohama, a neighborhood on the southwest coast of Tokyo Bay. Not too long ago, the land extended to tidal flatlands that were abundantly endowed with a wide variety of marine life and provided sustenance and a livelihood to generations of fishermen....
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 / Art
May 15, 1999

Perfect fit of craft and design

Sashimono is a traditional Japanese joining technique for wooden cabinetmaking. It also refers to the furniture made with the technique, such as desks, wardrobes, dressers and chests.
JAPAN
May 14, 1999

First heart recipient under '97 law goes home

OSAKA -- The patient who received a heart from a brain-dead donor in February left Osaka University Hospital Friday, 75 days after the operation -- the first such transplant under the Organ Transplant Law of 1997.
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.
CULTURE / Music
May 14, 1999

Australian pop-rock trio Even battles 'tyranny of distance'

Few Australian bands have managed to gain large audiences and commercial success outside their homeland in the 1990s. Critics down under claim it's the "tyranny of distance," that Australia is simply too far away from the rest of the record-buying world, which keeps many Aussie acts from making it overseas....
JAPAN
May 12, 1999

Soka Gakkai warms to coalition plan

Soka Gakkai, the nation's largest lay Buddhist organization and supporter of New Komeito, appeared to welcome on Wednesday New Komeito's move to form a coalition with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, sources said.
JAPAN
May 11, 1999

Electronic music sales rocking the boat

Staff writer
JAPAN
May 10, 1999

Survivor of child sex abuse, quake recovering in new life

Staff writer
JAPAN
May 3, 1999

Financial sector new link in environment chain

Staff writer
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 1999

Cultural understanding holds the key

In a recent article in The Japan Times, former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa dealt with a topic rather unusual for a politician: the importance of culture and the awareness of it in post-1970s Japan. I endorse his view wholeheartedly. A few years ago I wrote similar thoughts in one of the first articles...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 25, 1999

Mixed feelings greet U.S. aid in Russia

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- A cloud of wheat billows across the Sea of Japan as the U.S. freighter Juneau vacuums its hold and unloads 80 tons of grain onto a smaller Russian vessel capable of navigating shallow ports in the region.

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