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COMMENTARY
Aug 23, 2000

The summer 'silly season' everywhere

Europe is on holiday. Go to Paris and you will find half the restaurants shut. Many industries close down for weeks, and their workers flock to holiday resorts. Britain is not much different from the rest of Europe in this respect -- although British firms tend to stagger holidays more than in other...
EDITORIALS
Aug 17, 2000

The power of people

It is difficult, if not impossible, for anyone who is not Korean to comprehend the intensity of the reunions held this week in Seoul and Pyongyang. The photographs and news reports convey only a sliver of what happened as families were reunited after a half-century of division. Even the delicate choreography...
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 13, 2000

A Dance of hope: Rediscovering the artistry and power of Choi Seung-Hee

On March 20, 1926, a 14-year-old Korean girl was in Seoul, watching a performance of the internationally renowned dancer Baku Ishii and his troupe.
JAPAN
Aug 12, 2000

BOJ votes to abandon ultraeasy money policy

The Bank of Japan on Friday defied acute political pressure and decided to abandon its "zero-interest-rate" policy.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Aug 12, 2000

Bringing out the flavor of the clay

Shuroku Harada is the consummate potter. First off, this highly successful ceramist doesn't put on any proud airs; he maintains a humbleness that is important when working with the earth. He shapes the clay and the clay has shaped him, so to speak, into what he is today; mutual respect at its best.
JAPAN
Aug 9, 2000

Survivors' memories published in English

Michiko Nakano set out with the ambition of publishing a collection of stories of her peers' experiences of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in English, hoping to educate more of the world's people about the historic facts of the attack, which occurred exactly 55 years ago today.
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Aug 9, 2000

Fried potatoes

world.std.com/~fwhite/spud/ Yes, there is actually a server out there powered by potatoes that really does work. Kind of. This address only takes you to a link to that server, which doesn't accept a whole lot of hits, and to an article explaining why the contraption was built.
LIFE / Digital
Aug 2, 2000

'Zine zone

www.failuremag.com The immediate image that came to mind upon hearing there's something out there called Failure Magazine was of four California college students getting stoned in a cramped dorm room, trying to figure out how to catch up with all their classmates' e-commerce sites. The light bulb dims...
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2000

Osaka court rules against women in job-discrimination suit

OSAKA -- The Osaka District Court on Monday rejected a 160 million yen damages suit filed against Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. by two employees who claimed they were discriminated against in terms of salary and advancement because they are women.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Aug 1, 2000

Hard training is its own reward as big event looms

Note: By the time you read this you're still probably suffering a hangover with the force of two stars colliding in a distant galaxy (courtesy of Fuji Rock Festival): far out and painful, in other words. Well, this article concerns the Fuji Rock warmup weekend, an annual ritual where Fuji Rockers imbibe...
COMMUNITY
Jul 30, 2000

When life gets you down, litigate, litigate, litigate

SAN FRANCISCO -- There are those in the U.S. who tie up the courts with questionable lawsuits. Then there's Patricia Alice McColm.
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Jul 27, 2000

For new sake sensations, seek out the 'brat pack'

After tasting sake for some time, we begin to search for sake we have not yet tried. Of course, we have our favorites, sake we can fall back on and drink any day of the week. And we already know about good, well-publicized sake, be they blue chips such as Kubota or powerful upstarts like Juyondai.
COMMENTARY
Jul 26, 2000

Ethics for a turbulent age

There is much justifiable concern in Japan and Britain about rising levels of crime and bad behavior, especially among young people. The responses have been varied, including the usual calls for heavier punishments combined with "zero tolerance" policing. Yet few have much idea how this is to be enforced...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jul 24, 2000

Persistent organic pollutants: toxic chemicals here to stay

The acronym POPs sounds harmless enough, bringing to mind glasses of bubbly champagne and harmless fireworks. The reality is far less celebratory.
CULTURE / Books / POETRY MIGNETTE
Jul 16, 2000

When dream makers walk among us

Socrates' bestial laugh washes into the cosmic map where Blake digs with his spade and Sam stands bathed in the sparks of his youth Among colored shapes, Sam embraces the warmest softest things a woman's spirit in the shape of clouds in the shape of foam in the shape of a womb The white space of the...
EDITORIALS
Jul 13, 2000

Drawing lines in the Middle East

It is hard to exaggerate the risks involved in the Middle East summit that began this week at the Camp David presidential retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland. The main players — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and U.S. President Bill Clinton — are gambling...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 13, 2000

No easy explanation for overseas Chinese success

ETHNIC CHINESE: Their Economy, Politics and Culture, edited by Yu Chunghsun. Tokyo: The Japan Times, 2000, 247 pp., 2,800 yen (cloth). The essays in this book explore the role of the ethnic Chinese economies in economic recovery and development in Asia in the 21st century. They are largely the product...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jul 5, 2000

The tyranny of the square

When talking to Ted Nelson, strap in tight. It's quite a ride. Trained as a philosopher and film director, he is equal parts visionary and crank. Many consider him to be one of the fathers of the World Wide Web. He coined the word "hypertext" in 1965, but he has become a scathing critic of the Web and...
JAPAN
Jul 1, 2000

Court rejects complaint over Shiseido tactics

The Tokyo District Court on Friday rejected a complaint by cosmetics retailer Kawachiya Co. that a sales affiliate of Shiseido Co. violated the Antimonopoly Law when it canceled its wholesale contract with the retailer after it began discounting Shiseido products.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 29, 2000

Marriage guide for men begs the question, 'Et tu, Brutus?'

In the cultural wars secular liberalism continues its slow, laborious march toward victory (two steps forward, one step back), but one bastion of male-centered tradition remains inviolate: the marriage proposal. Men do the asking, and women wait for them to ask. The vector indicated by this dynamic mimics...
LIFE / Food & Drink / KISSA KULTUR
Jun 28, 2000

Star cafe keeps the customers beaming

Catwoman is back. This time, though, she isn't wearing a black spandex body suit. No mask, no whip and no sexy purr in her voice. In fact, at 67, she's not quite as lithe as she used to be.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jun 24, 2000

An unknown craftsman from Mashiko

Many of you are familiar with the name and works of Shoji Hamada (1894-1977), arguably the most widely famed of all Japanese potters. When he settled in the backwater potting town of Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture, in Taisho 13 (1924), no one imagined that he would turn the conservative potters' world upside...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 22, 2000

Thailand refuses to face its bloody past

BANGKOK -- The Thai Ministry of Defense recently released a 605-page report of a team that investigated a May 1992 uprising in which soldiers shot dead dozens of prodemocracy demonstrators. To people abroad, the news headlines may make it appear as if Thailand finally is coming to terms with political...
JAPAN
Jun 19, 2000

Expansion of whale sanctuary proposed

Australia and New Zealand have proposed that the International Whaling Commission designate a wide area of water between Australia and Chile as a whale sanctuary, Japanese Fisheries Agency sources said Sunday.
COMMENTARY
Jun 19, 2000

Defining issues for Japan

The June 25 Lower House election will be critical for Japan, since it will mark the first step in charting the nation's course for the 21st century. The most important campaign issue is the makeup of the next government. These alternatives are possible: the existing tripartite coalition of the Liberal...
COMMUNITY
Jun 18, 2000

So, uh, what century did you say this is?

Whisper it softly but these are bad times we live in, literally.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 14, 2000

How Japan's JET program got off the ground

IMPORTING DIVERSITY: Inside Japan's JET Program, by David L. McConnell. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000, 328 pp. (paper). Stung by international criticism that Japan was too insular, the government decided in August of 1987 to initiate "one of the largest educational programs in the...

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building