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CULTURE / Art
Jul 25, 2001

Gimmickry belies a true phenomenon

A survey of 20th-century art would identify few individuals with as remarkable a story as Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), the Mexican painter whose life was one of those stranger-than-fiction phenomena. Already crippled by polio, the teenage Kahlo was impaled on a steel handrail in a trolley accident that shattered...
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 25, 2001

All the world's Miyagi's 'logos & pathos' stage

In the world of Japanese contemporary theater, the Ku Na'uka company is famed for its unique "logos & pathos" method, in which each role on stage is performed by one narrator/speaker (in the "logos" role) and one performer/mover (in the "pathos" role).
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 24, 2001

Visiting educators find confidence lacking

Japan should make greater efforts to instill a sense of self-confidence in its children and help them to develop the ability to express themselves, according to foreign educators invited to speak at a recent discussion session in Tokyo.
EDITORIALS
Jul 24, 2001

A turning point for the G8?

At this year's G8 summit of advanced industrialized nations in Genoa, Italy, history was made. Not because anything concrete was done, but for the worst possible reason: A demonstrator lost his life during protests against the meeting. Now the antiglobalization movement has a martyr, and the G8 must...
LIFE / Travel
Jul 24, 2001

Signs of the cross in China

LOU GUAN TAI, China There is only one way into the pagoda, through a small window 10 meters above ground. Climbing the walls would likely land me behind bars: The building is around 1,300 years old and leans as prominently as the Tower of Pisa -- no doubt a result of an earthquake 500 years ago.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jul 24, 2001

Temporary water, but it greens the desert

The San Bushmen call the Central Kalahari "The Land God Made in Anger," and most of the time the description holds good.
EDITORIALS
Jul 23, 2001

A move toward multipolarity

China and Russia -- the two neighboring major powers that have been at odds for decades -- have begun building relations of lasting friendship. The signing last week of a treaty for this purpose will have a significant bearing on the future of Northeast Asia as well as the world at large. The new friendship...
COMMENTARY
Jul 23, 2001

Creating enemies and losing influence

LOS ANGELES — In Moscow and Genoa this past week, the faint outlines of a reactive global containment policy toward America emerged.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2001

Exploitation of children takes terrible toll

Agnes Chan, ambassador of the Japan Committee for UNICEF, as well as a popular TV personality and pop singer, visited the Philippines from June 2 to 6 on a fact-finding mission for the UNICEF Japan group to see for herself the plight of children there, especially conditions surrounding the commercial...
BASEBALL / MLB
Jul 23, 2001

Petagine ignites 23-hit attack as CL All-Stars square series

YOKOHAMA -- Pitching a professional baseball game in Yokohama Stadium has always been Daisuke Matsuzaka's dream. It came true on Sunday night during Game 2 of the 2001 Sanyo All-Star Series. By the third inning, however, it turned into a nightmare.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jul 23, 2001

'Little' Matsui has big night for PL

FUKUOKA -- In the first All-Star Game of the post-Ichiro era, the Pacific League stars didn't miss a beat as they routed their Central League counterparts 7-1 before a crowd of 32,000 at the Fukuoka Dome on Saturday night in the opener of the 2001 Sanyo All-Star Series.
COMMENTARY
Jul 22, 2001

Bush places the country on autopilot

NEW ORLEANS -- The nation is reeling in the aftermath of a startling revelation from the White House: For the first time in its history, the United States is functioning entirely without an executive branch.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Jul 22, 2001

CCP is going nowhere fast

When the International Olympic Committee awarded Beijing the 2008 Summer Games, the decision was widely publicized as a move that would promote reforms in China, improve its human rights situation and eventually open China to the world. This is not unlike the rationale for awarding the 1980 Summer Games...
COMMUNITY
Jul 22, 2001

When we had heroes

They were voices in the silence, stars in the night they showed the way and they showed what was right
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2001

Foreign Ministry troubles exact a high toll

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- It is with hesitation that I write about the current imbroglio involving the Foreign Ministry. First, this is a matter for the Japanese to sort out. Second, suspicions of partiality may arise, given my diplomatic background. But in spite of these valid points, I humbly put forward...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 22, 2001

Thanks to 'doken kokka,' are Japan's best decades behind it?

THE EMPTINESS OF JAPANESE AFFLUENCE, by Gavan McCormack. Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 2001 (2nd edition), 311 pp., $27.95 (paperback). What went wrong? A decade ago few would have predicted the sustained malaise that has gripped Japan since the early 1990s.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jul 22, 2001

Breaking up (all that fat) is so very hard to do

While my stomach is not particularly gregarious, neither would one call it meek.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 22, 2001

The kimono celebrated

KIMONO. Text and photos by Paul van Riel, introduction and comments by Liza Dalby. Leiden: Hotel Publishing, 144 pp., color photos, $49.95. Folklorist Kunio Yanagita long ago said that "clothing is the most direct indication of a people's general frame of mind." If this is so, what then is one to...
EDITORIALS
Jul 22, 2001

What price a dog's life?

In Los Angeles earlier this month, a legal case that had drawn worldwide publicity finally ended when a superior court judge threw the book at the man everybody loved to hate: Andrew Burnett, convicted in June of animal cruelty for grabbing a woman's dog from her car after a minor accident and tossing...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Jul 22, 2001

Gifts from the 'god of sake'

Throughout the history of sake brewing, there has been a handful of individuals who have had a huge impact on the craft in the form of technical developments or discoveries. One such benefactor of brewing was Professor Kin'ichi Noshiro of Kumamoto.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Jul 22, 2001

This one goes out to all the grrls

For 121/2 years, I lived within a 10-minute walk of Shinjuku Ni-chome. "Ni-chome," as most habitues refer to it, is synonymous with gay, even though every neighborhood in Tokyo has an area called Ni-chome, which, roughly translated, means "Sector 2." One should even be careful not to refer to an escapade...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 22, 2001

It's not always easy to see yourself as others do

On the face of it, the current controversy over Japanese history textbooks is just one more example of Japan not facing up to its militaristic past. On a deeper level, however, Korea's decision to forgo further liberalization of Japanese cultural imports until the offending texts are revised underscores...
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jul 22, 2001

Bourbon Street comes to town

If seen on the street, minus their sousaphones and trombones, the guys from the Black Bottom Brass Band would look like any of the other slightly hip types that wander around Shibuya or America-mura. A guess about their musical tastes would probably run toward some obscure DJ or indie rock's flavor of...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 22, 2001

Dead-end lives in the suburbs of Tokyo

LIFE IN THE CUL-DE-SAC, by Senji Kuroi. Translated by Philip Gabriel. Berkeley, Calif.: Stone Bridge Press, 2001, 231 pp., $12.95. To read this version of "Life in the Cul-de-Sac" is to experience two conflicting emotions. On the one hand, there is admiration for the storyteller, as the dozen linked...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 22, 2001

Tarento find beauty is only cosmetically deep

Tonight at 11:30, TBS's documentary series, "World Heritage," will cover the Hiroshima Peace Dome, which has symbolized the atomic bombing since 1945, when it partially withstood the blast that flattened the entire city around it. The dome has been maintained in its damaged state for 56 years as a monument...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 22, 2001

Cheers and tears for souvenirs

Akihisa Shirota, 36, clearly remembers the evening of Oct. 14, 1974.
EDITORIALS
Jul 21, 2001

A foundation for Africa's renewal

The Organization of African Unity, created nearly four decades ago as a symbol for the new Africa, is about to enter the history books. It will be replaced by the African Union, perhaps as early as next year, to achieve a new mission: developing a region plagued by conflict, AIDS and poverty. It remains...
SOCCER / World cup
Jul 21, 2001

Oita gearing up to play World Cup host

Oita, one of the 10 World Cup hosts in Japan, expects two things from hosting the World Cup next year -- to promote the southern city around the world and to make Oita Stadium recognized as a major sporting and cultural destination.
MORE SPORTS
Jul 21, 2001

Heritage Resort offers foreign golfers a chance to break par, not the bank

The Heritage Resort in Saitama Prefecture has recently announced a membership scheme for foreign residents in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 21, 2001

Life through the lens in Seoul, Paris and Tokyo

It is hard to imagine Mi-Yeon producing art prints of such emotion and refinement amid the familial clutter of her apartment, but maybe this is the mark of the true artist: beauty can be created against all odds. "My daughter's at kindergarten," she offers as explanation.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’