Search - about-us

 
 
LIFE / Travel
Nov 8, 2000

Blood brothers, blood feuds

"In the year Sakalat 185, year of the Horse, the Thai came to tattoo all the inhabitants of the Lao cities." -- Oden Meeker, "The Little World of Laos"
LIFE / Travel
Nov 8, 2000

Wreck and return of the Mary Rose

The man o' war, moving gracefully under billowing canvas sheeting, moved purposefully through the water. The pride of King Henry VIII of England's navy, HMS Mary Rose was a state-of-the-art warship tasked with repelling a French invasion across the Channel.
JAPAN
Nov 8, 2000

Ministry to survey Japanese on Sakhalin

The Health and Welfare Ministry next month will survey Japanese still living on Sakhalin since being detained there by the Soviet Union after World War II to determine how many of them want to relocate to Japan permanently.
JAPAN
Nov 8, 2000

Researchers to test DNA of King Tut

Researchers at Waseda University in Tokyo said Tuesday that they will test the DNA of Egypt's legendary King Tutankhamen to determine the country's royal lineage and the cause of his death.
LIFE / Travel
Nov 8, 2000

Catching Dolly Varden trout in Hokkaido's Churui River

After quickly catching my daily limit of pink salmon during a recent fishing trip to eastern Hokkaido's Churui River, I spent the next couple of hours pursuing smaller game, the oshorokoma, Japan's little native Dolly Varden char. This is a fish that makes up in looks and spunk what it lacks in size....
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 8, 2000

A chance to reshape U.S.-Japan ties

Foreign policy is never a cutting-edge issue in U.S. presidential elections, and this year's campaign is no exception. Even when the candidates have ventured into the territory, the focus has been on China, North Korea or the role of U.S. forces in Europe or Africa or even Haiti. When Japan makes the...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Nov 8, 2000

Nihongo dekiru?

Nihongo dekiru? Since Amazon.com opened for business, its biggest foreign market has been Japan. The company has about 193,000 customers here and they ring up about $34 million worth of sales. Mind you, the domestic Japanese market for online book sales is only $46 million. (In the name of full disclosure,...
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2000

Ouchi gets eight years for role in cultist killing

The Tokyo District Court sentenced a one-time senior Aum Shinrikyo figure to eight years in prison Monday for his role in the 1989 murder of a 21-year-old cultist and the cremation of a follower who died during training in 1993.
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2000

Cyberspace expo to be tough on your mouse, not your feet

The government is preparing to launch a cyberspace exposition on the last day of 2000.
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2000

Parking lot protest leader found hanged

A man spearheading a local citizens' effort to stop construction on a controversial parking lot entrance proposed by Tokyo's Shibuya Ward was found hanged at his residence early Monday, police said.
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2000

Economy-class syndrome has struck 30 Japanese

Some 30 people in Japan have developed such symptoms after long flights as breathing difficulties, increased heart rate, chest pains, loss of consciousness, and interruption of blood circulation, a study conducted by a team of doctors showed Monday.
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2000

Foreign-brand cigarettes account for 25% of market

Foreign-brand cigarettes accounted for a record-high market share of 25 percent in the first half of fiscal 2000, according to an industry association.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 7, 2000

From great fiction, more fiction still

THE TALE OF MURASAKI: A Novel, by Liza Dalby. Doubleday, 2000, 424 pp., $25.95. What if the author of "The Tale of Genji" had written an autobiography and it had remained undiscovered until now? What would it be like?
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 7, 2000

No chippie off the old block

WOODBLOCK KUCHI-E PRINTS: Reflections of Meiji Culture, by Helen Merrit and Nanako Yamada. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000, 284 pp., profusely illustrated, $65. That category of woodblock print called the "kuchi-e" has not been widely investigated. In the large bibliography that concludes...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Nov 7, 2000

A fine fuzzy day out at Rocktober

The inaugural Rocktober festival on Sunday, Oct. 15, at Shiokaze Park in Odaiba, confounded my expectations: I had a great time.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 7, 2000

JCIE publish two books on Asia Pacific Agenda Project

GOVERNANCE IN POST-CRISIS ASIA. Asia Pacific Agenda Project, APAP Singapore Forum, 1998. Japan Center for International Exchange: Tokyo, JCIE Papers, 32, 35 pp. VALUES AND IDENTITY. Asia Pacific Agenda Project, APAP Yokohama Forum, 1998. Japan Center for International Exchange: Tokyo, JCIE Papers, 32,...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 7, 2000

China refuses to let history be

The recent visit to Japan by Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji has certainly created a favorable impression among the Japanese -- a contrast with Chinese President Jiang Zemin's visit two years ago -- but it has had no significant politi cal impact on public opinion in this country.
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2000

1 million yen in bags stolen from display

OSAKA -- Two men broke a storefront window at Osaka's Takashimaya Co. department store outlet and stole six Louis Vuitton handbags worth about 1 million yen in total, local police said Monday.
JAPAN
Nov 6, 2000

Anti-Russia group slipped by security during Putin's visit

A pickup truck carrying a group of Japanese rightists protesting Russian policies slipped through a police cordon near the Russian Embassy during Russian President Vladimir Putin's official visit to Tokyo in September, police disclosed Sunday.
JAPAN
Nov 6, 2000

Mori relieved at hostages' release, hopes for safe return

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori said Sunday he wishes a safe return to Japan for a group of Japanese tourists freed unharmed Saturday after a nearly nine-hour hijacking ordeal in Greece.
COMMENTARY
Nov 6, 2000

Japan has no monopoly on obscuring past

The fuss surrounding a recent book by U.S. academic Herbert Bix, "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan," said to detail for the first time the Showa Emperor's allegedly close involvement in Japan's past militarism, seems strange. The critics are making much of Japan's lack of interest in these revelations....
EDITORIALS
Nov 5, 2000

The ETA wages war against reason

The terror campaign waged by Basque separatists continues. Last week, a car bomb in Madrid killed three people, including a supreme court judge, and wounded 70 others. A few days later, another bomb went off in Barcelona; fortunately, no one was killed when it exploded, although several people were injured....
JAPAN
Nov 5, 2000

Japan group held hostage on Greek bus

ATHENS -- A gunman hijacked a bus carrying more than 30 Japanese tourists, after killing his mother-in-law and a friend in southern Greece on Saturday. There were no immediate reports of injuries to the bus passengers.
JAPAN
Nov 5, 2000

Police take action to fight surge in lock-pickings

There was a time not so long ago when it wasn't even necessary to lock the front door in Kenichi Sonada's neighborhood in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward.

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’