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MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Apr 13, 2000

10 questions for the man from Slovakia

One of the pluses of hanging around the press box at soccer matches is never knowing who you're going to bump into. It might be a manager or player, a wife, a girlfriend, a TV star, an old friend, anybody really. More often than not you see a strange face and people whisper, "Who's that?" or "Isn't that...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 13, 2000

Tiny Qatar brings freedom of the press to the Arab world

QATAR -- On a recent visit to Qatar, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak wanted to satisfy his curiosity about something bothering him and most other Arab rulers. It was past midnight when he descended unannounced on the Jazeera TV station. His surprise was hardly less than that of staff still around at...
COMMUNITY
Apr 13, 2000

Grassroots effort helps sick kids

Like many of his Russian countrymen, 33-year-old Nikolai Lanine is not quick to smile. His steady and intelligent speech is punctuated with almost imperceptible shoulder shrugs, the body language of someone describing a seemingly futile situation, yet his actions provide evidence to the contrary.
COMMUNITY
Apr 13, 2000

Striving to fulfill a real whale of a task

FUKUOKA -- Each year during the colder months (about December to February) a variety of whales pass northern Kyushu on their way south to warmer waters and richer feeding grounds, following the Tsushima Warm Current down from Okhotsk along Japan's west coast. Larger whales tend to trail the Pacific Ocean...
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 13, 2000

Bangkok's never too far away

You can't get authentic Thai food in Tokyo south of Kabukicho -- at least that's what the conventional wisdom would have us believe. Indeed, as with any such sweeping generalization, there's a kernel of truth to it -- as long as what you're after is hawker food that's rough but ever ready, gentle on...
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Apr 13, 2000

Labels: required reading for wine appreciation

When a standard 750-ml/75-cl bottle of wine looms before you in a wine shop, a supermarket or on a restaurant table, a story is about to unfold. The bottle shape usually provides at least a clue to the producing region and the labels should be able to fill in all the basic data and sometimes more. In...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Apr 13, 2000

Fish, sake and crowds come together at Uoshin

Like the indigenous beverages of most countries, sake developed along with its national cuisine. Indeed, there are great differences in Japanese cuisine from region to region, small country though Japan may be, and these differences are reflected in the subtle differences in the sake.
EDITORIALS
Apr 12, 2000

A Korean dialogue at last

In a long-awaited development, the governments of North Korea and South Korea announced Monday that they would hold their first-ever presidential summit June 12 to 14 in Pyongyang. This meeting is a victory for the "sunshine" policy of South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and could fundamentally change...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Apr 12, 2000

Just browsing?

It used to be so simple. You had Eudora for your e-mail and your tiny Mosaic browser for trolling through text-only university archives and contemplating the bright future of the World! Wide! Web!
CULTURE / Books
Apr 12, 2000

Fingleton deflates the New Economy

IN PRAISE OF HARD INDUSTRIES: Why Manufacturing, Not the Information Technology, Is the Key to Future Prosperity, by Eamonn Fingleton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999, 273 pp., $26 (cloth). A 24-year-old Englishman with a ponytail waltzed into the offices of a London venture-capital company...
LIFE / Travel
Apr 12, 2000

Taking it to the skies of Bangkok

On the anniversary of the King's 72nd birthday in December 1999, the revolutionary concept of electricallypowered mass transit finally hit Bangkok, a city long dependent on the noisy, noxious, internal combustion engine. Two short elevated lines, totaling 23.7 km of track, were built at a cost of 54.9...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 12, 2000

The wellspring of pacifism in Japan

PROPHETS OF PEACE: Pacifism and Cultural Identity in Japan's New Religions, by Robert Kisala. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999, 242 pp., $24.95 (paper). The so-called Peace Constitution is a defining feature of modern Japan. In the aftermath of World War II, Japan has perceived itself, and...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 12, 2000

Residue of America's dirty fingerprints

PARALLAX VISIONS: Making Sense of American-East Asian Relations at the End of the Century, by Bruce Cumings. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999, 280 pp., $27.95 (cloth). The field of Asian studies has attracted some brilliant scholars, many of whom have controversial views. Chalmers Johnson...
COMMENTARY
Apr 12, 2000

No sympathy for politicians

I have sometimes said to my wife about a prominent politician, "Poor old so and so! He must be exhausted keeping to such a hard schedule. It's a tough life being a peripatetic politician." My wife's invariable response has been, "Don't waste your sympathy on politicians. They didn't have to accept their...
SOCCER / J. League
Apr 11, 2000

Decision on Troussier expected May 25

Whether or not Japan manager Philippe Troussier's contract will be extended is to be decided at a Japan Football Association executive committee meeting slated for May 25, Kunishige Kamamoto, JFA vice president and chief of the JFA's technical development department for the 2002 World Cup, said Monday...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Apr 11, 2000

Femi, from Fuji to Tokyo

In Nigeria there is a music called Fuji. In the early 1990s, Fuji was the most popular music in Nigeria. The music's originator, Sikiru Barrister, named it after seeing a postcard of Mount Fuji. He said it was the most beautiful mountain he had ever seen, and dreamed of playing or recording in view of...
CULTURE / Film
Apr 11, 2000

Lessons learned from the master

"What I really want to do is direct." This phrase, heard everywhere in Hollywood from interviews with A-list stars to conversations between waiters at Hamburger Inn, has become a joke -- to everyone but the legions of gottabe directors themselves. Among this crowd, scriptwriters have traditionally been...
EDITORIALS
Apr 9, 2000

Stop to listen -- and to help

Those words of advice are intended for every member of the nation's police forces. The case of the three Saitama prefectural police officers just dismissed and expected to be indicted for falsifying documents is only the latest in a series of incidents suggesting that many police have forgotten, or never...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 9, 2000

EU knocking down the Tower of Babel

BRUSSELS — The European Union brings together 15 states with a total population of 380 million people. Thirteen other countries have applied to join. Europeans speak some 45 different languages, of which 11 are recognized as official languages for the purposes of EU business. But millions of European...
COMMUNITY
Apr 9, 2000

Financial services fly at Banner

Some loudmouth once said that anyone who was in Japan during the bubble years of the late 1980s and had not made money -- a lot of money -- was a fool. Well, that makes me a dunce of the first order.
CULTURE / Art
Apr 9, 2000

Gallery speaks for flip side of reality

Gallery Speak For, located in Tokyo's Daikanyama district, is decidedly not like other galleries.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Apr 9, 2000

BayStars' Rose picks right up where he left off with hot bat

How about that start by Yokohama BayStars cleanup hitter Bobby Rose? In the 'Stars first six games of the season, five of which they won, Rose went 14-for-21, belted four home runs, including a grand slam, drove in 12, scored nine, hit four doubles and compiled a .667 batting average, .750 on-base percentage...
CULTURE / Music
Apr 9, 2000

Conductors introduce some new stars

It is fair to assume that anyone reading this column is a music lover of some degree. Take a moment to reflect, though, that there was a time in your life when you had never heard a note of music. What was it that inveigled your innocent ear? When was it? Where were you? Who introduced you?
EDITORIALS
Apr 8, 2000

The game of the name

There are hints in the spring air of a diplomatic thaw: The Clinton administration is poised, they say, to let Libya out of the doghouse. Sanctions may be lifted, and Americans may once again vacation in Tripoli. Modest celebrations are in order, but there is one caveat. Washington should not let the...
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 8, 2000

Shall we hula dance?

MATSUSHIGE, Tokushima Pref. -- "It began with a cold," Lance Kita, 24, replied when asked how he came to teach hula in Japan. Kita, raised in Hawaii, had never taught or even performed the dance native to his home state before coming to Shikoku, Japan's least visited major island.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 8, 2000

Bicultural relations of the palate

FUKUOKA -- Think about how you enjoy red wine. With a tasty pasta dish or rich gamey stew, perhaps? Well, how about sushi? Few would answer yes to this one -- unless they were culinary ninja, as creative director Daisuke Utagawa of Washington, D.C.'s first sushi restaurant Sushi-Ko, describes himself....
MORE SPORTS
Apr 7, 2000

You've come a long way, baby

Their faces may be swollen and their noses might get bloodied, but Japanese female boxers have no intention of stepping out of the ring.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2000

India still hurts from Nehru's blunders

NEW DELHI -- It seems absurd that almost 53 years after India became a free country that it should remain without recognized borders with its most powerful neighbor, China.
COMMUNITY
Apr 7, 2000

'Parasite singles': problem or victims?

Recently much attention is being paid in Japan to the so-called "parasite singles," grown children in their 20s and 30s who have left school and gotten jobs but are still unmarried and living at home with their parents.
COMMENTARY
Apr 6, 2000

Still searching for balance

Every spring, the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan sends a delegation to Washington, D.C. to meet with senior U.S. administration officials and key members of Congress to discuss issues of concern to the U.S. business community in Japan. Participating in the ACCJ visit last month for the seventh...

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