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CULTURE / Music
Jun 4, 1999

Musician spreads jazz gospel

"Jazz is my religion," said Joe Lee Wilson in a ceremony last week at the Tokyo campus of the International School of the Sacred Heart, after completing a six-week music workshop with 600 students.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jun 2, 1999

Island life a short cut to evolution

Japan is not just an island; it is an archipelago.
EDITORIALS
May 27, 1999

Tiny, but deadly killers

A silent killer has been stalking Malaysia. Since October, over 250 people have been sickened and over 100 have died as a result of a mysterious viral infection. Despite intensive government measures to combat the outbreak, it continues to baffle health investigators. There is uncertainty about the virus'...
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...
LIFE / Travel
May 13, 1999

The 'red, green and white lines': rubies, jade and heroin

Like most things connected to money and profit in Myanmar, there is a sinister side to the north's resurgent economy, a subtext that generally eludes visitors' attention. Still, at least one travel book, Nicholas Greenwood's original and often very funny "Bradt Guide to Burma," has picked up on it. Not...
JAPAN
May 12, 1999

Is Japan ready for World Cup fans?

Staff writer
CULTURE / Books
May 11, 1999

Coming of age, piece by piece

NAMAKO: Sea Cucumber, by Linda Watanabe McFerrin. Coffee House Press, 1998, 256 pp., $14.95 (paper). Like the sea cucumber, Ellen, the multicultural 9-year-old narrator of Linda Watanabe McFerrin's delightful first novel, cannot be easily classified. Animal or vegetable? Living and feeling, or merely...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Apr 28, 1999

Tyranny of temptation

The future was supposed to be darker. Technology, in the service of some vast, all-encompassing power, was going to enslave us. Human beings would be reduced to ciphers, forced to live anonymous, interchangeable lives.
JAPAN
Apr 22, 1999

Yunnan pins tourism hopes on expo

Staff writer
JAPAN
Apr 21, 1999

Empress, Foley laud CWAJ feats

Several hundred past and present members of the College Women's Association of Japan, which promotes international education and cross-cultural exchange, celebrated the group's 50th anniversary Wednesday at a luncheon with the Empress and U.S. Ambassador Thomas Foley.
JAPAN
Apr 20, 1999

U.S. English study fair now touring

A fair to provide information about intensive English-language courses at U.S. colleges and other academic institutions will travel to Fukuoka, Osaka and Tokyo later this month.
JAPAN
Apr 14, 1999

Accelerate reform to avert depression: OECD

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on Wednesday urged Japan to expedite regulatory reform efforts to avoid a depression and lay the groundwork for sustainable long-term growth.
LIFE / Travel
Apr 7, 1999

An island wedding idyll

Two rather large Fijian tribesmen, wielding clubs once used in tribal wars to smash enemies' skulls, stand on either side of Yoichi Matsumoto and Kaori Tanaka (not their real names). The young Japanese couple look slightly terrified, but not because of the warriors' threatening pose: It's because they...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Apr 6, 1999

Dub hemperors go bongkers

Masa, the head honcho of Japanese dub emperors Audio Active, doesn't beat about the bush. In fact, he's probably smoked the damn thing.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Apr 4, 1999

A hare-raising interview with the Easter bunny

Happy Easter. This morning, I bring you this exclusive interview excerpted from my unpublished book, "The Unauthorized Biography of Peter Cottontail."
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Mar 19, 1999

Journey to the center of Cornelius

Some trips involve buses and airplanes, others need chemical assistance. Some trips, however, require only a stereo. Keigo Oyamada, a k a Cornelius, is an expert choreographer of the latter form of travel. His last record, "Fantasma," catapulted listeners through an orange-colored psychedelic wonderland...
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 17, 1999

Become a friend of the Kurilsky Reserve

"It isn't in Japan, so why should I care?" is the reaction of some Japanese to the issue of conservation in the Northern Territories. Yet there are plenty of good reasons why it is in Japan's interest to take a leadership role in protecting wildlife on the islands:
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 17, 1999

Disputed territory is a paradise in peril

Any Japanese schoolchild can wax eloquent about the Hoppo Ryodo or "Northern Territories," the tiny islands Japan has demanded back from Russia since World War II. And with Japan keen to resolve its border dispute with Russia and wrap up a peace treaty by the end of next year, the issue looks likely...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Mar 17, 1999

'Managing' marine mammals to death

Part two of two parts
JAPAN
Mar 8, 1999

Vietnamese prime minister to visit Tokyo soon

Staff writer
EDITORIALS
Mar 4, 1999

Japan passes a medical milestone

The nation breathed an almost audible collective sigh of relief this week, thankful that a successful precedent has now been set for organ transplants. Apart from the media hullabaloo and a short-lived controversy over the diagnosis a couple of days before the verdict of legal brain-death was pronounced,...
EDITORIALS
Feb 28, 1999

Shiny happy people

The elusive butterfly of happiness has been fluttering before humanity for a long time. America's Thomas Jefferson declared the pursuit of it an inalienable human right over 220 years ago. But a good 1,800 years or so before that, another great farmer-philosopher had seen the urge to chase happiness...
JAPAN
Feb 25, 1999

Ministry targets U.S. elderly to fix tourism slump

The Transport Ministry will launch a campaign next week to encourage U.S. senior citizens to visit Japan in a bid to stimulate the slumping tourism industry, ministry officials said on Thursday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 21, 1999

Two-legged enlightenment in land of soccer gods

Let's talk about religion. Soccer, that is. Many Americans don't like soccer because they say there's not enough action. Americans like fast action sports like American football, rugby and ice hockey. Not me. I like soccer because it's slow. I can get up, go to the bathroom, refill my beer and popcorn,...
JAPAN
Feb 5, 1999

AmEx exec sees silver lining to recession

While the nation's economy is reeling from years of recession, eroding the confidence of many players in the financial industry, Ian Marsh, president of American Express International Inc., Japan, says now is the time to invest in the Japanese market.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 1999

Konishiki broadens kids' horizons with trek to Japan

A warm breeze blew into Tokyo last week and on its wings were 35 of Konishiki's Kids.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jan 13, 1999

We ski, Web ski

I've got a problem, and rather than just let it smolder, I figured the best way to confront it is to go public
JAPAN
Jan 11, 1999

Winter, jobless chill descends upon Osaka's homeless

"As things stand now, I have no way but to die by the roadside. Even if I get a job, I'm too weak to work," said a 60-year-old former day-laborer who has been homeless for five months.
JAPAN
Dec 29, 1998

Yearend travel nears peak

Vacationers started to crowd JR Tokyo Station and Haneda airport Tuesday bound for their hometowns for the New Year's holiday, and the yearend outbound rush will peak today, officials said.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami