Search - about-us

 
 
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2000

Enhancing global security

The business of the world has changed almost beyond recognition over the course of the last 100 years. At the turn of the last century, Japan was the first country outside Europe to break into the ranks of the great powers. Yet even until World War II, international affairs were largely Eurocentric in...
COMMUNITY
Jan 23, 2000

U.S. lawyer set to solve your immigration woes

Being a quietly spoken, modest-sounding soul, immigration lawyer Mark Ivener, of the California-based law practice Ivener & Holt, may not like the following revelation. But the fact is he gives a good part of his professional time for free by giving immigration lectures and seminars.
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Jan 23, 2000

Buried in time

A woman writes of her problem. It is likely to remain one. She has a collection of what she calls bark pictures, produced in Japan after World War II. She describes them as landscapes composed of mountains made of tree bark, trees made of moss, and painted water and skies. She doubts if they were considered...
EDITORIALS
Jan 22, 2000

A mother's place is in the Diet

Babies are always news, but an even more special baby than usual is expected in Japan in April. Its mother is a news-maker herself: Diet member and former Olympic speed skater and cyclist Ms. Seiko Hashimoto. Dubbed a "superwoman" of Japanese athletics, Ms. Hashimoto competed in seven consecutive Olympics...
CULTURE / Music
Jan 22, 2000

Partying the century right on out the door

I don't know about you, but I am glad to see the 20th century out the door! And I hope all those crooks out there that made millions on the Y2K scare choke on all that cash -- taking advantage of a bad situation like that is shameful, like selling shovels to rescue workers at the site of an earthquake....
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 22, 2000

Vision, not structure, is key to recovery

This is a time of unprecedented opportunity for Japan. It may seem strange to speak of opportunity when the country's political and economic experts are struggling with the challenges of structural change. However, I believe the current pessimism in the country is the result of two misconceptions.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 22, 2000

Veteran of Hagi continues rediscovery

Most of the great potters who rediscovered and revived old potting styles in the early to mid years of the 20th century have passed on into the great kiln in the sky. Yet there is one legend who is still potting: Hagi ceramist Kyusetsu Miwa XI.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 22, 2000

Ginza's Satani Gallery closes doors with clearance sale of collection

It was immediately evident that something was very different.
CULTURE / Music
Jan 21, 2000

How to build a career on no satisfaction

Whining, I was once told a long time ago, will get you nowhere, but in our current "culture of complaint" everybody thinks they have the right to air their grievances. That doesn't mean everybody has to listen to them, but in such an environment some people have elevated whining to an art form.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2000

French back weaker yen

French Finance Minister Christian Sautter on Friday said he still shares Japan's concern over the yen's appreciation.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2000

NCB chiefs plead not guilty to '97 window-dressing

Three former executives of the now-defunct Nippon Credit Bank pleaded not guilty Friday to falsifying the bank's fiscal 1997 earnings report to conceal bad loans. The defendants are the bank's former chairman, Hiroshi Kubota, 68; a former president, Shigeoki Togo, 56; and a former vice president, Tadao...
EDITORIALS
Jan 20, 2000

Indonesia on the brink

Indonesia threatens to become engulfed by violence. Religion, nationalism and feelings of victimization have triggered conflict across the immense archipelago. Clashes between Muslims and Christians have prompted calls for an Islamic jihad, or holy war. Some fear the breakup of the world's fourth-most...
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2000

Cult makes case against new surveillance law

During a hearing before the Public Security Examination Commission, lawyers for Aum Shinrikyo said the cult does not fit the criteria for application of the so-called anti-Aum law, and argued that the new law violates the Constitution, which ensures freedom of religion. The hearing, held at the Justice...
LIFE / Style & Design
Jan 20, 2000

Need a winter pick-me-up? Citrus splash quenches blues

Lately I've found myself sprinkling essential oil of orange here and there in the house. It seems suited to winter because something about the scent is both summery and wintery all at once.
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2000

G-7 expected to hold low-stress meeting

Staff writer Policy coordination over the yen's rise against the dollar will be the biggest issue for Japan at Saturday's financial meeting of the Group of Seven industrial countries in Tokyo. Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa hopes the G-7 will share Japan's concern about the yen's appreciation; the...
JAPAN / Media
Jan 20, 2000

Of the people, for the people: the mass appeal of konbini

Though Japan is famous for importing technology from the West and then sending it back in cheaper and better form, business practices remain homegrown. The shining exception is convenience stores, an American concept that has been so successful here that one could say it subsidized the rest of the Japanese...
COMMUNITY
Jan 20, 2000

Multifaceted legacy is rock solid

The public will never know what Ronald Winston looks like. Until he dies, that is.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 20, 2000

Punishing compassion and medical advice

It's hard to think of much positive to say about U.S. presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush. The best case for the latter is that he isn't the former. The best case for the former is that he isn't Bill Clinton.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jan 20, 2000

Kokudo's Tucker still showing kids how it's done

After a dozen years in the National Hockey League, a season playing in Italy, and now into his third campaign in Japan, one might expect John Tucker to look forward to that 9 a.m. practice about as much as John Rocker looks forward to his next trip to New York.
LIFE
Jan 20, 2000

Living within the abundance of less

When Osamu Nakamura is not in the mountains of Nepal studying woodblock print making, he's almost always in the small farmhouse among the terraced rice fields in the interior of Shikoku that he calls home. He has no telephone, so if you want to visit, you have to stop by to see if he is in.
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2000

Four candidates begin campaigning for Osaka governor

OSAKA -- In what is expected to be a hard-fought campaign with repercussions for the ruling coalition, the race for the Osaka governor's seat officially kicked off Thursday morning. Disagreement between Liberal Democratic Party headquarters in Tokyo and its Osaka chapter over who to nominate has led...
COMMUNITY
Jan 19, 2000

Lafcadio Hearn: interpreter of two disparate worlds

He created an illusion and lived his days and nights within its confines. That illusion was his Japan. He found in Japan the ideal coupling of the cerebral and the sensual, mingled and indistinguishable, the one constantly recharging the other and affording him the inspiration to write.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jan 19, 2000

Space on the range

When the deliciously innovative iMacs were unveiled last year there was a collective gasp: What?! No floppy drive? How do I transfer files?
BUSINESS
Jan 19, 2000

Manufacturing, outlays need watching

Although industrial production accounts for only a little more than 20 percent of the nation's overall economic activity, we cannot take our eyes off developments in the manufacturing industries in assessing economic prospects.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jan 19, 2000

Um, you know, like, how to be fluent in Japanese

Lots of people think one sure way to improve your Nihongo skills is to marry a Japanese. They hold this view even knowing a good textbook is cheaper and takes up less space. In my case, however, not only did I marry a Japanese, I married one licensed to teach her native tongue.
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 19, 2000

Visit to Toad Hall: hip-hop as a way of life

I have a friend, an exceptional naturalist, who has traveled this country widely from Iriomote-jima to Hokkaido, yet who swears that he will never visit the Ogasawara Islands.
EDITORIALS
Jan 19, 2000

Japan needs the presence of foreigners

Four years ago, central government officials and bureaucrats, especially at the Education Ministry, were expressing concern over the decreasing number of students from abroad coming to study at Japanese universities. The decline in students from neighboring Asian countries in particular, the first such...
JAPAN
Jan 19, 2000

LDP overcomes internal strife, backs Obuchi's fiscal plans

Amid criticism from some Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers, the LDP's annual convention on Wednesday endorsed Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi's call for "one more push" on the economy in the hopes of getting it back on track through massive deficit spending. During a speech at a Tokyo hotel before an audience...
LIFE / Travel
Jan 19, 2000

Down the Ayeyarwady River to the sea

The steamer docked at the sun-soaked Yangon pier could have just sailed in on a river of ink straight from Kipling's pen.
JAPAN
Jan 19, 2000

Keio pounds rail passes into benches

In an effort to be more environment-friendly, Keio Electric Railway Co. began placing new benches made of recycled railway passes and plastic waste material at its stations Wednesday. It takes about 1,000 of the passes -- cut into particles and mixed with old plastic trays and other materials -- to...

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’