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JAPAN
Sep 1, 1999

Post offices try hand at electronic sales

The nation's 100 major post offices launched a new automated shopping service Wednesday for products ranging from airline tickets to game software, entering yet another new business.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 31, 1999

Buddhist riffs that are and aren't poetry

For some time now, the trappings (if not the tenets) of Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy have been making their way into the popular Western consciousness.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 28, 1999

Nihonga exhibit blossoming

To be able to admire paintings by the nation's top 120 nihonga artists in the confines of a single room sounds quite remarkable. Yet when the new assembly building of Zojoji Temple in Tokyo opens its doors in the spring of 2001, the coffered ceiling of its hall will be adorned with that number of Japanese-style...
JAPAN
Aug 23, 1999

Internet station pulls in global FM tunes

Staff writer
JAPAN
Aug 18, 1999

Obuchi, Kato open campaign offices for LDP race

Liberal Democratic Party factions led by Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and former party Secretary General Koichi Kato separately opened election campaign headquarters in Tokyo Wednesday for next month's party presidential race.
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Aug 10, 1999

Exotic rhythms spice up world-music scene

Exotic and tropical are words that are overused in the descriptions of music from foreign cultures -- they are more appropriate for tourist brochures. However, with musicians set to tour Japan from Hawaii, Bali and Congo, those descriptions are actually fairly fitting, and should provide the perfect...
LIFE / Travel
Aug 10, 1999

Dive into the dazzling Philippines

Ask scuba divers what attracts them to the sport, and they'll probably tell you that it's the exotic underwater world. A dive in Japan, however, often means endless train rides, big crowds, small spaces and exorbitant sums of money -- all too similar to the everyday world.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 7, 1999

Through the unflinching eye of realism

Most painters, whatever style they eventually adopt, generally start their career by setting their own likeness down on canvas. It is a kind of baptism by fire attempted once and usually abandoned. This we know because there are far fewer portraits of artists in middle or old age than in their youth....
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Aug 4, 1999

Islands of diversity and divergence

Although the islands of New Zealand, which I wrote about last time, are fascinating, we don't need to travel so far to find isolated islands supporting interesting biodiversity. Japan's own southern archipelago, straggling from Kyushu toward Taiwan, known as the Nansei Shoto, is so rich in both flora...
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Aug 3, 1999

Endangered turtles vs. encaustic tourists

Something happened to the face of the Greek car rental man when we mentioned that we'd come to Zakynthos to see loggerhead sea turtles. His easy smile slipped.
JAPAN
Jul 30, 1999

Two-way translation headed for PCs

OSAKA -- Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and a governmental research firm said Friday they have developed a two-way Japanese-English speech translation system usable on notebook PCs.
JAPAN
Jul 27, 1999

The right not to be fingerprinted

Staff writer
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Jul 22, 1999

Ishikawa sake guaranteed to give you summer chills

One of the more interesting things about the sake world is that interspersed between long-famous sake-brewing regions, such as Fushimi, Nada and Niigata, are locales that have well-established sake traditions all their own. Places such as Yamagata, Shizuoka, Shimane and Tottori have well-defined styles...
EDITORIALS
Jul 17, 1999

Booking a vacation

Summer is here and, with it, the prospect of vacation. People are already packing: passports, bathing suits, cameras . . . and books. Not many leave without at least one paperback stuffed into their bags, if only out of a vague sense that books are to August as rain is to July -- a defining element....
LIFE / Style & Design / SIMPLY DIVINE
Jul 15, 1999

In the bag

Danielle Pisani-Salerno is the ultimate bag lady. At the moment her Hiroo home is bursting with handbags in endlessly different shapes and sizes that she has just produced for her new label, Virgo.
COMMUNITY
Jul 1, 1999

The Hunt for ultimate beauty is on

Makeup artist Maggie Hunt is a wanted woman.
JAPAN
Jun 29, 1999

Japanese passports big ticket for forgers, scam artists

Staff writer
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 29, 1999

'Kaempfer's Japan': Tokugawa Edo as never before

Engelbert Kaempfer, German physician and historian, first arrived in Japan in 1690 to take up the position of physician at the Dutch trading agency on the island of Deshima in Nagasaki Harbor. Although Japan had already secluded itself, the Dutch traders were allowed a certain amount of freedom. This...
JAPAN
Jun 23, 1999

Emergency contraception is here, but where?

A day after spending the night with her steady boyfriend, Mika roamed the area around her office in Tokyo, desperately looking for an obstetrician or gynecologist who could prescribe the medication she sought — an emergency contraceptive pill.
JAPAN
Jun 22, 1999

Disabled train air crews to handle with care

To help handle the increasing number of physically disabled people flying overseas, two support groups for the handicapped held class Tuesday for airline crews at Narita Airport to show them how their flights can be made more comfortable.
COMMUNITY
Jun 19, 1999

Making the case for quality

They say, "The clothes make the man," but a briefcase is just as important for a salaryman. It is not only a symbol of his profession but also an indispensable part of his accouterments, something he can't leave home without.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 11, 1999

Come clean on defense policy

In July last year I took issue with an article written by former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa ("Japan-U.S. Security Treaty: A kind of insurance policy" July 11, 1998). In his recent May 31 article "A de facto treaty revision," Hosokawa called for "a full dress debate on se curity issues, including...
LIFE / Travel
Jun 9, 1999

Adventurer forced to the last resort

I'm not into resorts Period.
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...

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