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BUSINESS
Sep 6, 2000

Kajima rules out buying into rival

Major construction firm Kajima Corp. said Tuesday it has no plans to take a stake in its debt-ridden rival Kumagai Gumi but held out the possibility of providing management personnel and forming a business alliance.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Sep 6, 2000

Love's more than just the money, honey

Back in the halcyon days of my young adulthood, when I used to sigh feverishly into my fiancee's walnut eyes, you can rest assured I spied romance, hope and her contact lenses, but never -- never! -- a pair of yen stickers.
COMMENTARY
Sep 6, 2000

A haphazard path to recovery

LONDON -- Reports from Tokyo suggest that Japanese government and business leaders have not properly thought through economic policies designed to ensure recovery. Each problem seems to be treated in isolation, and decisions appear to be taken on the basis of what is most likely to satisfy the various...
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2000

Managers wise to be disabled-friendly: speaker

Managers who recruit disabled people and work to accommodate them not only tap an underused well of talent but simultaneously create an environment that will ease the transition of able-bodied workers should they fall victim to repetitive stress injuries or other perils of the modern office.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 31, 2000

Frugality boom highlights fun and fulfillment of the simple life

As explained in this column several months ago, Japanese TV often adapts successful programming ideas from abroad. Still, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a local version of "Survivor." Reality-based programming is already available in Japan. Years ago, "Denpa Shonen" moved beyond such simplistic...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 29, 2000

End this dysfunctional relationship

LEAVING JAPAN: Observations on the Dysfunctional U.S.-Japan Relationship. By Mike Millard. M.E. Sharpe: Armonk, NY, 2000, 200 pp., $37.95. The $79-billion question is why does the United States continue to tolerate the lopsided economic relationship with Japan that led to a such a massive trade imbalance...
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2000

Youth restoring 'chindon-ya' name

"Chindon-ya," traditional street performers who promote shops, pachinko parlors and other local businesses, were once on the verge of extinction due to a lack of successors.
COMMENTARY
Aug 23, 2000

The summer 'silly season' everywhere

Europe is on holiday. Go to Paris and you will find half the restaurants shut. Many industries close down for weeks, and their workers flock to holiday resorts. Britain is not much different from the rest of Europe in this respect -- although British firms tend to stagger holidays more than in other...
BUSINESS
Aug 23, 2000

Anxiety overload caused failure in Seattle: Hills

WASHINGTON -- Former U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills offered her assessment of why the WTO talks in Seattle ended in failure.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 21, 2000

Japan's missing management

The failure of the department store operator Sogo Co. is a typical case of corporate governance gone awry. It has exposed some of the old problems in Japanese-style management, relations between main creditor banks and corporate clients, and bank regulation by the Finance Ministry. The incident offers...
BUSINESS
Aug 18, 2000

Secondhand comic book firm tapping into American interest in 'manga'

Savoring his success dealing in secondhand comic books and character items in Japan, Masuzo Furukawa, president of Mandarake Inc., is now eyeing an overseas market he believes is thirsting for Japanese "manga" culture.
JAPAN
Aug 18, 2000

Five found dead at self-styled guru's house

OSAKA -- The badly decomposed bodies of five adult siblings were found by police Wednesday evening in the Sennan, Osaka Prefecture, home of their 66-year-old uncle, a self-styled guru.
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2000

Ministry to launch new lifestyle survey next year

The Health and Welfare Ministry will launch a survey next year to track the lives of newborns and certain groups of adults in a bid to better understand social problems such as the dwindling birthrate, ministry sources said Monday.
EDITORIALS
Aug 12, 2000

Preparing to welcome foreign students

Japan could soon see the long-expected increase in the number of foreign students attending its universities and specialized schools that the government has been promoting with only limited success. In a marked departure for this country's official development assistance policy, a new program scheduled...
JAPAN
Aug 11, 2000

Agreement signed in 'Nishi-Tokyo'

Faced with a declining birthrate and falling tax revenues, officials of the cities of Hoya and Tanashi in western Tokyo signed an agreement Thursday to launch the merger of the two municipalities.
COMMUNITY
Aug 10, 2000

Have lifestyle, don't need kids

Kazumi Kato has been married for 15 years. When she got married at the age of 22, she planned to have a baby once she turned 26 or 27. But when she reached that age, she still did not feel like becoming a mother, and decided to wait until she was 30. When she turned 30, however, she still did not feel...
BUSINESS
Aug 7, 2000

If Europe can unify currency, why can't Southeast Asia?

The Southeast Asian economy has reportedly found the path to recovery after being crippled by the regional financial crisis of 1997.
BUSINESS
Aug 5, 2000

Nikkeiren moves toward OK for Keidanren tieup

FUJIYOSHIDA, Yamanashi Pref. -- Business leaders attending a Japan Federation of Employers' Associations (Nikkeiren) meeting here agreed Friday that the group should pursue a merger with the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren).
BUSINESS
Aug 2, 2000

Toyota to boost output at Derby plant by 30%

Toyota Motor Corp. will spend billions of yen to increase the output of its British factory in Derby by some 30 percent until it is making about 230,000 vehicles a year in 2001, company officials said Monday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 30, 2000

Nigel Mortimer

When he was a youth, Kiyomu Shimomura found his mentor in the late scholar Masahiro Yasuoka. Yasuoka wrote the draft of the statement made by the Emperor Showa at the end of World War II. That was the first time for a Japanese emperor to speak to the people, and in his radio address to the nation he...
CULTURE / Music
Jul 29, 2000

Kiwi music offers delicious alternatives

For a nation with a population barely equal to that of an international metropolis, New Zealand's vibrant and diverse music scene commands respect for its innovative yet self-effacing approach. From the melodic pop-meisters of the pioneering indie label Flying Nun to the operatic grandeur of Kiri Te...
JAPAN
Jul 27, 2000

Advisory panel demands schooling for 5-year-olds

The government should let children start their nine-year mandatory education when they turn 5, one year earlier than the current system, according to a draft report drawn up by an advisory panel on education to Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.
JAPAN
Jul 20, 2000

Kadena Air Base noise stirs memories of war

NISHINOMIYA, Hyogo Pref. -- For many elderly people living near the U.S. Kadena Air Base in central Okinawa, aircraft noise is intolerable not only because it disrupts their sleep but also because it brings back unbearable memories of war, according to Kozo Hiramatsu, an expert in acoustic ecology.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Jul 20, 2000

It's convention time again

It is convention time, folks. The Republicans meet in Philadelphia's Comcast-Spectator's First Union Center from July 31 through Aug. 3; the Democrats at the Staples Center in Los Angeles from Aug. 14 through 17. The conventions have a serious purpose. They are the supreme authorities in which the parties...
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 19, 2000

Really roughing it in the wilderness of Sakhalin

Few people would associate "tourist paradise" with "Sakhalin." The lobster claw-shaped island lying just 40 km from Hokkaido is best known for the rush to exploit resources on its northeastern shelf, a repository of crude oil and natural gas.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 18, 2000

Get in the game with 'Ultra Nippon'

ULTRA NIPPON: How Japan Reinvented Football, by Jonathan Birchall. Headline, 2000, 256 pp., 16.99 pounds (cloth). Hundreds of books have been written about the J. League since its launch in 1993, and now one has been written in English.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 18, 2000

Personal relationships are everything

STAKEHOLDING: The Japanese Bottom Line, by Robert J. Ballon and Keikichi Honda. Tokyo: The Japan Times, 2000, 240 pp., 38 tables, 6 figures. 3,000 yen (cloth). One year, an acquaintance recalls, her family started getting an unusually large number of "oseibo" (yearend presents) and "ochuugen" (midyear...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 17, 2000

Private sector CCP's double-edged sword

BEIJING -- It is not often appreciated that accession to the World Trade Organization is a one-sided process: The applicant country has to make a series of concessions to existing members in return for gaining access to the trade concessions that existing members have extended to each other over a period...
CULTURE / Music
Jul 16, 2000

A guide to the music festivals of summer

The recession has reportedly made concert promoters' lives miserable, and yet it doesn't seem to have affected the flood of foreign acts rushing to these shores.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan