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CULTURE / Art
Jul 18, 2001

Brushes with the divine

Karma works in mysterious ways.
CULTURE / Art
Jul 18, 2001

Top ceramic artists take a final bow

The 38th Asahi Ceramic Art Exhibition's grand prix-winning work looks as if the top is going to snap off at any moment and destroy the piece. Yet it defies gravity, frozen in time by fire.
SOCCER / J. League / ON THE BALL
Jul 17, 2001

Cohosting requires harmonious effort

"Cohosting is like a three-legged race," Lee Yun Taek, co-chairman of the South Korean World Cup Organizing Committee said last month at the Korea-Japan soccer journalists seminar in Seoul.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2001

A bitter lesson awaits Bush in Genoa

WASHINGTON — The G8 summit beginning July 20 in Genoa, Italy — U.S. President George W. Bush's first such meeting with the leaders of the eight principal industrial nations — is shaping up as another galling reality lesson for the new American administration, a reminder of the frustrations of global...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 15, 2001

Master of a dying art

In order to stay true to his art, James Wright prefers to keep a low profile; to blend in with his surroundings. But in his adopted Matsubushi, a rural town in Saitama Prefecture, the fair-haired, 180-cm Scot would seem to be fighting a losing battle. That he also works for the local butcher merely adds...
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Jul 15, 2001

A journey back to old 'new Japanese cuisine'

This week I saw a program on television that showcased shin-washoku, or "new Japanese cuisine," as the latest restaurant trend. The show visited several eateries where the chef/owners had gone abroad, mostly to America, to work in Japanese restaurants and since come back to Japan with a new twist on...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 15, 2001

Controversial textbooks are big sellers for Fusosha

The latest best seller, oddly enough, is a junior high school history textbook. After going on sale on June 1, "Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho" has been at or near the top of the best-seller list and the related social studies text "Atarashii Komin Kyokasho" in the top 10. Already 500,000 copies of the history...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 15, 2001

A spoonful of Koizumi helps the medicine go down

The continuance of Junichiro Koizumi's administration beyond the summer seems like a sure bet: Support for his Cabinet is over 80 percent, his e-mail magazine is being read by hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and every time the opposition questions one of his pronouncements, they are deluged with...
COMMUNITY
Jul 15, 2001

For the sake of sake

Every winter and spring for the last 10 years, Philip Harper reckons he has had no more than a few nights of uninterrupted sleep, but he's more than willing to sacrifice some shut-eye in pursuit of the perfect glass of sake.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 15, 2001

Hunting for justice in the Tokyo war tribunal

JUDGMENT AT TOKYO: The Japanese War Crimes Trials, by Tim Maga. University Press of Kentucky, 2001, 200 pp., $25 (cloth). Fifty-six years since Japan's surrender, World War II's legacy continues to make headlines: Compensation sought by sex slaves; Controversy rages over history textbooks; Prime minister's...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 14, 2001

Patrick Carey

Patrick Carey thinks he may be the only non-Japanese to have walked the entire distance of the Old Tokaido, from Tokyo to Kyoto, and to have written about it.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2001

Turning talk of free trade into policy

LONDON — Japan's trade sanctions joust with China is small beer in world terms — or even in the context of the overall commerce between the two nations. But it sounds a warning bell — all the more so since it is just one of a series of challenges to free and open trade that could throw into doubt...
CULTURE / Film
Jul 11, 2001

Remember Pearl Harbor?

There's been a lot of talk about historical revisionism in Japan lately, given the history textbook controversy and other attempts by rightists to gloss over past aggression in favor of a Reaganesque, feel-good imagining of history.
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 11, 2001

Renegade samurai lead first revolution

Executives of Japan's top 200 corporations were recently given a survey in which they were asked the following question: "Who in the past millennium of world history would you choose to help Japan solve its present financial crisis?"
COMMENTARY
Jul 10, 2001

Breaking the Kyoto impasse

At the Japan-U.S. summit held June 30, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reportedly told President George W. Bush that to curb global warming it was important to respect the spirit of the Kyoto Protocol. Koizumi also said Japan and the United States should continue discussions on the issue.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 8, 2001

Wright the dealer, not the builder

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT AND THE ART OF JAPAN, by Julia Meech. New York: Japan Society/Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2001, 304 pp., 229 illustrations, including 89 color plates. $49.50. Toward the end of his long and successful career as an architect, Frank Lloyd Wright remembered Japan, the scene of so much of...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 8, 2001

Love town where time stands still

OSAKA -- Osaka Mayor Takafumi Isomura repeatedly says he wants to turn the city into an international tourist destination. But camera-toting foreigners snapping pictures of Tobita, one of its oldest and most famous neighborhoods, are probably not what either he or the local business community have in...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 8, 2001

Corporate warriors suit up for revolution

With the Upper House elections looming and the previously overlooked "urban salaryman" vote attracting special attention, NHK has decided to address the issue with a special 21/2-hour discussion Saturday titled "Japan's Salaryman Revolution" (NHK-G, 7:30 p.m.).
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 7, 2001

John Delp

"Being different" is a key to his success, John Delp believes. When he founded his travel business, he made a significant policy decision "to concentrate on serving the foreign community." A third factor lay in his applying the company motto, "the executive touch," to the comfort and well-being of his...
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Jul 6, 2001

Russian SEA shoots for new mark

When Russian Iouri Rytchkov stepped off the plane from Moscow he spoke barely a word of Japanese, or English for that matter. That did not stop the 48-year-old ice-hockey veteran from taking a group of high school boys from Aomori Prefecture and making winners out of them.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jul 5, 2001

A vote of confidence for MLB balloting

Kudos to Ichiro Suzuki. The Seattle Mariners right fielder was recently selected by fans to start the 50th All-Star Game in the Emerald City next week. Not only did he lead the majors with 3,373,035 votes, he becomes only the 13th position player in league history to start the mid-season classic as a...
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Jul 4, 2001

Ajico gets it all together

The supergroup. What a horribly dated concept that is. It smacks of corporate rock and overinflated, believe-your-own-hype egos, as in, "Hey man, you're the coolest guy in your group, and he's the main man in his band, and without me, my band is nothing, so like, if the three of us get together, man,...
CULTURE / Art
Jul 4, 2001

Korean imports offer glimpse of a subtle aesthetic

It is not often that such a rare and wonderfully varied collection is put on public view as that currently at the Seikado Bunko Art Museum. This special exhibition, from the permanent collection of the museum, is on display for the first time since 1994.
LIFE / Travel
Jul 3, 2001

Sitting for 750 years in Fukui's mountains

Eiheiji, the "Temple of Eternal Peace," is one of the largest and most visited temples in Japan. Located 19 km northeast of Fukui, the elaborate complex of more than 70 buildings nestles on a hilltop amid a forest of towering cedar trees, many more than 750 years old.
COMMENTARY
Jul 1, 2001

Tanaka should think twice before speaking

Calm does not seem to prevail in the words and deeds attributed to Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka. She caused a considerable controversy when she expressed the view that Japan should join hands with European countries to persuade the United States not to go ahead with the missile-defense initiative....
EDITORIALS
Jul 1, 2001

Drivers' rights on the line

Hello, New York! You listening? Welcome to another small corner of the convoluted world of unenforceable legislation.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jul 1, 2001

The importance of getting the vote out

Reality rarely bites my brain until I have downed my first cup of morning coffee, and sometimes not even several such cups are enough to juice me from dream mode out into open-eyed awareness.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 1, 2001

Men in suits spell air-con office woe

It's summer. Get ready for the big chill.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 1, 2001

Innovative strategies that get the message across

The pointlessness of election campaigns in Japan is dramatically exemplified by the sound trucks screaming the names of their respective candidates over and over. The stupidity of election campaigns in Japan is audaciously exemplified by something that happened in my own neighborhood last week prior...

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear