Search - japan

 
 
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jul 26, 2001

Environmentalist on the stump

Despite the sky-high popularity of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, suspicion remains that his Liberal Democratic Party has simply cloaked its wolfish heart in a soft perm. Many environmentalists fear that after Sunday's election the LDP will step up efforts to stimulate the economy by undertaking the...
EDITORIALS
Jul 23, 2001

A move toward multipolarity

China and Russia -- the two neighboring major powers that have been at odds for decades -- have begun building relations of lasting friendship. The signing last week of a treaty for this purpose will have a significant bearing on the future of Northeast Asia as well as the world at large. The new friendship...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2001

Exploitation of children takes terrible toll

Agnes Chan, ambassador of the Japan Committee for UNICEF, as well as a popular TV personality and pop singer, visited the Philippines from June 2 to 6 on a fact-finding mission for the UNICEF Japan group to see for herself the plight of children there, especially conditions surrounding the commercial...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 22, 2001

The kimono celebrated

KIMONO. Text and photos by Paul van Riel, introduction and comments by Liza Dalby. Leiden: Hotel Publishing, 144 pp., color photos, $49.95. Folklorist Kunio Yanagita long ago said that "clothing is the most direct indication of a people's general frame of mind." If this is so, what then is one to...
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Jul 22, 2001

Gently add mom's miso, while stirring in humility

Last week while the kami-san was ringing up a customer's bill, I happened to glance down at the scrawled notepad where she keeps track of a table's order — a list of all the food and drink consumed.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 22, 2001

Fighting the good fight for all

In the pantheon of Japan's fictional action heroes, it would be hard to find one better known or loved than Ultraman.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 22, 2001

The song remains . . .

One of the biggest smash hit songs of the year, bellowed in karaoke rooms across the nation, is "Ashita ga Arusa."
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 21, 2001

Ruin yourself in extravagance with food

Today I will give you a tour of Osaka, Japan's third largest city that doubles as the nation's largest pachinko parlor. If you've ever wondered what it's like to walk around inside one of those pachinko game machines, I suggest taking a walk through Umeda or Nanaba at night. With all the neon and blinking...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 21, 2001

Mihoko Horiguchi

Mihoko Horiguchi says that her life is "a great muddle." By that she means she has not followed accepted paths, but has found her own way. She says she was always searching for something. "So when an opportunity came, I didn't hesitate to take it," she said.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2001

'Field of Dreams' schemes bleed taxpayers

A good deal of discussion on Japan's economic problems emphasizes the need to trim wasteful public works projects. Critics are quick to zero in on "hard" schemes such as bridges, highways, airports and dams that eat up huge chunks of tax money and are rarely used.
EDITORIALS
Jul 18, 2001

A bull's-eye over the Pacific

U.S. plans to develop a missile defense system got a boost last weekend with the successful test of an interceptor over the Pacific Ocean. The challenge of "hitting a bullet with a bullet" was met, and while substantial technological obstacles remain, the test results will embolden proponents of MD....
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.

Longform

"Shake hands with Lima-chan," a statue that shares the name of the Peruvian capital looks in the direction of Peru, where a sister statue, "Sakura-chan," is located. Erected in Yokohama's Rinko Park in 1999, it commemorates Peruvian-Japanese friendship.
The journey of Peru’s Nikkei: Finding identity in Japan