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COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 11, 2007

What will happen to all that Japanese boomers' cash?

Hurry! Don't miss out! Yamaha, the giant musical-instrument manufacturer, is offering three-month ukulele courses! Or, the more adventurous can avail themselves of the services of travel agents at JTB who are promoting a six-day tour -- or an eight-day rongubakeeshon (long vacation) tour of Hawaii, where...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 11, 2007

What made Japan join the fast-food nations?

Modern Japanese Cuisine: Food, Power and National Identity, by Katarzyna J. Cwiertka. London: Reaktion Books, 2006, 240 pp., 89 b/w illustrations, £22.50 (cloth) While it is true that we are what we eat, it is equally true that we eat what we are -- that is, our cuisine often mirrors our condition....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 9, 2007

Diva of the highest order

Sumi Jo first took the notoriously persnickety Italian opera world by storm two decades ago. Such was the hubbub over her performance as Gilda in Verdi's "Rigoletto" in Trieste that the Korean singer, then in her 20s and barely out of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, caught the notice of the...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 8, 2007

Overcoming Africa's north-south divide

PRAGUE -- The late President Mobutu Sese Seko of former Zaire once declared that the north African countries, which pride themselves on their Arabic descent, should be excluded from the then Organization of African Unity.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 6, 2007

Booze-fueled antics take gloss off Hokkaido ski resort boom

For Niseko resident Shigeru Uehara the times are changing. The well-reported influx of Australian visitors and businesses to the region over the past few years has brought significant change to his community.
LIFE / Language
Mar 6, 2007

Eek! It's White Day, so what to say to your gal?

In January 2004, members of a Japan Ground Self Defense Forces contingent headed for Iraq were shown on the news being seen off by their families. It was an emotional moment, with plenty of misty eyes in evidence; but not one of these gallant young soldiers going off to war was seen exchanging a kiss...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Mar 4, 2007

Complaints about officials ring hollow

LONDON -- Unless the Football Association brings in members of a jury from California, where no star can be found guilty it seems, Arsene Wenger, Dave Jones and Paul Jewell will have the book thrown at them -- albeit a small book.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Mar 4, 2007

Nanae Aoyama: Office worker takes exalted literary status in her stride

Nanae Aoyama only turned 24 in January, but already she has won literary prizes for each of the two books she has published.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 4, 2007

Shooting arrows to the end of the universe

Zen Bow, Zen Arrow: The Life and Teachings of Awa Kenzo, the Archery Master from "Zen in the Art of Archery", by John Stevens. Boston/London: Shambahala, 2007, 104 pp. with photographs, $12.95 (paper). Archery, or kyudo, "the Way of the bow," has a venerable Asian history. Confucius recommended it as...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 2, 2007

McCoy Tyner looks back on Coltrane and a lifetime in jazz

McCoy Tyner ranks as one of the most important piano stylists in post-war jazz. His recordings with the John Coltrane Quartet, such as 1964's "A Love Supreme," remain high points of musical improvisation and spirituality. The mid-'60s music created by Coltrane, Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer...
COMMENTARY
Mar 1, 2007

Musharraf moves to stay

NEW DELHI -- The fight against international terrorism is very much tied to the future of Pakistan and the central challenge that country faces: to move away from militarism, extremism and fundamentalism, and toward a stable, moderate state. That's what makes Pakistani military ruler President Pervez...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 1, 2007

Storm clouds over an artist's life cut short

In the summer of 1924, fresh out of art school in Japan and settling into the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, Yuzo Saeki (1898-1928) was taken by his classmate Katsuzo Satomi to have his work critiqued by the Fauvist painter, anarchist and journalist Maurice de Vlaminck. Just when he was getting...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Feb 27, 2007

Yoko Sagae

Yoko Sagae, 57, is the vice principal of the Toyomi Public Kindergarten in Tokyo's Chuo Ward. Ms. Sagae has taken care of more than 1,700 children -- and their parents -- during her 31 years in early childhood education, and she is not about to stop. Loved by generations in the neighborhood where she...
JAPAN
Feb 27, 2007

Japan to help Mongolia develop mineral wealth

Visiting Mongolian President Nambaryn Enkhbayar and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe signed a joint action plan Monday pledging expanded bilateral cooperation, including government talks on ways to utilize rich mineral resources in Mongolia.
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 25, 2007

Insider lashes 'lip service to human rights'

Written laws are like spiders' webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 25, 2007

Upstairs, downstairs and inside old Japan

Companions of the Holiday by Donald Richie, with an introduction by Timothy Harris and an afterword by the author. Tokyo/New York: Printed Matter Press, 181 pp., $15 (paper) Donald Richie is known to readers of The Japan Times for his regular reviews of books dealing with Asia, and more particularly...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 24, 2007

Toyoko Fry

Lady Fry, wife of British Ambassador Sir Graham Fry, is director of the Art of Dining Exhibition on March 7. All proceeds from this event go to Refugees International Japan, a volunteer organization with world-wide relief projects.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 23, 2007

'Sakuran'

How did "Memoirs of a Geisha" ("Sayuri" here in Japan) get it so drearily wrong -- and Mika Ninagawa's new film, "Sakuran," get it so gloriously right?
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 16, 2007

An update on hogaku

Orchestra Asia Japan presents an innovative interpretation of traditional Japanese sounds on March 1 in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward. Held in commemoration of the Japan-China Exchange Year of Culture and Sports 2007, the concert features a world premiere of a work by Chinese composer Tang Jian Ping.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 14, 2007

Eyewitness to slaughter in Taiji's killing coves

Almost every day, pods of dolphins ply their way across Hatagiri Bay near the whaling town of Taiji in Wakayama Prefecture, central Japan. It's a scenic, serene area on the beautiful Kii Peninsula. But death haunts two pristine coves adjacent to Taiji's whale museum.
COMMENTARY
Feb 12, 2007

Still the clean-growth model

In terms of economic development, Japan, South Korea and China have achieved in two or three decades what it took Western countries more than a century to accomplish.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

Resentments sustain a moribund meat trade

Many environmentalists around the world hope that the whaling issue in Japan will simply fade with the now moribund industry. In Japan, though, the political prowhaling lobby has never been stronger.
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

From the inside looking out . . .

'There are a number of factors, both biological and economic, which led the industry to destroy one whale species after another, even though the industry was dependent on their survival. Thus, the commercial whaling ban should be kept and not mixed up with the idea of preserving tradition and/or culture....
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

Deadlock is dominant in whaling's 'petty parlor game'

In light of the entrenched positions involved, the whaling issue appears hopelessly deadlocked as the prowhaling nations led by Japan, Iceland and Norway demand the right to return to commercial whaling from countries equally determined to resist them.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 10, 2007

Tim Hornyak

Freelance writer Tim Hornyak is the author of 'Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots.' He anticipates that the family robot will become a reality in Japan

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami