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BUSINESS
Oct 13, 2004

Workers see benefits in performance-linked pay

Aika Momma is a financial adviser at Nikko Cordial Securities Inc. with a renewable one-year contract and he -- along with a growing number of young professionals -- is happy with his situation.
COMMENTARY
Oct 11, 2004

New mindset is the only salve

Japan-China relations are in trouble, again. The latest recriminations began with the fierce booing of a Japanese soccer team in Chongqing in July of this year. Few of Japan's many indignant commentators seemed to know that this large central China city had been the defenseless target of relentless Japanese...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 10, 2004

The Ordinary Boys

It may be that there really are no frontiers left in pop any more; that we are doomed to recycle the past forever. On the title cut of "Over the Counter Culture," the debut album from Brighton's The Ordinary Boys, lead vocalist Preston brays, "Let's see, what can we be now/That hasn't been done before?"...
JAPAN
Oct 8, 2004

FSA targets UFJ over attempts to block probe

The Financial Services Agency filed a criminal complaint against UFJ Bank and three former executives Thursday over their attempts to block inspections by concealing documents and refusing to answer questions, the bank regulator said.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Oct 8, 2004

Boldly going where no bookstore has gone before

Foreigner-run enterprises rarely make much of an impact in Japan, but American publisher Lucas Badtke-Berkow is the proud owner of a small business with a big profile. Paper Sky, his bilingual travel magazine, currently in its 10th issue, has a readership of more than 45,000 and this summer it made the...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 6, 2004

When it comes to first-class, women prefer Coach

Walking down a street in Tokyo, it doesn't take long to spot women clutching Coach bags.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Oct 6, 2004

A leaf out of a scrapbook of depravity?

In this world, most people get to be teenagers for exactly seven years. And then there's the artist Larry Clark. Born in Tulsa, Okla., in 1943, Clark has been living and reliving the teen experience for some six decades.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 6, 2004

Heart music in 'Big River'

It is a tale that many of us know, that of a young boy's adventures on the Mississippi River while helping a slave, named Jim, to escape. One of the greatest novels of American literature, Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is set in the 1840s, long before the Civil War, and is a touching...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Oct 5, 2004

Alien card concerns and a visitor

Fall is a beautiful time in Japan. If you have a chance, try and get away to to the mountains somewhere -- Nikko, Chichibu . . . it is absolutely beautiful.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 3, 2004

Discrimination keeps Chinese tourists at bay

Japan's neglect of its tourism potential could be called a sidelight of its overall self-image. On the international stage, Japan sees itself as culturally impenetrable and overpriced. Moreover, the xenophobia that many people accuse it of fostering has become accepted by the citizens as a national trait,...
COMMENTARY
Oct 2, 2004

Muddled American dreams

LONDON -- There is a long tradition of learned American commentators interpreting Europe seriously -- and sometimes comically -- wrong.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 2, 2004

Democrats Abroad: last chance to vote Bush out

Lauren Shannon is both a director and the front-of-house manager of Fujimamas, the highly successful restaurant bar and cafe in Jingumae, central Tokyo. An American citizen, she is also the vice chair of Democrats Abroad.
JAPAN
Oct 1, 2004

Ministry to widen scope for pursuing graduate studies

Graduates from the Japanese branches of qualified foreign universities will be eligible for admission to graduate programs in Japan, and credits earned at those branches can be transferred to Japanese institutions and vice versa, an advisory panel to the education ministry decided Thursday.
JAPAN
Oct 1, 2004

Kids tutored on fear-, anger-management

Naoto Araki, a 15-year-old Yokohama high school student, persistently kicked the chair Bill Pozzobon was sitting on, just to make him mad.
EDITORIALS
Sep 29, 2004

The road to 'sports citizenship'

The good news about Japanese professional baseball last week was that the players averted a second weekend strike following a last-minute agreement with management. A week earlier, an unprecedented walkout had been staged in protest against a merger deal between the Kintetsu Baffaloes and the Orix BlueWave...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Sep 28, 2004

Is Japan's military involvement in Iraq hurting its global image?

Marc Bunch Tax consultant, 31 No, I don't think that it has been because I don't think Japan's involvement has been so significant. Domestically it's big news, but internationally, Japan is not too associated with the U.S. compared with the U.K. or Australia.
Japan Times
Features
Sep 26, 2004

Abandoned misfit who found peace in prose and his new land

In the West, Lafcadio Hearn is largely unknown outside of small circles of Japanophiles and aficionados of Gaelic writers.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 21, 2004

When it happens, it happens

A whirlwind romance Shortly before I was to return to Australia, I went to a Christmas party in the small town where I was studying Japanese.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Sep 19, 2004

Wat a middle-aged way not to get so wet

There are good times to arrive in Bangkok weighed down with expensive camera gear, recording equipment and a snappy new tropical suit just tailored in Singapore.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 19, 2004

Unexpected tales of the quotidian

A VIEW FROM THE CHUO LINE AND OTHER STORIES, by Donald Richie. Tokyo: Printed Matter Press, 2004, 127 pp., 1,500 yen (paper). And what a captivating view it is. Here are 27 short stories set in Japan -- elegantly minimalist musings on society, humanity and relationships. Perfect for train reading, some...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 15, 2004

Here's to a classic 'comeback'

The Return Rating: * * * * 1/2(out of 5) Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev Running time: 111 minutes Language: Russian with Japanese subtitles Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of the global corporate culture that's spread like mold over...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 15, 2004

You can't beat an old master

Coffee Jiko Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Hou Hsiao- hsien Running time: 103 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Yasujiro Ozu's trademark style -- the low camera angles, the straight cuts, the actors talking at the camera in medium closeup...
COMMENTARY
Sep 15, 2004

The Tiananmen Square massacre myth

China's recent ceremonies to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of former leader Deng Xiaoping have given the Tiananmen massacre myth yet another lease of life. Most media commentators, the BBC especially, have rehashed the standard condemnation of Deng as a hardliner who instigated a massacre of...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Sep 14, 2004

Legal help, lucky Jim, and trauma

Legal advice An addendum to Lifelines of Aug. 30.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 12, 2004

Exploring a cautionary tale

MINAMATA DISEASE, by Masazumi Harada (1971), translated by Sachie Tsushima and Timothy S. George, edited by Timothy S. George. Kumamoto Nichinichi Shinbun Culture & Information Center, 2004, 215 pp., 2,500 yen (cloth). Across Japan and throughout much of the world, the name Minamata is synonymous with...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 12, 2004

The cool aesthetics of Edo

KUKI SHUZO: A Philosopher's Poetry and Poetics, translated and edited by Michael F. Marra. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004, 358 pp., $56 (cloth). THE STRUCTURE OF DETACHMENT: The Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Shuzo (with a Translation of "Iki no Kozo"), by Hiroshi Nara, with essays by J. Thomas...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 11, 2004

Matthew Zuckerman

BATH, England -- In a two-hour walk, you can take in all the major features of interest in Bath, an attractive compact city in southwest England. The Romans, here 2,000 years ago, left behind several relics that center on a magnificent temple and a bathing spa where hot water still gushes. Bath's great...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 10, 2004

Dodging tourist traps in Kyoto

Ebisugawa has a vast array of small shops that sell dozens of varieties of high-quality green tea and traditional Kyoto sweets, as well as bric-a-brac stores that are a bargain-hunter's dream.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 10, 2004

OPENING: Kansai

OSAKA "Emile Galle: A Retrospective" marks a century since the death of this French master of Art Nouveau glass by tracing his career with works made around the time of the Paris Expositions in 1878, 1889 and 1900, when he es tablished an international reputation; Sept. 11-Nov. 7.

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