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Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 7, 2003

Woman for the world

Back in 1957, a young woman of 23 with few qualifications, and little to sustain her but her courage and some money saved from waitressing, set off from her native England in pursuit of her dream to live and work for wildlife.
EDITORIALS
Oct 3, 2003

Saving a Japanese monument

Japan still has an entry on the World Monuments Fund's biennial "watch list" of the planet's 100 most endangered cultural sites, according to the 2004 update released last week. It is time to ensure that the historic port town of Tomonoura, which was first included in the 2002 list, is not on it two...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Aug 22, 2003

Wanted in Kafue: tourists, not poachers

The rains had just broken over the Zambian capital, Lusaka. Lightning was tearing open the skies. And we were sitting on a tiled veranda listening to the bedlam of water crashing off the tin roof, the thudding percussion of thunder and the thrilled shouts of children in the street beyond the hibiscus...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Aug 17, 2003

Black widows striking back

MOSCOW -- Animalistic labels stick to terror. Adolf Hitler's commandos were called werewolves; terrorist cells in Turkey in the 1970s, gray wolves; now the Russian media have christened Chechen female suicide bombers black widows.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 15, 2003

Baron of porn spills it all

HONG KONG -- His pictures beamed across the nation's television stations and front pages of all of its newspapers from down market tabloids to sober-sided broadsheets: the grin on his face was as wide as a melon and he held, fanlike, a huge wad of currency notes for all the world, like a television game...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 8, 2003

Keeping your cool this summer

Summer is here, the season of lethargy and listlessness, of sweat and stunted appetites. There are ways to ameliorate (if not actually beat) the big heat, but very few of them involve eating. For us, summer is about sitting outside in the cool of the evening, a nice cold beer at hand, or a bottle of...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Jul 31, 2003

Guest teachers build barrier-free minds

My 8-year-old wanted to use my computer. "I need to search the Internet for a picture of a kurumaisu," he said, in his usual blend of English and Japanese. Never mind that both his parents are American; he's lived in Japan since he was 5 and attends a Japanese elementary school. This qualifies him as...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 27, 2003

So much to soak up in Yamagata

OK, let me put this out there: Yamagata-ken, just like any sensible prefecture in Japan, loves tourists. But you get the feeling that Yamagata Prefecture Tourist Division tries a little harder to promote its treasures. They even occasionally invite journalists up for a spin around the countryside.
COMMUNITY
Jul 15, 2003

Test your criminal smarts

How clued-in are you when it comes to protecting your home and valuables against intruders? The following is a translation excerpted from an online check produced by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Correct answers to the questions are given at the bottom.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 22, 2003

To the sacred temple-city in the clouds

KOYA-SAN, Wakayama Pref. -- If there is one all-round good guy to emerge from the pages of Japanese history, someone for whom nobody seems to have a bad word, it is Kobo Daishi (A.D. 774-835). Buddhist saint, scholar, spiritual healer, calligrapher, poet, sculptor, engineer, supposed originator of the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jun 14, 2003

Bernard Doyle

In 2000, a U.N. General Assembly resolution designated June 20 as World Refugee Day. Bernard Doyle, regional office e-center coordinator for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, says special programs are planned for Japan this year. They aim to raise general public awareness of refugees....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 2, 2003

Studio J: Masahito Ueki does it again

While the eyes of the world -- or at least the Tokyo-centric portion of the planet -- have been fixed on the unveiling of the massive Roppongi Hills complex, our attention was focused on another new arrival, not so far away but on a totally different scale. For us, the main event last month was the opening...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 23, 2003

Comic culture is serious business

Can anyone be in this country a week and not notice manga -- Japan's unique contribution to comics?
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2003

Smoking said drag on image of Osaka

OSAKA -- While municipal officials and local business leaders announce grand construction plans to turn this city into an international center for tourism and conventions, antismoking activist Hiroshi Nogami suggests that to make Osaka more attractive to visitors, they should set their sights much lower...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 29, 2003

A true master of the art of making photographs

I remember once playing a little mind game with Tokyo-based photographer Torin Boyd. We were sitting in a Kabukicho bar, looking through his portfolio. Every time I said something about "taking pictures," in his response he substituted the verb "make" for the verb "take," as in "I made this picture last...
COMMUNITY
Jan 19, 2003

The danchi and postwar society

At the time, they were homes most Japanese could only dream about. Within their thick concrete walls, they were equipped with such mod cons as flush toilets and stainless-steel kitchen sinks, and they even had separate bedrooms -- for parents and children.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 12, 2003

Shopping queen shelves host 'illusion'

Popular writer Usagi Nakamura is known to many Japanese as "Shoppingu no Joo (The Queen of Shopping)," which is also the title of her popular column in the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun. Nakamura, 44, who describes herself as "shop dependent," writes frankly about how she impulsively purchases luxury...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 12, 2003

A price on their heads

Help wanted: Able-bodied, handsome men required to wine and dine as many women as their schedules permit; some extracurricular cosseting may be called for. Educational requirements: None. Salary: Enough to make a salaryman gag.
EDITORIALS
Dec 15, 2002

A very precise slice of pi

Sure, admitted mathematicians everywhere last week, what Tokyo University professor Yasumasa Kanada had just done would not be of much use in the real world, but they were awestruck, just the same. On Dec. 6, Mr. Kanada and his team at Todai's Information Technology Center announced that they had capped...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 8, 2002

Where West met East

A HISTORICAL GUIDE TO YOKOHAMA: Sketches of the Twice-Risen Phoenix, by Burritt Sabin. Yokohama: Yurindo, 2002, 304 pp., 176 pp. of plates, illustrations and maps, 2,500 yen (cloth) Isabella Bird, that sharp-eyed, tart-tongued early traveler to Japan, opined that Yokohama had irregularity without picturesqueness,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 8, 2002

Capital transports of restricted delight

It's got the party places. It's got the party people. Now if only someone could come up with a way to get the people to the places, Tokyo could truly call itself a 24-hour city.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 23, 2002

Marketing Cardiff as cultural capital of Europe

This is quite a month for Bet (Elizabeth) Davies. On Nov. 28, she will receive an award from the Japanese ambassador in London on behalf of the government for services rendered to to the Japanese community in Wales, and her work in bridging Japan and the U.K. in general.
COMMUNITY / NOTES FROM THE SMOKE
Nov 22, 2002

Iidabashi offers cheap passport to movie heaven

Going to the movies is one of life's great simple pleasures.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Nov 14, 2002

Cleanups are only drops in the ocean

The year was 1980. I was conducting fish research on the Great Barrier Reef, off Cape York in Queensland, northeastern Australia. After a lengthy dive, I decided to take a short rest and then explore a small, unoccupied sandy islet nearby for signs of nesting sea turtles and terns in that wonderful ocean...
COMMUNITY
Nov 3, 2002

Japan's hometown of jazz

Yokohama's love affair with jazz first blossomed when the West was Roarin' in the 1920s. Back then, ocean liners were bringing passengers and ships' bands from all over the world, and Japan's maritime gateway was a major port of call for steamers plying between the famed entertainment hubs of Shanghai...
SOCCER / J. League / ON THE BALL
Oct 20, 2002

Time will tell if Zico's approach will pay off

When a new coach comes in, a team changes in various parts accordingly. That applies in the case of the Japan national soccer team, with the arrival of Zico who took over from Philippe Troussier after the World Cup.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Sep 29, 2002

As bistros go, this one is parfait

It's the post-holiday syndrome, the back-at-work midweek slump. You feel like eating out, but you don't want to get dressed up. You need to avoid straining the credit card. And you're certainly not in the mood for elaborate delicacies or rare vintages by candlelight.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 15, 2002

A river of ill repute

THE MEKONG: Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future, by Milton Osborn. Allen & Unwin, 2001, 295 pp., b/w & color photos, $25 (cloth) The waters of the Mekong, the world's 12th-longest and Southeast Asia's foremost river, do not, like the Thames, run sweetly. Nor have they inspired poets to dream on the river's...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Sep 15, 2002

Simplicity, the mother of perfection

First impressions are everything. You can tell a good restaurant from the moment you walk through the door. It could be a visual cue or the general layout, a subtle feeling that the feng shui is right. It could be the way you are greeted at the door, the movements of the chef or the reassurance of seeing...

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