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Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 9, 2002

In step with the real Japan

We both confess to complete and utter madness, but we've been having a whale of a time -- and not only down in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, where the International Whaling Commission had its recent roughhouse, and where we completely pigged out on kujira no niku (whale meat) before heading on to...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 9, 2002

Japanese tradition that violates privacy rights

The current Self-Defense Forces scandal provides a glimpse into the mechanics of how such stories get reported. It appears that an insider at the Maritime Self-Defense Force sent information to the Mainichi Shimbun about personal data that an officer was compiling on people who made requests to the MSDF...
COMMUNITY
Jun 9, 2002

Seeing Japan from top to bottom

We both confess to complete and utter madness, but we've been having a whale of a time -- and not only down in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, where the International Whaling Commission had its recent roughhouse, and where we completely pigged out on kujira no niku (whale meat) before heading on to...
LIFE / Travel
Jun 9, 2002

In step with the real Japan

We both confess to complete and utter madness, but we've been having a whale of a time -- and not only down in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, where the International Whaling Commission had its recent roughhouse, and where we completely pigged out on kujira no niku (whale meat) before heading on to...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 5, 2002

. . . but soccer hosts are a dream team on stage

As in soccer, so on stage. Japan-Korea collaboration (or is it Korea-Japan collaboration?) is happening all over.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Jun 2, 2002

Snobbery will not be permitted

Once upon a time, wine in Japan was a hushed affair, conducted with starched linens and stiff-backed chairs. Elusive first-growth Bordeaux and top Burgundy accompanied the tense, dutiful rituals of business negotiations. The mood was earnest; the cost high. It sometimes seemed as if the highly codified...
JAPAN / CLOSE NEIGHBORS
Jun 1, 2002

Chinese, South Korean students warm to Japan

To Lee Hee Jung, a 20-year-old South Korean student at Yokohama National University, Japan is closer to her mother country than the United States not only geographically, but psychologically.
COMMENTARY / World
May 31, 2002

Measuring China's pulse online

The spread of the Internet in China is turning out to be a boon for China watchers in Japan. The Web now serves as an outlet for news not found in newspapers or on television but that can be deemed important and valuable. It also offers an opportunity to learn about the real feelings Chinese people have...
Japan Times
JAPAN / CUP COUNTDOWN
May 29, 2002

Hotels vie for World Cup windfall

As the Friday opening of the 2002 FIFA World Cup approaches, hoteliers in and around Tokyo are making last-minute efforts to get their slice of the hoopla that will carry on through the next month.
JAPAN
May 29, 2002

Day-care centers' online cameras keep tots in view

Sakura Kindergarten in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, is one of a growing number of day-care centers hoping to use the Internet and other information technology to keep parents happy and worry-free.
COMMENTARY / World
May 27, 2002

Perils of undervalued yuan

I am concerned that China could repeat Japan's mistakes in economic policy. In Japan's high-growth years, the yen became increasingly undervalued, pegged at 360 to the dollar, while the nation's productivity kept increasing. Exports were profitable and the manufacturing industries built up excess production...
JAPAN
May 25, 2002

Tokyo-Seoul panel on history ready to meet for first time

Japan and South Korea will hold the inaugural meeting of their joint history research committee Saturday in Seoul to promote better mutual understanding of history among scholars, Foreign Ministry officials said Friday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
May 24, 2002

Off home in a blaze of space, light and shadow

For the past three years, the painter Beau Bernstein has lived a quiet and contemplative life in Kyoto. That is not to say he hasn't been busy. When the native New Yorker closes his Kyoto studio in July and returns to Manhattan, he'll take back with him an impressive new series of oil paintings.
COMMENTARY
May 20, 2002

Musharraf must bring growth, security

ISLAMABAD -- The suicide bomber in Karachi, Pakistan's southern port city, who killed 11 French citizens in broad daylight, could not have found a more opportune moment to strike against the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf. The general has spent the past few months trying to convince skeptics of...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
May 20, 2002

Nilima Seth

"Divine!" Nilima Seth stood in front of a noh mask on her wall. "Don't you feel the vibes?" she asked, reverence in her tone. "What does it say to you?"
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 19, 2002

Repent of Western ways to see the light

A BURDEN OF FLOWERS, by Natsuki Ikezawa. Kodansha International, 2001, 239 pp., 2,400 yen (cloth) A story of two Japanese siblings' rejection of Western values, one eloquent on the dangers of being "too Cartesian in your thinking, too tied up in Western rationalism," is hardly an obvious candidate for...
SOCCER / World cup / COHOSTING
May 18, 2002

Beyond the limits of normalcy

Can Japan and South Korea work together to put on the 2002 World Cup?
COMMENTARY
May 17, 2002

Japan at its inconsistent worst

Japan's overheated reaction to the May 8 North Korean refugee incident at the Japanese consulate-general in Shenyang, northeast China, is worrying.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 17, 2002

'Rakugo' storytelling master Kosan dies

Yanagiya Kosan, the first "rakugo" comic storyteller recognized as a living national treasure, died early Thursday of heart failure at his home in Toshima Ward, Tokyo, his family said. He was 87.
COMMENTARY
May 16, 2002

Another crisis feeds distrust

HONG KONG -- It is the stuff of drama. Chinese policemen grabbed three North Koreans -- two women and a toddler -- who were trying to seek asylum in the Japanese Consulate General in Shenyang in northeastern China last Wednesday, but not before the two men with them succeeded in reaching the diplomatic...
COMMENTARY
May 15, 2002

Myanmar moves forward, China takes a step back

LOS ANGELES -- Fleeting images can become perceived realities. For example, images viewed positively by the American public allow U.S. political leaders to unlock foreign-aid funds -- and business leaders to go forward with ambitious foreign-investment schemes. From this perspective, Myanmar, long-spurned...
BUSINESS / ON THE FRONT LINE
May 15, 2002

Is yen any safer than roller-coaster dollar?

Restless trading is continuing on the currency market, keeping the dollar on its recent roller-coaster ride.
BUSINESS
May 15, 2002

'Pain' of NTT workers acknowledged

Telecommunications minister Toranosuke Katayama on Tuesday described the transfer of 100,000 Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. employees to 100 new subsidiaries as "(necessary) pain in a transitional period."
JAPAN
May 15, 2002

Prince to go to Cup opener in Seoul

The Cabinet on Tuesday approved a proposal for Prince Takamado, a cousin of Emperor Akihito, and his wife, Princess Hisako, to attend the opening ceremony of the World Cup soccer finals on May 31 in South Korea.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 12, 2002

Chewing the cud with cheap shots at soccer

Here's a confession for you -- a self-insight I discovered just the other night:
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 12, 2002

Are local tracks up against the odds?

There is little glamor at Kawasaki Racetrack. Under grubby baseball caps, cigarettes and pencil stubs are jammed behind the ears of tense punters. The odor of ramen wafts along the betting slip-littered corridors and stairways under the stands.
JAPAN
May 11, 2002

Japan cranks up pressure on China

Japan on Friday ratcheted up the pressure on China to hand over five North Korean asylum seekers who were dragged out of the Japanese consulate in Shenyang two days earlier by trespassing Chinese police.

Longform

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