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CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 16, 2003

Pictures of peace

VISIONS OF BUDDHIST LIFE, photographs and text by Don Farber, forward by Huston Smith, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003, 240 pp., 116 color photos, 36 quadtone photos, $39.95 (cloth) The photographer Don Farber has made his domain (in the words of his publisher) "the beauty and diversity...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Mar 12, 2003

The good, the great -- and the freaky

Japan, without a doubt, has the world's largest number of art museums devoted solely to pottery -- more than 500 venues, I've heard. That's a lot of beauty (or not) to take in.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 9, 2003

Yayori Matsui's legacy lives on -- as intended

Last weekend, a memorial gathering was held in Waseda for Yayori Matsui, the former Asahi Shimbun reporter and women's rights advocate, who died in December from liver cancer at the age of 68. A proper funeral service had been held two months earlier at the Shibuya church founded by Matsui's minister...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 5, 2003

Not just another pretty spaz

Singer-songwriter Rhett Miller, who is in Tokyo for a few days plugging his album "The Instigator" is feeing encouraged. "I told my manager I wanted to come back in May with a band," he says between sips of green tea at the offices of Warner Music Japan. During a solo acoustic showcase the night before...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Mar 4, 2003

Homesickness, toll-free numbers and money orders

Greetings Greetings from London, England, where my fellow Assyrians are making me feel at home with their sweet hospitality, wonderful food, but also making me homesick for Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2003

'10,000 yen painting' is an early van Gogh

An oil painting in Tokyo once valued at just 10,000 yen has been identified as an early work by Vincent van Gogh, it was revealed Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 26, 2003

Should zoos become extinct?

Though I prefer seeing animals in the wild, I confess to being intrigued by zoos. I'm certainly not alone in my interest, as the long and varied history of zoological institutions shows.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 18, 2003

Coping with a grayer world

Like globalization, population aging is a universal force with the power to shape the future. By 2050 the number of people aged 60 and over in the world will increase from 600 million today to almost 2 billion. In Japan, the proportion of the population aged 65 or over will climb from 17.2 percent in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 1, 2003

So you thought '02 was good? Well, there's Mori to come

It looks, at first glance, like a refreshing case of "out with the old, and in with the new": In late 2002 the Tokyo art community bade a teary goodbye to its Mecca, when the falling-down old Sagacho building, home for years to some of Japan's most progressive gallery spaces, finally closed its doors...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 22, 2002

Kazuko Shiraishi does it her way

KAZUKO SHIRAISHI: Let Those Who Appear. Translated by Samuel Grolmes and Yumiko Tsumura. New Directions, 2002, 49 pp., $12.95 (paper). I've met the poet Kazuko Shiraishi three times, on each of her visits to New York. Shiraishi made her latest trip to this city in the spring of 2002, to mark the publication...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 22, 2002

A little something for the god

GRACIOUS GIFTS: Japan's Sacred Offerings, photographed by Gorazd Vilhar, text by Charlotte Anderson. Tokyo: Shufunotomo-sha, 1999, 128 pp., 172 color plates, 4,000 yen (cloth) All religions encourage gifts. From Catholic prayer boxes to Protestant collection plates, from the donation repositories of...
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Dec 15, 2002

Ann Lewis in driver's seat with new single

What happens to idols after their popularity has waned?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 11, 2002

International ideas take shape in Lebanon

Though the word "symposium" comes from Plato's ideal of a drinking party held to facilitate philosophical discussion, most of us are familiar with its modern usage, meaning a conference or meeting. Few people, however, know about the sculpture symposium movement, started by Karl Prantl in Austria in...
BUSINESS
Nov 23, 2002

RCC to help with salvageable firms

The government announced Friday a new plan to establish schemes to help small and midsize companies rebuild their businesses by utilizing the trust function of Resolution and Collection Corp., the government's loan collection entity.
BUSINESS
Nov 19, 2002

Questions over industrial revival scheme answered

The government plans to establish an industrial revival mechanism as part of a comprehensive economic package seeking to accelerate the disposal of bad loans.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 17, 2002

Movers and shakers behind the scenes

For journalists and valued customers, the Tokyo Collections are all about the spectacle of the shows. For buyers from Tokyo's department stores and boutiques, they are epic spending sprees -- business gambles founded on knowledge and experience laced with intuition.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 13, 2002

Analysts skeptical over 'industrial revival body'

It might work. But probably not.
BUSINESS
Nov 9, 2002

Gas taxes to aid loss-making bridge, roadside trees

The land and transport ministry has outlined plans to expand the use of revenues from gas and other automobile-related taxes, currently used for road construction, for projects ranging from more ecologically friendly roads to electronic toll collection systems, ministry sources said Friday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 6, 2002

Postmodern tales of the unexpected

"NEW JAPANESE FICTION," The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Summer 2002: Vol. XXII, No. 2. 262 pp., $8. Japanese literature, at least as it is known to those of us who cannot read it in the original, is in a position similar to that of Western classical music. Just as classical music lovers are likely...
CULTURE / Music
Sep 29, 2002

Music of the J-people

Japanese pop music is crap. So say many of my friends, especially the non-Japanese ones. They reach that conclusion after noticing that the charts are full of chipmunk-voiced idols who are long on looks and short on talent -- and whose shelf lives are only slightly longer than sushi.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 25, 2002

Printers who made an impression

LONDON -- In 1945, as the Japanese contemplated defeat, devastation and occupation by a foreign power for the first time, the future must have seemed bleak and uncertain. But along with the terrible toll on life and property, the war years damaged Japanese society in ways that were harder to see.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 22, 2002

Soseki's later years

INSIDE MY GLASS DOORS (156 pp.); THE 210TH DAY (96 pp.); SPRING MISCELLANY (184 pp.), by Soseki Natsume, translated by Sammy Tsunematsu, with introductions by Marvin Marcus. Tuttle Publishing (Boston, Rutland, Tokyo), 2002, all volumes 2,300 yen (paper) with black-and-white photos In 1915, having just...
JAPAN
Sep 3, 2002

Osaka system telephones tax delinquents

OSAKA The Osaka Regional Taxation Bureau has introduced a computerized telephone calling system to remind taxpayers to pay overdue taxes.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 23, 2002

'Politically motivated' arrests slammed

The head of the public security department of the Osaka High Public Prosecutor's Office was arrested April 23 for allegedly being entertained to the tune of 280,000 yen by mobsters in return for providing internal information.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 21, 2002

Afghan heritage is back from the brink

Like many exhibitions, "Afghanistan: A Timeless History" tells a story. It's not the story of Afghan art, though; nor, despite its title, the story of Afghanistan itself -- a country whose millennia of strife are expressed in every artifact now on display at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts...
EDITORIALS
Aug 18, 2002

Books in the wild

''Goe, little booke," wrote the English poet Edmund Spenser when he sent his "Shepheard's Calender" out into the world back in 1579 and inspired a flurry of contemporary authors to adopt the metaphor of books as children sent to seek their fortune. In a modern twist on an old idea, some enthusiastic...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 18, 2002

Aum documentary holds up a mirror to Japanese society

RELIGION AND SOCIAL CRISIS IN JAPAN: Understanding Japanese Society Through the Aum Affair, edited by Robert J. Kisala and Mark R. Mullins. Hampshire: Palgrave (St. Martin's Press/Macmillan), 2001, 228 pp., $68 (cloth) It is frequently observed that social change and resulting social crises often give...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 24, 2002

Beautiful people

Men, does your weedy physique or receding hair line make you feel inadequate? Women, do you worry about wrinkles or whether to brave the pain of a bikini-line Brazilian wax? Ever feel that all of us, every day, are bombarded with images of physical perfection that are impossible to live up to?
LIFE / Language
Jul 20, 2002

Australian scientist takes top Japanese-language haiku prize

An Australian scientist has won the prestigious Nakaniida Grand Haiku Prize for a collection of poetry written in Japanese.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight