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CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 18, 2001

Revealing the soul of an ancient land

MOTHER'S BELOVED: Stories from Laos, by Outhine Bounyavong. Hong Kong University Press, 1999, 163 pp., $14.95 (paper) It's unlikely that even the most generous evaluation of Lao literature would rank it among the world's great cultural legacies. Part of the problem has been a lack of visibility: Buddhist...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 17, 2001

Tobin tax: fodder for spendthrift pols

Suggestions have been made that the turmoil that swept through East Asia in 1997-98 is evidence of the instability of global capital markets. Supporters of this idea validated their claims by asserting that a contagion effect spread the turbulence to other emerging market economies.
COMMENTARY
Nov 17, 2001

Free speech includes the right to be stupid

WASHINGTON -- America is a great country. What better evidence is there than the opportunity people have to say the stupidest, most witless things?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 17, 2001

Handmade felt old hat? No, it's back in fashion

Boundary-pushing bags, brooches and necklaces. Wild hats and mufflers. Cosmological carpets and hangings. All-embracing jackets and coats. Every design unique, crafted from hand-felted wool and the most unexpected fibers.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Nov 17, 2001

The first step to happy marriage . . . zu

Today I bring you "Real Conversations From the English Classroom."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 14, 2001

Where do we go from here?

Almost 20 minutes into my interview with Aidan and David, two members of the Montreal-based band Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Aidan said that he didn't think my questions were very good and that the interview was a waste of time. He expressed himself not angrily but with genuine frustration at my transparently...
Japan Times
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Nov 11, 2001

Taking things one moment at a time

Monday night, the Nippon TV documentary series "Super TV" (9 p.m.) chronicles the last six months of a man with terminal cancer. Last year, the show's producers received a letter from the man's children, who explained their father's situation and asked them "to record his life right up until the last...
COMMENTARY
Nov 11, 2001

Unified war plan impossible

LONDON -- Giving parties is fun, but it also poses risks -- chiefly that of offending those who are not asked.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 11, 2001

Unlocking the 'qi'

Dressed in a white robe, a female qi master calmly stands in a room. Her face a mask of concentration, she puts her hands into a metal box. She quietly waits for three minutes. Then concentrates for seven minutes.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Nov 10, 2001

Exotic Japan found in mundane things

I had just purchased a sweat shirt at the Gap, picked up some shampoo at the Body Shop and ordered pizza from Pizza Hut when I received an e-mail saying: "You live in Japan? How exotic!"
JAPAN / STAGING A COMEBACK
Nov 9, 2001

Successful firms have learned importance of patents

It was a big challenge for Canon Inc., one of Japan's top camera makers, to embark on the copy machine business in the late 1960s, as the market was dominated by the U.S. giant Xerox Corp.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Nov 8, 2001

Creation of wants and the damage done

Who's consuming whom? Are we consuming advertising and living a better life because it educates us about a wide range of choices? Or is advertising consuming us, urging us to want, need and buy whatever the market has to offer?
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2001

Economic slide eats into scholarships

Scholarship grants and loans provided by regional bodies, schools, foundations and other entities fell 25 percent between fiscal 1995 and 1999, according to a recent education ministry survey.
CULTURE / Film
Nov 7, 2001

Hosoya serves up some excellent cheese

OK, let's play Guess The Filmmaker. Here's the flick: it's called "Home Sweet Hoboken," it's set in a New Jersey neighborhood, and it features two jobless young slackers who live with their grandmother while subsisting on pizza and beer. Their foul-mouthed dialogue is along the lines of "S***, I gotta...
CULTURE / Film
Nov 7, 2001

Disturbing signals from distant Planet Y

All About Lily Chou ChouRating: * * * 1/2 Director: Shunji Iwai Running time: 146 minutes Language: Japanese Now showing
BUSINESS
Nov 7, 2001

Household spending continues to decline

Average household spending declined an inflation-adjusted 3.7 percent in September from a year earlier to 283,390 yen for the sixth consecutive monthly fall, the government said Tuesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 7, 2001

Iberian artist's intuition

An exhibition of silk-screen prints by Portuguese artist Jose de Guimaraes is showing till Nov. 22 at the Portuguese Embassy in Kojimachi.
JAPAN
Nov 6, 2001

Nuclear institutes probed over waste disposal

The Board of Audit is investigating two nuclear research institutes over waste-disposal failures at their facilities, sources familiar with the case said Monday.
JAPAN
Nov 5, 2001

University OKs first research in Japan to create embryonic stem cells

An ethics committee for Kyoto University on Sunday approved a professor's proposal to study the creation of embryonic stem cells from fertilized human ova, making the university the first Japanese institute to launch such research, panel members said.
JAPAN
Nov 5, 2001

YOKE hosts festival for international cooperation

The Yokohama Association for International Communication and Exchanges (YOKE) will hold a fair to introduce organizations involved in international cooperation on Nov. 10 and 11 at Sangyo Boeki Center Bldg. in the city's Naka Ward.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 4, 2001

Author draws strength from illness to warn of market crisis

A life-threatening illness often focuses a person's mind on the meaning of life. For writer Main Kohda, the fear she may have developed cancer changed her life.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 4, 2001

Cities that go with the flow

LEARNING FROM THE JAPANESE CITY: West Meets East in Urban Design, by Barrie Shelton. London: E. and F.N. Spon/Routledge, 2001, 210 pp., profusely illustrated, 42.50 British pounds (cloth) In this interesting study of Japanese urban space, the author writes that when he thinks of the Western city he envisions...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 4, 2001

Isabella Bird's letters from Japan

UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN: An Account of Travels in the Interior Including Visits to the Aborigines of Yezo and the Shrines of Nikko, by Isabella L. Bird. New York: ICG Muse, 2000, 1,700 yen, 342 pp. (paper) "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan" documents the journeys of Isabella Bird, an extraordinary woman for...
JAPAN
Nov 3, 2001

Palau banks on environment to bring in the tourist dollars

The president of the Republic of Palau said Thursday that his island nation will protect its environment through education and the selective admission of foreign capital, while promoting tourism as its major industry.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Nov 3, 2001

Japanese relieve stress in strange ways

Westerners typically take a vacation to relieve stress. We might go to the Caribbean, lie on the beach, read trashy novels and sip cocktails. Not so the Japanese.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 1, 2001

Kimono makers target the young

Mariko Moriwaki, 39, a Web editor at publisher Shogakukan Inc., draws a lot of attention from visitors to her office.
JAPAN
Oct 31, 2001

Australophile to receive award

KOBE -- When Mineko Furusawa visited Brisbane in 1965, she never thought she would end up devoting the rest of her life to fostering better Japan-Australia relations.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 31, 2001

The gift of Ghibli

When I first heard that Hayao Miyazaki was planning a museum in Mitaka dedicated to the films that his Studio Ghibli animators and he had created over the years, I imagined animation cels framed on beige walls. Save for dedicated fans, it wasn't the most thrilling prospect for a Saturday afternoon, especially...
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2001

SDF antiterrorism bill wins quick Diet passage

An antiterrorism bill allowing the Self-Defense Forces to lend an unprecedented level of support to U.S.-led forces overseas cleared the Diet on Monday.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Oct 28, 2001

A rough guide to the indies

Japan's indie music scene is a fractured miasma of competing and collaborating subgenres. The sheer number of bands is, as anyone who has looked at Pia's live house listings recently, overwhelming. Like a fan searching for a hidden venue in the twisted back streets of Shimokitazawa or Koenji, you can...

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