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LIFE / ALTERNATIVE LUXURIES
Jun 1, 2000

Our planet, our teacher

In conversation with writer Masanori Oe, one hears the word "discovery" quite often. It's no wonder. Since the days of his translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead into Japanese and his film documentaries on the psychedelic movement in New York City in the late 1960s, he has pioneered new directions...
COMMENTARY
May 30, 2000

A losing fight against smoking

Amid global moves to tighten controls on smoking, the Health and Welfare Ministry, nongovernnmental organizations and other groups will hold various events in Japan to mark World No Tobacco Day on May 31.
COMMENTARY / World
May 29, 2000

A brief reprieve for the nuclear club

NEW DELHI -- The five original nuclear powers have won a much-needed reprieve at the first review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty since its indefinite extension five years ago. That reprieve, however, could serve as the lull before the storm.
JAPAN
May 28, 2000

North Korea on agenda for Mori's talks in Seoul

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's scheduled meeting Monday in Seoul with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung comes at a crucial point in Japan's efforts to advance normalization negotiations with North Korea.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 23, 2000

Basho, a man for all seasons

REDISCOVERING BASHO: A 300th Anniversary Celebration, edited by Stephen Henry Gill & C. Andrew Gerstle. Kent: Global Oriental/Global Books, 1999, 168 pp., 14.95 British pounds. During the 300 years since his death, Basho has turned into Japan's most famous poet, the personification of haiku culture...
COMMUNITY
May 21, 2000

Monkey mugs teacher juggling long way home

After eight months traveling in Asia, Leslie Davis is back in Japan for 2 1/2 weeks. She is using this time "to get grounded": sorting out taxes and boxes, seeing friends and reorganizing her backpack for the next stage of her journey. This will take her through Indonesia to Australia, New Zealand...
JAPAN
May 21, 2000

Imperial Couple depart for Europe

The Emperor and Empress left Saturday for an official visit to the Netherlands and Sweden, as well as unofficial trips to Switzerland and Finland.
COMMENTARY / World
May 21, 2000

Making mountains out of molehills

SYDNEY -- China's opening to the world amid its economic reform and modernization has brought immeasurable benefits to many of its citizens who are being enriched through growing trade linkages. Trading with the rest of the world and even the lukewarm welcoming of foreign investment capital have improved...
CULTURE / Art
May 20, 2000

Hanae Mori at Art Tower Mito

Mito City in Ibaraki Prefecture hardly seems the place to stage an international fashion exhibition, but Art Tower Mito (ATM), in celebration of its 10th anniversary, has done just that.
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2000

The limits of peacekeeping

There is a troubling sense of deja vu in the tragedy befalling the U.N. peacekeeping effort in Sierra Leone (it is really peace enforcement, a euphemism for getting sucked into someone else's war). And more than just putting at risk future U.N. operations, recent events pose vexing questions about how...
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2000

Sri Lanka's violence threatens India

For a number of years after it achieved independence, Sri Lanka was viewed as the most promising country in South Asia. It had the highest literacy rate, the highest GNP per capita and was the most favorable destination in the region for tourists and investors alike. That all ended with an upsurge of...
JAPAN
May 19, 2000

Summit elates Osaka's Okinawans

OSAKA -- Osaka lost the bid for the 2000 Group of Eight summit to Okinawa, shocking and disappointing many local business and political leaders who had believed their city was the clear favorite.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 17, 2000

Multi-gap family falls into valley of stress

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
JAPAN
May 16, 2000

Obuchi's death is mourned

Some 3,000 mourners paid their respects Monday to former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, who died Sunday at a Tokyo hospital six weeks after suffering a stroke and lapsing into a coma.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 16, 2000

Enchi's made-up 'monogatari'

A TALE OF FALSE FORTUNES, By Fumiko Enchi. Translated by Roger K. Thomas. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000. Unpriced. The late Fumiko Enchi was, besides being a well-known novelist, a major scholar of Japanese literature. Like her father, Kazutoshi Ueda, she was a classicist. Her 1972-3...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
May 16, 2000

Blood and gore all over the floor

"Everyone thought I'd fallen on some broken glass by accident. But . . . I just couldn't stand myself anymore, so I went behind the amps with this piece of broken glass, having decided to cut my jugular vein. I just didn't have the guts, though . . . I was aiming for the vein, but I just couldn't make...
JAPAN
May 15, 2000

Obuchi's 20 months as leader

The following is a chronology of the major events that took place during former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi's 20 months in office.
COMMENTARY / World
May 14, 2000

Awaiting Putin's policy plans

With great fanfare, Vladimir Putin was inaugurated as president of Russia May 7 in the gilded splendor of the Kremlin, the former residence of the Russian czars.
CULTURE / Music
May 14, 2000

Japan's greatest battle in song and story

Oct. 21 this year marks the 400th anniversary of the most decisive battle in Japan's history, fought at Sekigahara near the border between Shiga and Gifu prefectures, where Tokugawa Ieyasu overcame all opposition to set the course of events for the next three centuries.
CULTURE / Art
May 13, 2000

Tate residency builds a cultural bridge

Johnnie Walker, a self-declared champion of the avant-garde, has made big strides through the Tokyo art scene. For many years Walker, through his foundation Za Moca, has made it his purpose to support artists in various ways, from monthly parties to celebrate artists exhibiting in Tokyo, through accommodation...
LIFE / Travel
May 11, 2000

Firing up Fukuoka's hippest corner

FUKUOKA -- A long feature on Fukuoka in a recent issue of Toyo Keizai magazine examined three different areas that represent development in the city. Two of these, the reclaimed land of Momochi, and the city's historic Kawabata area, have seen much growth in the last 10 years, boosted by giant government-funded...
CULTURE / Stage
May 10, 2000

Kee Company explores facets of communication

If we could see language, if language relied on visual instead of aural means, it would become a kind of communication closely resembling telepathy: a fusion of the observer with the observed.
ENVIRONMENT
May 10, 2000

Trees and taste at Mito Botanic Garden

Mito, in Ibaraki Prefecture, is well known throughout Japan for natto (fermented soybeans), an acquired taste. It is also known for Kairakuen Garden, one of the Three Famous Gardens in Japan, which I've written about before. Just a couple of kilometers south of Mito in the lush green countryside, there...
JAPAN
May 9, 2000

Longer Golden Week spurs huge turnout

Some 68.1 million people spent their Golden Week holidays at major tourist attractions or events this year, an increase of roughly 14.3 million from last year, the National Police Agency said Monday.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.