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JAPAN
Jan 30, 2001

Funeral rites held for men killed in failed station rescue

Funeral rites were held for two men who were killed by a train Friday night when trying to rescue a drunken man who had fallen off the platform onto the tracks at JR Shin-Okubo Station on Tokyo's Yamanote Line.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 30, 2001

Otaku loose in a noirish world

Dark future movies are, by now, as established an SF subgenre as creature features or space operas. Their world view is usually a cross between an Orwellian nightmare and a Jean Paul Gaultier fashion show: grim, oppressive and dangerous but sexy, radical and cool. In other words, you wouldn't mind visiting,...
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2001

Universal Studios theme park opening to coincide with start of spring break

OSAKA -- Universal Studios Japan, a theme park under construction on Osaka's waterfront, will open March 31, USJ Co. President Akira Sakata announced Monday.
JAPAN
Jan 28, 2001

Egalitarian values stifle creativity: researcher

The egalitarianism embedded in Japanese society deprives researchers and scholars of the economic incentives to pursue creative and innovative studies, according to 46-year-old Shuji Nakamura.
COMMUNITY
Jan 28, 2001

Float, crab, shrimp and base

There was something profoundly shocking about sitting on the sidelines to watch a hefty adult male throw himself between the legs of a teenage girl and then try forcibly to get into her underwear. How could this be right? Self-defense techniques for women are to be applauded, but this was too close to...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 28, 2001

American Kenneth Jones

"Walk in, you'll be in Kyoto," proclaims the brochure of Kyoto-Kan, Akasaka.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 28, 2001

Elegance in everyday sculptures

In the 19th century, ukiyo-e wood block prints and ornamental toggles for pouches -- netsuke -- were greatly prized in the West. But to most Japanese, in the whirl of modernization, they were simply old-fashioned aspects of a fading way of life.
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2001

South Korea wants more than token ties

Japan should be more reciprocative in efforts to solidify ties with South Korea, given the extent to which South Korean President Kim Dae Jung has pursued forward-looking bilateral relations, according to Seoul's ambassador to Japan, Choi Sang Yong.
COMMUNITY
Jan 25, 2001

The kindergartens are all right

Michiko Sonobe (not her real name) was nervous before an interview with authorities at a prestigious kindergarten in Yokohama as part of her 21/2-year-old son's entrance examination last November.
JAPAN
Jan 24, 2001

Japan to host festival in Seoul

The Japan External Trade Organization will hold the Japan-Korea Festival in Seoul next month to promote friendship between the two countries.
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Jan 24, 2001

See where the apricot (or is it plum) blossoms

Kairakuen Garden in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture, is one of the three most celebrated gardens in Japan, located a very short distance from the city center.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jan 23, 2001

Korean baseball season saved by compromise

After much soul searching on both sides, the Korea Pro Baseball Players Union and the KBO's member teams have finally reached a compromise to save the 2001 season which the owners had canceled the month before.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 23, 2001

Okinawa's fate through women's eyes

WOMEN OF OKINAWA: Nine Voices from a Garrison Island, by Ruth Ann Keyso. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000, 168 pp., $16.95 (cloth). Ruth Ann Keyso traveled to Okinawa in 1997 to write a history of the island's postwar past. Following conversations with various people on the island, she decided...
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2001

Kids must learn English at earlier age, panel says

Japan should continue to actively discuss the introduction of English language education at the elementary school level, including putting English on the mandatory curriculum, a private advisory panel to the education, culture, sports, science and technology minister said in its final report submitted...
JAPAN
Jan 19, 2001

Firms demand English speakers

Kyodo News Service Keizo Mori is one of many old-style Japanese corporate warriors trying to keep up in an internationalized work environment where mastering English has become key to climbing the promotion ladder.
JAPAN
Jan 19, 2001

KSD-tainted Koyama cozy with firms

Takao Koyama, the arrested House of Councilors member mired in the KSD bribery scandal, posed questions in parliamentary panels designed to increase state aid to scaffolding firms that later set up an association chaired by an official from a KSD-linked organization, sources familiar with the case said...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 18, 2001

Meet your future friend, Mr. Roboto

One of the formative experiences of my childhood was the New York World's Fair of 1962-63, where America's great and beneficent corporations introduced consumers to the future. The memory that sticks with me most is of Bell Telephone's "picture phone," which we were told would be widely in use by the...
COMMUNITY
Jan 18, 2001

New blood in Japanese fashion design

At the beginning of the new millennium Japan is Asia's fashion ground zero, a place where street fashion in its myriad forms is helping inspire a new generation of young designers.
LIFE / Digital
Jan 17, 2001

The Library of Congress streams

www.loc.gov This short URL brings you to a rather unremarkable home page, that of the U.S. Library of Congress. Click behind the facade and you're on an elegant bridge to America's past. There's no map, but don't worry. You want to get lost among the millions of pieces on display -- manuscripts, streaming...
CULTURE / Film
Jan 16, 2001

A living, dancing tradition

Stories may be universal, but story-telling, as a performance art, just doesn't travel well. Kabuki is universally known among the educated in the West, at least by name, while rakugo remains obscure to all but scholars and a handful of devotees. This is an unfortunate, but seemingly intractable position....
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2001

Astronauts tour to report on mission

The crew of the U.S. space shuttle Discovery said Monday that aspects of everyday life will become increasingly important as astronauts' missions get longer.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jan 16, 2001

The buy-or-die albums of 2000

In 2000 America rocked with Limp Bizkit, Slipknot and At The Drive In, while Britain got all soppy and introverted with Richard Ashcroft, Coldplay and Belle & Sebastian. As for Japan, I have mixed feelings. It was great that Melt-Banana, Audio Active and 54 Nude Honeys (my favorite Japanese bands) all...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 16, 2001

A lesson for our swollen egos

SOUTHERN SILK ROAD: In the Footsteps of Sir Aurel Stein and Sven Haedin, by Christoph Baumer. Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2000, 152 pp., profusely illustrated with color plates, drawings, maps, $35 soft cover. This is the revised and expanded English edition of Baumer's "Geisterstaedte der Suedlichen Seidenstrasse...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 15, 2001

No wonder Seoul's politicos get no respect

SEOUL -- Some days ago I received a telephone call from the Office of the Chief Spokesman of the National Assembly. A friendly public-relations officer invited me to write an article for the National Assembly Review with personal observations regarding the challenges for parliamentary politics in South...
COMMUNITY
Jan 14, 2001

Turning gray offices into great places to work

Steven Louie, vice president and design director of Gensler Tokyo, is not only warm, open and charming; he's also sensitive, patient, and very very kind. This was illustrated by his treatment of the 16-year-old student from the U.K. (on a work experience program) who accompanied me, listening attentively...
CULTURE / Art
Jan 14, 2001

Pursuing Japan's great love affair with Toulouse-Lautrec

The Japanese love Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). His art is lively and interesting, and strong Japanese influences can be detected in it. The current exhibition at the Tobu Museum of Art makes much of this mutual admiration, with the French artist's work revealing his love for Japan while the...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Jan 13, 2001

Muscovites get all fired up

"Real Chechnya" -- this is how Muscovites sum up their experiences during the recent holiday season. Fortunately, except for routine scuffles ignited by the excessive consumption of alcohol, there was no fighting in the Russian capital.

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