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EDITORIALS
Aug 1, 2001

Breathing new life into the Tories

A political party that suffers a major defeat after 18 years in power is obviously in need of serious self-examination. If it repeats the experience four years later at an election marked by an unusually high degree of abstention, the need for wrenching change may well become inescapable.
COMMENTARY
Jul 31, 2001

Making decentralization work

In a recent report, a state panel urged the central government to transfer more tax-collection power to local governments and help them secure their own tax revenues. I have no objections to the proposal, made by the Decentralization Promotion Committee in its final report to Prime Minister Junichiro...
COMMUNITY
Jul 29, 2001

Every breath you take

The children were considered lucky when they were admitted a place at the popular Sashigaya public nursery in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward. Little did their parents know what a high price their young ones might have to pay for the privilege.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Jul 29, 2001

Crossover ups and downs

Experiments in combining Western and Japanese instruments have been made since the Meiji Period, from the tentative early attempts to mix Japanese instruments in Western-style compositions to the recent bold, anything-goes usage of electronic, jazz and popular musical styles with hogaku. Some of the...
COMMENTARY
Jul 28, 2001

Chirac defends credibility of leadership

PARIS -- Once again, the French people celebrated their national feast July 14, which marks the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille royal jail -- the beginning of the great 1789 Revolution.
EDITORIALS
Jul 27, 2001

Reviving 'PKO' for shares

The Financial Services Agency this month worked out a detailed plan to set up a quasi-public body to purchase surplus shares unloaded by private banks. A related bill is expected to reach the Diet floor perhaps during an extraordinary session that opens this autumn. The problem is that the plan is designed...
CULTURE / Art
Jul 25, 2001

The misanthropic genius of Ensor

Living in densely populated cities, we survive by ignoring the crowd, by refusing to acknowledge those forced into physical proximity with us. The artist, however, is excluded from this luxury. He is expected to be aware of everything around him, including the seething mass of humanity. The etchings...
CULTURE / Art
Jul 25, 2001

Multimedia artists cross continents

Multimedia artworks created by five award-winning Japanese artists active in Europe are now on show at Axis Gallery in Roppongi, Tokyo.
COMMENTARY
Jul 21, 2001

Pakistan outmanuevered India

NEW DELHI -- Behind the blame game over the collapse of the India-Pakistan summit in Agra, a harsh reality faces New Delhi. The expectations and calculations that prompted Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to make a dramatic U-turn in his Pakistan policy and invite Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf...
COMMUNITY
Jul 20, 2001

Anpanman, the gentle hero

We had been warned in advance. It usually comes at around the age of 11/2, we heard, so at 20 months Alena was, if anything, a little late, but when it came it was with the force of religious conversion.
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 18, 2001

Soaring spectacle crowns classic kabuki triple bill

He's known as the champion of Super Kabuki, but for his two-part summer program at the Kabukiza Theater in Tokyo this month, Ennosuke Ichikawa is staging regular-style productions of a new one-hour play, "Kaka Saiyuki," and "Shunkan," adapted from part of Chikamatsu Monzae- mon's 1719 bunraku play "Heike...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jul 18, 2001

Kei Akagi

Kei Akagi's newly released CD, "Palette," on the Videoarts Music label, uses the often overdone piano trio format for powerful explorations. While many pianists range across styles because they have no sound of their own, Akagi plays with a consistent voice that is strong enough to express itself in...
SOCCER / J. League / ON THE BALL
Jul 17, 2001

Cohosting requires harmonious effort

"Cohosting is like a three-legged race," Lee Yun Taek, co-chairman of the South Korean World Cup Organizing Committee said last month at the Korea-Japan soccer journalists seminar in Seoul.
COMMUNITY
Jul 15, 2001

A potter's journey

The late potter Michiaki Kaneshige said that even though he grew up in an ancient potting family, he never fully understood the value of Japanese culture until he left these shores.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 15, 2001

Master of a dying art

In order to stay true to his art, James Wright prefers to keep a low profile; to blend in with his surroundings. But in his adopted Matsubushi, a rural town in Saitama Prefecture, the fair-haired, 180-cm Scot would seem to be fighting a losing battle. That he also works for the local butcher merely adds...
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Jul 15, 2001

A journey back to old 'new Japanese cuisine'

This week I saw a program on television that showcased shin-washoku, or "new Japanese cuisine," as the latest restaurant trend. The show visited several eateries where the chef/owners had gone abroad, mostly to America, to work in Japanese restaurants and since come back to Japan with a new twist on...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 15, 2001

Inking the moment

A sheet of white washi paper, a brush, an ink stone, a black ink stick and a good mood -- these are the ingredients for a work of shodo (calligraphy).
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 15, 2001

It takes two to tangle

Hong Kong pop idol Faye Wong already has quite a few fans in Japan, but she's sure to add more on a weekly basis thanks to her costarring role in the summer comedy series "Usokoi (False Love)" (Fuji TV, Tuesday, 10 p.m.). Wong plays a young Chinese woman appropriately named Faye, who is studying to be...
SPORTS / TALK OF THE TIMES
Jul 13, 2001

Wakanohana takes a run at his NFL dream

Masaru Hanada, better known as former yokozuna Wakanohana, surprised many when he declared his challenge to play for a National Football League team during a TV program in May.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 8, 2001

Slaying the 'monsters' of Meiji Era modernity

CIVILIZATION AND MONSTERS: Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan, by Gerald Figal. Duke University Press, 1999, 290 pp., $49.95 (hardback); $17.95 (paperback). In his prologue to "Civilization and Monsters," Gerald Figal defines Meiji modernization within the context of the fantastic and supernatural...
COMMENTARY
Jul 8, 2001

If you've still got a job, you're a loser

NEW YORK -- From 1996 to 1999, everyone who was anyone knew that the Internet was the place to be. People quit perfectly good jobs at profitable corporations because, as everyone knew, profitability was Old School and Old School was bad. They went to work at places like Henfruit.com and ReplaceThoseMissingExtraSocks.com,...
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jul 7, 2001

Biodiversity crucial for ecosystems

Wildlife variety is the spice of life -- we know it, and now scientists have confirmed it. Biodiversity is crucial for ecosystems to work properly, according to a French-British study published in Nature this week.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 7, 2001

There's no terminating hungry termites

I'm so hungry, I could eat a house! That is the termite's mantra. My neighbor Kazuko is having her house rebuilt, as it has been consumed by termites, which the Japanese call "shiroari" ("white ants").
EDITORIALS
Jul 6, 2001

Face-lift won't solve CCP's problems

The Chinese Communist Party, which celebrated its 80th anniversary on July 1, is giving itself a face-lift. In a speech marking the event, President Jiang Zemin said the party will grant membership to private business managers. That should come as no surprise, however, given that the CCP has been campaigning...
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 4, 2001

Latecomer on a 'momentous journey'

Working with Peter Brook, according to one of the actors in his latest production, is like setting out on a "momentous journey."
SOCCER / J. League / ON THE BALL
Jul 3, 2001

Time for Japan to take a lesson from Seoul

"Are you from Japan?"
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 2, 2001

French success has economists wondering

LONDON -- For Americans who work long hours, get only two weeks holiday a year, and live under a system that defines job security as a socialist vice, the apparent success of the French experiment is a puzzle and an affront.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 1, 2001

1910 Exhibition remembered

THE BRITISH PRESS AND THE JAPAN-BRITISH EXHIBITION OF 1910. Edited by Hirokichi Mutsu. With a preface by Yonosuke Ian Mutsu and an introduction by William H. Coaldrake. Production: The University of Melbourne: Curzon Press, London. 212 pp., with b/w illustration. Unpriced. This is an enlarged and...
JAPAN
Jun 29, 2001

Foes waiting in wings for Koizumi

Ace pitcher Junichiro Koizumi does not throw curveballs. Two months into his tricky job on the nation's political mound of Nagata-cho — where even supposed teammates may be plotting against him — he continues throwing straight fastballs only.
BUSINESS
Jun 28, 2001

Koizumi urged to speak frankly with Bush

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi should "frankly" explain Japan's current economic situation to U.S. President George W. Bush during their first summit scheduled for Saturday in Camp David, Md., Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa said Wednesday. "It is important that (the two leaders) nurture mutual...

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan