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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.
COMMUNITY
Jan 7, 2001

Good manners make comfortable relations

In Japan, there has been much discussion of late of both morals and manners. Indeed, one national newspaper on Jan. 1, in a section devoted to scrutinizing how Japanese have changed in recent years, devoted a whole page to the question: Are good manners a thing of the past?
CULTURE / Art
Nov 26, 2000

Warabe Aska's visions of Earth

TORONTO -- For prolific picture-book artist Warabe Aska, art always comes first and text second. "Imagination and inspiration are very important to me," he says.
CULTURE / Books / POETRY MIGNETTE
Nov 19, 2000

Poetry readings in Okinawa

In Itoman, Okinawa Prefecture Oct. 15, Shuntaro Tanikawa read such scatological, contemporary poems as "Onara (Fart)" and "Unko (Crap)" from his collection "Hadaka" (the English edition, "Naked," is jointly published by Stone Bridge Press and Saru Press).
JAPAN
Nov 12, 2000

Districts waive care premiums for the elderly

At least 86 municipalities in Japan are either reducing or waiving premiums for nursing care insurance from low-income residents aged 65 or older, according to a new survey conducted by Kyodo News.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Nov 12, 2000

On taking the eightfold path to environmental awareness

Environmentalists are a hard breed to pin down, much less to classify. They come in all shapes and sizes, and some even reject the name.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 29, 2000

The painting of Zen: Seeing the funny side of it all

In art as in philosophy, Zen revels in contradiction. The picture of an ant running endlessly round a grindstone is a comment on futility. A priest, on the brink of spiritual discovery, is not in elegant robes or mystic postures but wearing a battered straw raincoat, resting on a walking stick.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 29, 2000

Local boy makes good on his own

It is practically impossible to beat the odds and attain major recognition and success in Japan as an individual artist. When an artist does achieve success it is usually the result of a miracle -- or nepotism. It is not uncommon for gallerists who want to promote a particular artist to arrange a show...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 24, 2000

Portrait of Laos, Asia's 'forgotten country'

LAOS: Culture and Society, edited by Grant Evans. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books, 2000, 313 pp., $24.95 The colorful volumes of anthropology produced in the past by gifted amateurs, lady travelers of independent means, colonial officers and the like, have been replaced by the works of highly trained...
CULTURE / Books / POETRY MIGNETTE
Oct 15, 2000

Rexroth revolution comes home to Japan

Yokohama-based essayist and poet Morgan Gibson has been and continues to be one of the most prolific contributors to Japan's English literary scene. Of his own work he had poems published in the 1970s in pioneering journals like One Mind and Kyoto Review and later, in the '80s, in publications like Blue...
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Oct 13, 2000

Wire's sonic zeitgeist knows no boundaries

Certain music magazines do more than just chronicle the ins and outs of bands and fans. In their pages they capture the mood of a particular era. Thus Rolling Stone was more than just a San Francisco rock magazine, and so London's The Wire is more than just a magazine about modern music.
LIFE / Travel
Oct 11, 2000

In the quiet domain of the stone Buddhas

As you turn into the quiet country road leading to Usuki's Buddhist rock carvings, a stone torii gate, riveted into the earth, deeply corroded by wind and rain, comes into momentary view. Standing in a field of rippling green paddy, it is an unintentional signal that you have entered a different time...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 9, 2000

Confronting a legacy of shame

WHAT DID THE INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE AMERICANS MEAN?, edited by Alice Yang Murray. Boston, Mass.: Bedford/St. Martins, 2000, 163 pp., $13.50 (paper). This book is part of a series called "Historians At Work." Aimed at the undergraduate student, the series is designed to introduce students to a historical...
BUSINESS
Sep 29, 2000

RCC's debt forgiveness reaches 60.5 billion yen

The government's Resolution and Collection Corp. has forgiven 60.5 billion yen in corporate and individual debt since it was launched in April last year, RCC President Akio Kioi said Thursday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 26, 2000

Welcome return of four classics

THE IZU DANCER, by Yasunari Kawabata, translated by Edward Seidensticker. THE COUNTERFEITER; OBASUTE; THE FULL MOON, by Yasushi Inoue, translated by Leon Picon. Singapore, Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 2000, 144 pp., $14.95. Here is a new, reset quality-paperback edition of one of the staples of modern...
CULTURE / Art
Aug 26, 2000

Hair ornament exhibitions

The Sawanoi Museum of Traditional Japanese Hair Ornaments in the western suburbs of Tokyo will hold a three-day event Sept. 8-10 commemorating Kushi no Hi (Comb Day). Stores and institutions with connections to combs and hair ornaments usually organize a variety of events on Sept. 4, as the numerals...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 22, 2000

Soseki never dreamed of this

TEN NIGHTS' DREAMS, by Natsume Soseki. Translated by Takumi Kashima, Kyoko Nonaka, Hideki Oiwa, Horikatsu Kawashima and Katsunori Fujioka. London: Soseki Museum in London, 2000. 64 pp., unpriced. In 1908, and already an established popular writer, Natsume Soseki turned to more experimental forms of...
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Aug 16, 2000

Of Rubber Ridley and his Gardens

The Gardens: That is how many locals refer to them. Just The Gardens. As if there were no other, as Bonnie Tinsley wrote in "Visions of Delight."
BUSINESS
Aug 15, 2000

Yachiyo Bank takes over operation of Kokumin

Yachiyo Bank on Monday took over the operations of Kokumin Bank, a collapsed second-tier regional bank based in Tokyo, in a deal involving the use of more than 180 billion yen in public money to settle Kokumin's bad loans.
JAPAN
Aug 13, 2000

Takadanobaba: A lot of history and a bit of romance

Waseda Dori near JR Takadanobaba Station is dotted with budget restaurants, bars, book shops and travel agencies, all ready to cater to Waseda University students.
COMMUNITY
Aug 9, 2000

Echoes of the past in an oasis of beauty

The Japanese lords of yesteryear certainly lived in grand style. Famous gardens in Japan are like very expensive works of art. Luckily the Ritsurin Garden in Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture, cannot be sold at Christie's.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 25, 2000

The debate on Nanjing is now closed

DOCUMENTS ON THE RAPE OF NANKING, edited by Timothy Brook. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1999, 301 pp., 2,616 yen. AMERICAN GODDESS AT THE RAPE OF NANKING: The Courage of Minnie Vautrin, by Hua-ling Hu. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000, 184 pp. The adversity...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 25, 2000

Fenollosa's study of art is art

EPOCHS OF CHINESE AND JAPANESE ART, by Ernest F. Fenollosa. A facsimile of the 1913 edition. New York, Tokyo, Osaka: ICG Muse, Inc. 440 pp., with original plates, 2,100 yen. Ernest Fenollosa, the man who taught the West about traditional Japanese art, first came to Japan in 1878, when he was invited...
CULTURE / Books / POETRY MIGNETTE
Jul 16, 2000

When dream makers walk among us

Socrates' bestial laugh washes into the cosmic map where Blake digs with his spade and Sam stands bathed in the sparks of his youth Among colored shapes, Sam embraces the warmest softest things a woman's spirit in the shape of clouds in the shape of foam in the shape of a womb The white space of the...
COMMUNITY
Jul 14, 2000

Get up, get busy: It's summertime

Much as I hate to admit it, summertime in Tokyo is less than joyous. The season just doesn't have that celebratory, liberating mood, it doesn't slow down, grow languid or lean back with an iced tea. Summertime in Tokyo means sweating businessmen carrying suit jackets with their forefingers to cut fabric...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 20, 2000

Po Chu-i's eternal pleasures

PO CHU-I: Selected Poems. Translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, 172 pp., unpriced. When he died at the age of 75 in 846, Po Chu-i left behind a legacy of some 2,800 poems. A civil servant, he early on wrote poetry critical of authority and was consequently demoted...
CULTURE / Books / POETRY MIGNETTE
Jun 18, 2000

Cafe's tempting literary brew

Cafe Independent, a "rattle-bag collection of poetry, art, pearls of prose . . . ," is produced by Oliver Kinghorn and Shannon Smith in Kyoto.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 14, 2000

Kyogen's hero is Everyman

KYOGEN COMPANION, by Don Kenny, with a brief history by Kazuo Toguchi. Tokyo: National Noh Theater, 1999. 308 pp. with b/w plates. 1,800 yen. Kyogen are short comic plays sometimes a part of, but more often sandwiched between, the longer and often tragic noh dramas. They are spoken in the vernacular...

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