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CULTURE / Art
Jun 4, 2000

Oribe and the spirit of Keicho tea

The reason officially announced for the sudden execution of Sen no Rikyu in 1591 was unsatisfactory to the point of absurdity. The real reason is a mystery that may never be resolved.
JAPAN / ELECTION 2000
Jun 3, 2000

Ruling coalition awaits voters' judgment at polls

The coming Lower House election will give voters their first chance to express their support, or lack thereof, for the tripartite coalition led by the Liberal Democratic Party.
JAPAN
Jun 2, 2000

DPJ vows to raise taxes in 15-pillar election plan

The Democratic Party of Japan announced Thursday its 15-pillar election pledge that includes increasing income tax — a move that has previously won support from Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 1, 2000

Who wants to say he's a millionaire?

Everybody knows that the popular quiz show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" was dumbed-down after it was exported from England to the U.S. Some advertisers, in fact, were very angry because they thought the level of difficulty made it too easy for contestants to go all the way.
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
May 31, 2000

Environmental links

[email protected]/pressreleases/toxics/2000may19.htmlFour Greenpeace activists were recently thrown in a Tokyo jail on trespassing charges; they had unfurled a banner from a water tower proclaiming Tokyo to be the world's dioxin capital. Here the group explains why it wants to decloak the Japanese government's...
JAPAN
May 28, 2000

Osaka homeless have nowhere else to go, World Cup eviction or no

OSAKA -- In the back streets of Osaka's Nishinari district, thousands of elderly men loiter, stopping only to eat at a 100 yen ramen stand or join in a yakuza-run floating craps game.
COMMUNITY
May 28, 2000

Conductor says yes to noh style 'Don Giovanni'

Theaters in Nagoya were aghast when Yoko Matsuo came calling. Even though she was born in the city and is conductor and director of the Aichi Prefecture Symphony Orchestra, her plan to stage Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni" in the style of Japan's most revered and challenging dramatic form, noh, created...
CULTURE / Art
May 28, 2000

Blastoff for the outer limits of art

A soft blowup globe projected on a small TV screen, which spins on an axis inside three aluminium rings, and seven 15-cm plastic satellites perched on a white table can be seen at Gallery Side 2, in two exhibits by England's Steven Pippin and Japan's Taro Shinoda.
CULTURE / Music
May 28, 2000

Gergiev faultily great with the Rotterdam Phil

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra
COMMUNITY
May 25, 2000

More and more men are getting left on the shelf

"When I come home from work in the evening, my room is dark, and in winter it's cold. At these times I always wish I had a wife waiting for me, with a hot meal," says Yoshiharu Mitamura (not his real name), a 36-year-old photographer.
JAPAN
May 25, 2000

NPA official held for allegedly buying drugs on Net

OSAKA -- Health and Welfare Ministry narcotics agents have arrested a technical official with the National Police Agency on suspicion of buying amphetamines via the Internet, an Osaka office of the ministry said Wednesday.
JAPAN
May 24, 2000

Constitution divisive: survey

Politicians are split almost evenly on revising the Constitution, according to a survey on six controversial issues that was released Tuesday.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
May 24, 2000

Contrasts everywhere

We all know generalizations are dangerous, we shouldn't make them, but we do, especially when there is considerable evidence to support them. Japanese conformity is an example, though we must acknowledge that there is much to suggest a contrasting, imaginative individuality. For example, five perfectly...
CULTURE / Books
May 23, 2000

The new China, from hamburgers to lonely hearts

THE CONSUMER REVOLUTION IN URBAN CHINA, edited by Deborah S. Davis. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000, 379 pp., 35 b/w photos, 21 tables, $22 (paper). McDonald's is the great equalizer. Wherever you go in the world it tastes exactly the same. The same beef, the same cheese, the same shredded...
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...
CULTURE / Stage
May 20, 2000

Still shining after all these years

May is the month of the Dankikusai (Danjuro-Kikugoro Festival) at the Kabukiza in Tokyo's Ginza, commemorating the outstanding achievements of Danjuro Ichikawa IX and Kikugoro Onoe V, the two giants of kabuki theater in the Meiji Era.
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.
COMMENTARY / World
May 17, 2000

A grim future for China's hinterlands

A sense of deja vu comes over me when I read the Chinese government's proposals for the development of China's western, or hinterland, provinces.
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

Future of transport just round the corner

It's a sunny morning in the spring of 2013. As you ride a commuter train, an information panel on the wall announces a 30-minute delay caused by an accident. With your cellular phone, you search for an alternative route and make a reservation to get to your destination.
CULTURE / Art
May 14, 2000

Triumph or disaster in Trafalgar Square

LONDON -- The jury for Trafalgar Square was still out when Prue Leith got stuck in her traffic jam. The debate had shifted elsewhere, to other public art projects that had similarly raised hackles or won praise, like Anthony Gormley's "Angel of the North." This 20-meter-high statue erected in 1997 above...
CULTURE / Music
May 14, 2000

Yomiuri Nippon Symphony

Yomiuri Nippon Kokyo Gakudan
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
May 14, 2000

Etienne Taenaka

When he was growing up in California, Etienne Taenaka wanted to be an architect. As he watched his mother, a hairdresser, at work, he made an imaginative leap between architecture and "hair-chitecture." "Creating styles, form following function, building shapes and achieving balance," he said. "My mother...

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