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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jul 3, 2004

Never been there, never done that

"Twenty-five" seems a fine number for the necessary hours in a day or an easy-to-find shoe size in centimeters, yet for me that digit has now garnered a special significance. It marks the number of years I have lived in Japan, soon to inch one step forward to 26 -- more than a quarter of a century.
COMMENTARY
Jul 3, 2004

Philippine election brings anxiety, not hope

HONG KONG -- The Philippines is lurching toward a crisis in which democracy is part of the problem instead of part of the solution. While, in theory, a long, arduous presidential election should leave a nation better aware of itself and eagerly awaiting a new beginning, in the Philippines it has left...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jul 2, 2004

Don't expect Shaq deal to happen fast

NEW YORK -- So, Kobe Bryant finally has a start date (Aug. 27) for his Eagle scout trial. This gives him exactly two months from today to unite the community and divide community property.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 28, 2004

People of Myanmar need Asia's help

Myanmar's stubborn military regime has decided to carry on with its controversial constitutional convention even as National League of Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her lieutenant, U Tin U, remain under house arrest. The last time a free and fair election was held -- in 1990 -- the NLD won a...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 27, 2004

A feast of culture on Hokkaido menu

Modernization and industrialization have ensured that the traditional lifestyle of the Ainu has been destroyed as thoroughly as the traditional customs of their Japanese neighbours.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 26, 2004

Few surprises in EU elections

BRUSSELS -- The European parliamentary elections June 13 turned out largely as forecast. Despite a sharp fillip in Britain's voter turnout, spurred by the rise of the anti-European U.K. Independence Party, or UKIP, voter turnout as a whole continued its generation-long decline across Europe, with less...
COMMENTARY
Jun 24, 2004

Constitution faces hard sell

LONDON -- So the great battle of the new European Constitution is over -- at least for the moment. The leaders of 25 member-states of the European Union have agreed and signed up to a massive document, entitled a Constitution, which for the first time gives the EU a legal personality and an authority...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jun 23, 2004

Many questions remain over merger of Buffaloes, BlueWave

July 7 is the date for the big meeting in Japanese baseball. Owners of the 12 Central and Pacific League teams are to get together to decide what will happen with regard to the proposed merger of two PL clubs, the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes and the Orix BlueWave.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 23, 2004

Smarting from pension snafu, LDP has modest poll hopes

The Liberal Democratic Party must "humbly accept" the harsh public outrage over its recent forced passage of contentious pension reform bills as it strives to retain its strength in the July 11 House of Councilors election, the LDP secretary general said.
COMMENTARY
Jun 21, 2004

'Kanazawa Process' pays off

KANAZAWA, Ishikawa Prefecture -- The "Kanazawa Process," a unique initiative sponsored by the United Nations for promoting peace and stability in Northeast Asia, is now celebrating its 10th anniversary. During the decade, this region and the wider world have been radically transformed.
EDITORIALS
Jun 20, 2004

Japanese baseball at a crossroads

Whither goes Japanese professional baseball? That question must have come to the minds of many Japanese when they heard last week the news that officials of two professional baseball clubs, the Kintetsu Buffaloes and the Orix BlueWave, have reached a basic agreement to merge the teams. The news came...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 20, 2004

Esoteric ways of the samurai

THE PERFUMED SLEEVE, by Laura Joh Rowland. New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 326 pp., 2004, $24.95 (cloth). SENSEI, by John Donohue. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 258 pp., 2004, $23.95 (cloth). For the ninth time since his 1994 debut in "Shinju," Sano Ichiro ("the shogun's most honorable investigator...
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 16, 2004

If you go into the woods today . . .

Whether "Into the Woods" works as meaningful entertainment for adults rather than just a musical confection of assorted fairy tales for children is the question hovering over this clever and complex Broadway musical scripted by James Lapine, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. First staged and...
Japan Times
Features
Jun 13, 2004

Sea changes on sex crime

Tokyo office worker Kyoko Igarashi, in her 20s and living alone, noticed that a man who'd been hanging around her neighborhood had started to loiter outside the door of her second-floor apartment -- just beyond the peep-hole.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 13, 2004

Murakami's job guide for teens lights the pipe of dreams

In mid-May, NHK's nightly news feature "Closeup Gendai" looked at the current post-university recruitment situation from the viewpoint of the recruit. For the past decade, the main story with regard to this issue has been the difficulty of finding work as more and more companies restructured along nontraditional...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 12, 2004

Time is ripe to establish G20

In foreign policy speeches in Washington on April 29 and Montreal on May 10, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin proposed the creation of a new group of 20 countries (G20) at the heads-of-government level as the forum of choice for tackling pressing global problems.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 12, 2004

Korean democracy passes test

NEW YORK -- Politics in Japan and South Korea are a study in contrasts. It is nearly impossible to identify the polic differences between Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition Democrats. In South Korea, on the other hand, the ruling Uri Party, which now controls both the presidency...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jun 11, 2004

Verdict in O.J. criminal trial still a divisive issue

I have been waiting a long time to write this column.
EDITORIALS
Jun 10, 2004

Iraqi people's trust will be decisive

The people of Iraq may have mixed feelings about the interim government that came into existence last week, for it is an unelected government assembled ostensibly under the aegis of the United Nations but actually under the influence of the United States. Nevertheless, it is set to take over power from...
EDITORIALS
Jun 7, 2004

What was the girl thinking?

Many people must have been lost for words last week when they heard that a sixth-grade elementary school girl in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, had been slashed in the neck and killed by a female classmate. The incident took place during lunch break in a study room at the school -- the last place one would...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Jun 7, 2004

Putin looks back to the future

MOSCOW -- A new catchphrase is making the rounds in Moscow: "We have already seen that." Summing up the results of the first four-year term of President Vladimir Putin, the expression is a far cry from flattery, as it refers not to the reforms of Peter the Great but to the return of the cult of personality...
EDITORIALS
Jun 6, 2004

When slow is beautiful

A new book on an old theme, published last month, is slowly beginning to garner attention in the American and British media, although it has not yet made the best-seller lists. But that is probably just fine with the author, Carl Honore, a Canadian journalist based in London, because taking time is precisely...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jun 5, 2004

Taking the long road to nowhere

Out on the straight freeways of higher enlightenment, many an astute Japan watcher has tied the cautious, noncommittal qualities of Japanese personality to various cultural and linguistic features, such as tightknit group society and ambiguous language structure.
BUSINESS
Jun 4, 2004

Tax revenue debate said clouding reforms

Recent wrangling over the transfer of tax revenue sources from the central government to local governments is clouding the future course of Japan's fiscal reform, analysts said Thursday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 2, 2004

The challenge of not knowing your place

It is a shame that Ilya Kabakov was not feeling well enough to make the trip to Tokyo for the opening last Friday of his Mori Art Museum exhibition, "Where Is Our Place?" I met the New York-based Kabakov and his wife, Emilia, years ago when they were involved with the now-defunct Satani Gallery in Ginza,...
COMMENTARY
Jun 1, 2004

Koizumi took the right risks

The success or failure of summit diplomacy depends primarily on whether it promotes the pursuit of medium- and long-term national interests -- not on whether it yields short-term, specific results. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's May 22 meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il should be evaluated...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 30, 2004

Media leave Imperial family forgotten, lonely, and in a corner

The excitement last weekend over North Korea's release of some of the Japanese abductees' children overshadowed another news story about prisoners of the state -- the Japanese Imperial family. Crown Prince Naruhito returned from his whirlwind wedding tour of Europe to a tense Imperial Household Agency...
EDITORIALS
May 28, 2004

Banks and their 'debt of gratitude'

It appears that most of Japan's top banks are making good progress toward cleaning up their nonperforming loans. They may not be out of the woods yet, but their latest financial reports indicate that they are on track to meeting a government target for bad-debt reduction in fiscal 2004, which ends March...

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji