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EDITORIALS
Feb 4, 2001

Ginger, the new IT girl

Among the many things for which whiz-bang American inventor Dean Kamen is famous is an automated wheelchair that can ride over uneven ground and climb stairs. That particular breakthrough device was code-named "Fred." Now, as everyone this side of the grave must have heard, there is also "Ginger." Some...
COMMUNITY
Feb 1, 2001

Sophistication with a poignant twist

There is nothing quite like Cosmic Wonder. Since its inception in 1994, the Osaka-based fashion label has gone from being a cult name that only a few aficionados could identify to a sell-out collection at Ray Beams, the most directional of the Beams clothing stores in Tokyo. The company's clothes even...
CULTURE / Film
Jan 20, 2001

Do you really wanna know?

So it's said that Freud's dying words were: "What do women want?" Whether any female on the premises answered: "I'll tell you, only if you'll give it to me," is unknown, but the point is, women are a mystery. Even to the greatest of minds, not to mention our own.
EDITORIALS
Jan 19, 2001

No mileage in banana peels

A case came to court in Sunderland, England, earlier this week, that caused, or reflected, quite a stir -- such a stir, in fact, that its ripples have been felt far beyond England. Why is this?
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Dec 28, 2000

May you all live long and prosper -- kanpai!

Happy Holidays to all Japan Times readers.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Dec 25, 2000

World fisheries collapsing as technology and demand soar

As this is the season of giving, here is a gift, a riddle:
MORE SPORTS
Dec 13, 2000

IMG a major player in pro sports

What do people think of when you mention IMG? For most, it's money, for some it's exploitation, for others it's sports promotion, and, thanks to my friend Rick Roa at IMG's Tokyo office, for me it's the Playmate twins Carol and Darlene Bernaola.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 31, 2000

Japan's visionless politics

Many Japanese watched on television at least part of the face-to-face debates between U.S. presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush. Both candidates are said to be more or less middle-of-the-road types,with no defining differ ences in political philosophy. In my view, however, Bush showed himself...
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 28, 2000

Cirque du Soleil set to dazzle Japan

There is usually a charismatic man behind any successful entertainment company, and the Canadian circus group Cirque du Soleil has Guy Laliberte to thank for its success.
COMMUNITY
Oct 8, 2000

Occupational therapy via 'Women and Socks'

It is a rare thing to find any actress of middle years who has never been out of work for more than six months. Especially one willing to explore both biculturally and bilingually her country's history and the sensitive subject of postwar relations.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 23, 2000

No German blueprint for the two Koreas

SEOUL -- The relationship between local autonomy and unification is becoming an increasingly hot topic in South Korea, as more and more local authorities aspire to an active role in the process of rapprochement with the North. It is clear that this nation is passing through a historic moment. Hardly...
COMMUNITY
Sep 14, 2000

Part-timers reshaping Japan's work ethic

Yoshinori Ogawa, 27, is a bassist in the rock band Dusty Rose. He considers himself a professional musician, but like many other would-be musicians or thespians, he has not yet reached the point where he can support himself on his music alone.
COMMENTARY
Sep 14, 2000

Paving the road to failure

LONDON -- If good intentions could guarantee good results, the recently concluded Millennium Summit at the United Nations in New York would merit nothing but unreserved praise.
EDITORIALS
Sep 10, 2000

Old friends are the best

Reports from the United States tell us that some Americans are having their faith restored in a popular postwar Japanese export. The subject of their revived affection is not a car or a motorcycle, not a camera or an audiovisual device, not a laptop personal computer or other advanced information-technology...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Aug 22, 2000

Shang Shang Typhoon blowing back in to devastate main islands

At the start of the 1990s, when "world music" became a generally accepted term, some Japanese started to look at themselves and wonder what their own country had to offer -- not only in Japan but to the rest of the world.
EDITORIALS
Aug 20, 2000

Et in Arcadia too much ego

Maybe it's just a result of the August doldrums, when heat and inactivity combine to make one feel peevish with the world, but there is a pattern of behavior evident in the cloud-cuckoo-land of the news makers that is getting downright annoying.
EDITORIALS
Jul 22, 2000

Mr. Clinton's bold gamble

There were no doubts that the Camp David peace talks would be punctuated by drama, threats and scares. The negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat were focusing on core issues that touched on the very identity of Israelis and the Palestinian people....
COMMENTARY
Jun 11, 2000

Mori casts doubt on Japanese democracy

When Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori said that Japan is a "kami no kuni" (country of the gods), it can be argued he was doing little more than expressing a personal religious belief before a group of like-minded, Shinto-supporting Diet members. U.S. media claims that he was trying revive Japanese nationalism...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 12, 2000

Fingleton deflates the New Economy

IN PRAISE OF HARD INDUSTRIES: Why Manufacturing, Not the Information Technology, Is the Key to Future Prosperity, by Eamonn Fingleton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999, 273 pp., $26 (cloth). A 24-year-old Englishman with a ponytail waltzed into the offices of a London venture-capital company...
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 23, 2000

Troussier: Will he stay or will he go?

It wasn't the greatest 0-0 draw in the world but last Wednesday's game in Kobe meant more to Japan and Japanese soccer fans than such exercises in futility as the nine-goal win over Brunei in the Asian Cup qualifiers last month.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 22, 2000

Clinton's opportunities in South Asia

ISLAMABAD -- U.S. President Bill Clinton will travel to Pakistan on March 25, on the last leg of his South Asian journey, which began last Sunday. But the few hours he plans to spend in Islamabad may represent more than just a passing phase in Washington's new diplomacy in South Asia.
EDITORIALS
Mar 21, 2000

Fighting for the global commons

Protecting the environment is always a popular issue -- until hard choices have to be made. There has been a series of international conferences on the issue, but they have yielded little real progress. In Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and in Kyoto in 1997, attempts to set international standards for environmental...
EDITORIALS
Mar 2, 2000

Gone, but not forgotten

Mr. Joerg Haider, the controversial leader of Austria's Freedom Party, has resigned as head of the party. The move is intended to quiet the firestorm of international criticism that followed the decision to include Freedom in the new coalition government in Vienna. In fact, it changes very little. Although...
JAPAN / Media
Jan 20, 2000

Of the people, for the people: the mass appeal of konbini

Though Japan is famous for importing technology from the West and then sending it back in cheaper and better form, business practices remain homegrown. The shining exception is convenience stores, an American concept that has been so successful here that one could say it subsidized the rest of the Japanese...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Dec 23, 1999

Sake tools you can trust

Happy Holidays to all Japan Times readers.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Nov 3, 1999

Photographic record of a trail-breaking career

I sometimes eat lunch with a close friend who has but one child, a toddler aged 2. He likes to show me photographs.
JAPAN
Oct 13, 1999

Regional Special: KYUSHU

Reclamation project splits locals, power elite> Staff writer
EDITORIALS
May 26, 1999

The IMF is called to account

The International Monetary Fund has already received a lot of flak from private experts for giving the wrong advice to troubled Asian economies. Another analysis to that effect, therefore, is nothing new. What is new -- and significant -- is that the Japanese government, in an official report, has now...
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
May 13, 1999

A miniature blending of landscapes

In Tokyo, there are quite a number of historic gardens that were built by the daimyo during the long Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1867). The designers of many of these gardens were greatly influenced by the Chinese style of landscaping, and by the eagerness of the owners to have famous scenic sights from...
COMMENTARY
May 5, 1999

Hold off on U.S.-style layoffs

Japan's big businesses once had a reputation for not firing workers even in hard times. Not anymore. Now major corporations are going full blast to restructure, with older workers bearing the brunt of the austerity drive. The lifetime employment system, once touted as a symbol of corporate Japan, is...

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan