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BUSINESS
Jul 6, 2000

Disneyland site set to swell into kingdom

Another dream world of Disney is emerging just outside Tokyo, enticing both young and old into what appears to be a medieval European town.
COMMUNITY
Jun 25, 2000

Don't run for cover, go Zurich Insurance!

Sitting on the swishest sofa ever -- an L-shaped signature design in scarlet leather -- in the lobby of Zurich Insurance, I picked up a book from the sea-green plate-glass coffee table and began reading up on "The Swiss." What should I expect of the president of such a company? Having met any number...
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 20, 2000

Tales of love, pride, loyalty and death

Murder leads off and finishes up the Kabukiza's June playbill in the usual midori sampler of acts from different plays separated by dance numbers.
JAPAN
Jun 16, 2000

Koreans in Japan jubilant over North-South thaw

Korean residents of Japan on Thursday shared in the excitement of the landmark reconciliation pact signed by North and South Korea late Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Jun 15, 2000

Convenience stores embrace e-commerce

Your average convenience store is a small shop with just 100 sq. meters of floor space.
JAPAN
Jun 6, 2000

Man held in Internet extortion case

An employee of an Internet-related company in Tokyo has been arrested for sending e-mail to a major food maker in which he demanded 40 million yen or else he would poison the firm's products, police officials alleged Monday.
JAPAN
May 28, 2000

Drunk-driver mows down six people

A 28-year-old man drove his car onto a crowded sidewalk near the Roppongi Intersection in Tokyo's Minato Ward early Saturday morning, plowing into pedestrians, a confectionary shop, a taxi and injuring six people, police said.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
May 17, 2000

Street entertainment

Honoring Golden Week, Omotesando lined its streetside with wondrous bamboo sculptures. I recognized the deft hand of flower master Hiroshi Teshigahara; he had once filled his Sogetsu headquarters building with similar fanciful forms, a display that visitors could walk among, and those of us who did will...
COMMUNITY
May 11, 2000

Young women study up for the future

A high attendance in classes ranging from aromatherapy, beadwork and flower arrangement to exotic languages and cooking, offered at department stores and community centers all over Japan, is a sign of a new trend among women in their late 20s and early 30s.
LIFE / Travel
May 11, 2000

Firing up Fukuoka's hippest corner

FUKUOKA -- A long feature on Fukuoka in a recent issue of Toyo Keizai magazine examined three different areas that represent development in the city. Two of these, the reclaimed land of Momochi, and the city's historic Kawabata area, have seen much growth in the last 10 years, boosted by giant government-funded...
LIFE / Travel
May 7, 2000

Hayama, Kanagawa: A spring abound with vermillion azaleas

Hayama is a picturesque seaside town located about 4 km south of Kamakura. Favored with a mild climate and scenic coasts, it sports a neighborhood of upscale houses and sophisticated restaurants facing a small yacht harbor. A chain of quiet beaches stretches south along the rock-strewn coast; inland,...
BUSINESS
May 5, 2000

Fashion chain Uniqlo aims at global casualization

With the resounding success of its Uniqlo casual fashion chain in Japan, Yamaguchi-based Fast Retailing Co. now has its eye on overseas markets with hopes of becoming the world's No. 1.
BUSINESS
May 4, 2000

Retailers forced to change their ways

Browsing through the array of goods -- from kitchenware to clothing -- at a new outlet in the Shinjuku branch of the Isetan department store in Tokyo, the price tags may surprise you: 900 yen for a nylon tote bag, 1,900 yen for a T-shirt, 550 yen for a ceramic mug.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
May 2, 2000

Punkers united will never be divided

It's three in the morning at the livehouse Gig-Antic in Shibuya and as the girl band launches into the first song a skinhead leaps on stage, screams "Manchester United" into a mike and dives headfirst into the mosh pit. He's caught by a studded-leather-clad kid with a yellow mohawk, a skate-punk in baggy...
LIFE / Travel
Apr 12, 2000

Taking it to the skies of Bangkok

On the anniversary of the King's 72nd birthday in December 1999, the revolutionary concept of electricallypowered mass transit finally hit Bangkok, a city long dependent on the noisy, noxious, internal combustion engine. Two short elevated lines, totaling 23.7 km of track, were built at a cost of 54.9...
COMMENTARY
Apr 3, 2000

No tolls on the e-commerce highway

The electronic superhighway is becoming an ever more important forum for commerce, and states want a piece of the action. But just as American colonists resisted British attempts to tax paper and tea, American citizens should bar states from taxing online transactions.
LIFE / Travel
Mar 29, 2000

Samurai, silk and soba in a classic castle town

Like many castle towns, the identity of Ueda, in Nagano Prefecture, is closely intertwined with its castle.
EDITORIALS
Mar 12, 2000

Here comes the cashless society

The experts may be right that e-commerce and online shopping represent the unstoppable wave of the future. But with all the media attention being lavished on cybermarketing, perhaps not enough attention is being paid to other new ways in which determined merchants are trying to get reluctant consumers...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 11, 2000

Installation launches attack on grandma

There are those who get a warm fuzzy feeling when they are reminded of the trappings of their middle-class childhood: the lace curtains over the sitting room window that wafted in the afternoon breeze; the old wooden wardrobe that sat in a corner of a bedroom; the bowl of peppermints at Grandma's.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 11, 2000

Antique restorer teaches old furniture new tricks

Western antique furniture has an ambivalent reputation. Some people are so enchanted with it that they become collectors, while others simply think of it as old, dirty -- and often unreasonably expensive.
JAPAN
Mar 9, 2000

Passengers describe the sudden impact

Police, firefighters and subway workers shouted instructions to each other Wednesday as they attempted to rescue injured commuters and get them to hospitals in the immediate aftermath of a subway collision that ruptured Tokyo's morning rush hour.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 9, 2000

Adventures in global dining with Tokyo's restaurant king

From stand-and-slurp ramen shops to authentic French cuisine, Tokyo is a diner's paradise. Certainly, finding places that appeal to your palate isn't a problem; hoping they'll be there the next time around is. Tokyo restaurants go out of business faster than Shibuya girls change their nail colors.
COMMUNITY
Feb 18, 2000

Angels and jazz brighten up Tokyo's 'combat zone'

"Once upon a time, there was a star called the 'Angel Star.' Far away from earth, it was a place where angels lived in peace and could often be found playing with fish by the seaside. One day, the Prince of the Angel Star returned from a long journey. He had traveled to a lovely star named 'Chikyu' [Earth]...
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2000

Apes smuggled into Osaka flown back to Indonesia

OSAKA -- Four orangutans that had been kept at a Kobe zoo left Kansai International Airport on Wednesday bound for Indonesia, to be returned to their original habitat. The orangutans had been kept at the Kobe Municipal Zoo for about eight months since it was discovered they had been kept illegally by...
LIFE / Travel
Dec 9, 1999

Rise and fall of a Japanese matador

SEVILLE, Spain -- Atsuhiro Shimoyama never planned on becoming a bullfighter. Growing up in the greater Tokyo region in the late 1980s, he opted out of going to college, and instead bummed around searching for something meaningful to do during Japan's wildly inflating bubble years.
JAPAN
Nov 5, 1999

Incense maker going strong 12 generations into business

Staff writer
JAPAN
Sep 17, 1999

Nail salons ringing up cell phone profits

Staff writer
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO
Sep 15, 1999

Scarecrows are sprouting in Shitamachi

Over one hundred jauntily clad figures line the street where the Koto Ward Office once stood.
JAPAN
Sep 9, 1999

Cloned beef goes on sale with labels

Experimental sales of beef clearly marked as coming from a cloned cow began Thursday at five selected retailers in Tokyo and the cities of Niigata and Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.

Longform

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