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Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 5, 2003

All aboard: a nation in motion

Monday is the first business day of the new year, so on Sunday the nation's airports, highways and rail lines will be crammed to overcapacity by a mass migration known as the "U-turn."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 4, 2003

Junko Okura

Last month the Junior Group of the Japan-British Society held a traditionally British Christmas party. In the revelry of a Tokyo British pub, participants enjoyed roast turkey and stuffing, and mince pies with cream and brandy sauce.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 1, 2003

Okuda offers economic solution: substantially raise sales tax

Hiroshi Okuda, chairman of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), thinks he has a cure for the sick economy, but consumers aren't likely to enjoy his bitter medicine.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 1, 2003

Humanoid robots: companions or just costly toys?

In the 1950s, Astro Boy drew on his 100,000 horsepower and hip-mounted machineguns to fight evil-doers. Despite his supposed April 7, 2003, birthday, however, the creation of robots the likes of Astro will probably remain a superhero pipe dream forever.
COMMUNITY
Dec 31, 2002

Bringing AIDS awareness to the EFL classroom

Burning the candle at both ends has a different meaning for Louise Haynes, director of Japan AIDS Prevention Awareness Network (JAPANetwork).
COMMUNITY
Dec 29, 2002

A master of tea's art and science

Kunihiko Sokan Horinouchi, 59, is not just the 13th master of the tea house Horinouchi Choseian, one of the two subdivisions of the Omotesenke, a major school of traditional Japanese tea ceremony. As the head of one of the two families which, for generations, have been supporting the Omotesenke tradition...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 2002

Saber-rattling leaves Asia cold

CAMBRIDGE, England -- I was in Beijing last week for a conference and research visits that focused on regional cooperation in Northeast Asia. While I was there, Chinese newspapers reported on Japan's dispatch of the Aegis missile detection system-equipped warship, Kirishimi, to the Indian Ocean.
LIFE / Digital / TANGLED WEBS
Dec 26, 2002

All it takes is a bit of inspired teamwork

Traditionally, the end of the year is a time of reflection. In good times, we congratulate ourselves on what we did right, and in bad times we brood over our mistakes.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 22, 2002

The Christmas business

Japanese marketers are well aware that Christmas ranks second in popularity only to New Year's -- above even the Bon holiday in August, when people flock back to their hometowns to pay respect to their ancestors.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 22, 2002

Home sweet family Christmas

It's almost Christmas, and children all over the world are getting more excited with each passing day, dreaming and chattering about what presents will await them on Christmas morning.
COMMUNITY
Dec 21, 2002

World of Gorgles and other prehysterical things

Any visitor this weekend to the Hirabayashi coffee shop opposite Yokosuka's Shioiri Station in Kanagawa Prefecture might be excused for thinking they had wandered onto another planet. They would be right. Until Monday, it is Clara Birnbaum's world: her World of the Gorgles.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 15, 2002

To eat or not to eat -- here's some advice

One of the big best sellers of the season is "Taberu na, Kiken" (Don't Eat! Danger!), which was first published in October and is now in its third printing. Unlike most books that enjoy such good sales, it isn't getting much attention in the media.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 13, 2002

Transfer market reveals evidence of shadowy money trail

LONDON -- During the Nineties the Football Association launched what was to be a four-year inquiry into alleged "bungs" -- dodgy transfer dealings where various middle men, ranging from agents to club managers and chairmen, were alleged to have benefited illegally.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 8, 2002

Capital transports of restricted delight

It's got the party places. It's got the party people. Now if only someone could come up with a way to get the people to the places, Tokyo could truly call itself a 24-hour city.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 8, 2002

It can be a royal pain to be in the family

Bowing to the media's ongoing obsession with the returned abductees, the first birthday of Princess Aiko passed with little more than token coverage.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 4, 2002

The world out there

It is a few minutes before rehearsal.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 1, 2002

'Mongrel' seeker after new self-understandings

"One day, people will realize they are a mongrel people with a mongrel history."
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Dec 1, 2002

A look at the trials of the uprooted

Though so-called international marriages continue to become more commonplace in Japan, the authorities still treat them as glaring exceptions that call for special treatment. If you're not a Japanese national and you want to make sure you can stay in Japan in the event you divorce your Japanese spouse,...
COMMUNITY
Dec 1, 2002

Essential dangling modifiers

Yuko, 38, an office worker, has keitai straps appropriate for each season -- furry ones for winter and beaded ones for summer. When the temperature changes, she adds another to her collection.
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2002

Unemployment at 5.5%

Japan's seasonally adjusted jobless rate rose to 5.5 percent in October after remaining at 5.4 percent for five straight months, matching the record high posted last December, the government said Friday in a preliminary report.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2002

Car-sharing gears up to find a foothold

SEIKA, Kyoto Pref. -- Sonoko Umemura, an official at the Kansai Economic Federation in Osaka, reserves a car by mobile phone when she travels to Kansai Science City so that she can drive to research centers scattered across an area not well served by the public transportation system.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Nov 30, 2002

The funkier side of Mike Maguire; new Antidote release; Domino at Fire

Somewhere standing off to the side of all the people who have claimed titles in electronic music -- the various kings, queens, godfathers and godmothers -- is Mike Maguire, marking his own beat, seemingly oblivious to the world.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 30, 2002

The CCP wears the pants in this marriage

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Now that the dust is settling after the Chinese Communist Party's 16th National Congress, we can begin to see the implications of the various decisions announced there.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 29, 2002

Public art promoter pitches tours to take in Japan's aesthetic heritage

In the 1960s, contemporary art objects, usually sculptures, were brought out of museums and placed in public spaces, lumped under the category of public art.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 29, 2002

Court rules against disabled in vote suit

The government's refusal to accept mail-in ballots filled out on behalf of physically disabled people is not an illegal act meriting damages, but it violates their voting rights and is unconstitutional, the Tokyo District Court ruled Thursday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2002

Housing quest still tall order for foreigners

One of the first hurdles for people planning to work or study abroad is securing a place to live.
Japan Times
JAPAN / THROUGH THE DOOR
Nov 27, 2002

Education for some refugees is ray of hope

The men in uniform white shirts and dark shorts sitting in the classroom looked too old to be junior high school students; some had gray hair, close-cropped.
Japan Times
JAPAN / THROUGH THE DOOR
Nov 26, 2002

Japan tries to reform refugee system

Japan has often been criticized for closing its doors to asylum seekers. Following the high-profile incident in May at the Japanese Consulate General in Shenyang, China, in which Japanese officials let Chinese police take a family of North Korean asylum seekers out of the compound, the government has...
Japan Times
JAPAN / WEEKEND WISDOM
Nov 24, 2002

Author tells how individuals sacrificed for the company

Although Japan achieved high economic growth by increasing its industrial productivity, the group-oriented work system that formed the basis of that development effectively sacrificed the rights of the individual, according to freelance journalist Satoshi Kamata.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past