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EDITORIALS
Oct 10, 2004

Time for Goodbye Kitty?

Japan has exported hundreds of things and ideas -- from haiku to Hondas, swordsmanship to sashimi -- of which it can be proud. Hello Kitty, the expressionless icon celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, is another story.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 19, 2004

Unexpected tales of the quotidian

A VIEW FROM THE CHUO LINE AND OTHER STORIES, by Donald Richie. Tokyo: Printed Matter Press, 2004, 127 pp., 1,500 yen (paper). And what a captivating view it is. Here are 27 short stories set in Japan -- elegantly minimalist musings on society, humanity and relationships. Perfect for train reading, some...
EDITORIALS
Sep 18, 2004

Strengthen monitoring in Sudan

The dispute that is continuing in the western part of Sudan is threatening the stability of the surrounding region. Peace negotiations mediated by the African Union have run into difficulties and there are no signs of an imminent settlement. The United Nations is reportedly considering imposing economic...
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...
JAPAN
May 21, 2004

Law planned to protect privacy of genetic data

The ministries that oversee health, industry and technology might establish a law to protect personal information related to human genetic data used in medical research.
EDITORIALS
May 16, 2004

Women, heritage and holy places

Imagine if women were not allowed to set foot on Mount Fuji or Kyoto's Mount Hiei. It's hard to envisage, isn't it? Women are as natural a sight there now as birds or stones -- or men. But little more than a century ago, it would have been hard to imagine them even approaching such places. A scholar...
JAPAN
May 5, 2004

Chinese here feel sting of prejudice

Huang Tianshu came to Japan from China five years ago, hoping to learn more about the language and culture of her peers at a China subsidiary of a Kobe-based car navigation system manufacturer, where she worked for six years after graduating from college.
JAPAN
May 5, 2004

Chinese here feel sting of prejudice

Huang Tianshu came to Japan from China five years ago, hoping to learn more about the language and culture of her peers at a China subsidiary of a Kobe-based car navigation system manufacturer, where she worked for six years after graduating from college.
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2004

Scrap rat-on-foreigners Web site: Hyogo

KOBE -- Hyogo Prefecture has become the first local government to call on the Justice Ministry to abolish a contentious Web site that asks Japanese to report via e-mail any foreigners they suspect to be illegal aliens.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 29, 2004

A past becoming urban myth

JAPANESE CAPITALS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: Place, Power and Memory in Kyoto and Tokyo, edited by Nicolas Fieve and Paul Waley. London: Routledge/Curzon, 2003, 418 pp., 75 plates, £65.00 (cloth). Japanese cities are unusual. Compared to those in Europe or even the United States, there are few physical...
JAPAN
Feb 27, 2004

Court repeals Afghan's refugee status rejection

The Tokyo District Court ruled Thursday that the Justice Ministry was wrong to reject an application for refugee status by an Afghan man fearing possible racial discrimination and persecution because he belongs to an ethnic minority.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2004

Society expels doctor for in vitro genetic tests

The board of directors of the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology decided Saturday to expel the head of a Kobe maternity clinic that conducted genetic analysis of eggs fertilized through in vitro fertilization without the society's consent.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Feb 11, 2004

You are always on my mind

Familiarity with an object or place can dampen the senses. It may not necessarily breed contempt, but it often leads to indifference. We see it all too frequently, as in the simple case of not visiting wonderful places in our own neighborhood, or the attitude folk here in Shizuoka have toward Mount Fuji:...
Events
Oct 19, 2003

KANSAI: Who & What

CASO to host art fair featuring 17 galleries: A fair of contemporary art will take place between Wednesday and Oct. 26 at Contemporary Art Space Osaka, or CASO, in the city's Minato Ward.
COMMUNITY / Issues
Jul 15, 2003

The last word

It is better to have the parents decapitated for punishment after dragging them around town. State Minister Yoshitada Konoike explains what he'd like to do to the parents of the boy who murdered four-year-old Shun Tanemoto. He later explained that the suggestion was prompted by his interest in old samurai...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 29, 2003

A hot-headed female voice

EMBRACING THE FIREBIRD: Yosano Akiko and the Birth of the Female Voice in Modern Poetry, by Janine Beichman. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002, 352 pp., $23.95 (paper). Vivid, rich, suggestive, imaginative -- with these words, writer Janine Beichman aptly describes the extraordinary early poetry...
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2003

Despite the stakes, public role in bioethics debate falls short

At what point does human life begin and when does it end? Who is allowed to alter human genes and to what extent?
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2003

Despite the stakes, public role in bioethics debate falls short

At what point does human life begin and when does it end? Who is allowed to alter human genes and to what extent?
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2003

Despite the stakes, public role in bioethics debate falls short

At what point does human life begin and when does it end? Who is allowed to alter human genes and to what extent?
EDITORIALS
May 10, 2003

Keeping a lid on SARS

Japan's health authorities are beginning to make a concerted effort to prevent the spread of the SARS epidemic. No case of severe acute respiratory syndrome has been reported in Japan so far, but health officials leave open the possibility that the deadly virus might be brought into the country by people...
COMMENTARY
May 5, 2003

Rudderless world economy

From 1993 to 2001, the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton based its policies on the Democratic Party's platform of compassion toward the underprivileged and tolerance toward dissent. In the past, this ideology had prompted Democratic administrations to try to legislate an end to racial discrimination....
JAPAN
Mar 29, 2003

More exceptions to preadmission exam eyed

A plan by the education ministry to allow graduates of Western-style schools to skip the preadmission tests for national university entrance exams may be expanded to include graduates of ethnic Asian schools, education minister Atsuko Toyama said Friday.
JAPAN
Feb 6, 2003

Transsexuals, sex-change advocates fight on against social, registry snub

Transsexuals and their supporters have teamed up to seek public acknowledgment of those who suffer from gender identity disorder and to pressure the government into allowing sex changes to be recorded in official documents.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 2, 2003

Dispatches from the past

TREATISE ON EPISTOLARY STYLE: Joa~o Rodriguez on the Noble Art of Writing Japanese Letters, by Jeroen Pieter Lamers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, 2002, 104 pp., $49.95 (cloth) In Japan, it was once thought that letters showed the writer's personal character. The way...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 29, 2002

Ken Hirai: Soul to soul

We've seen Ken Hirai do it time and time again: mesmerize audiences with his silky tenor voice and those sexily svelte good looks -- kneading the air up on stage as if to squeeze from it any drop of passion that his music has somehow failed to discharge.
EDITORIALS
Jul 21, 2002

New Cabinet, old problems

South Korean President Kim Dae Jung continues to make history. This month he selected the first female prime minister, a ground-breaking move in male-dominated South Korean society. Predictably, the decision has been derided as a political gesture to shore up the government's faltering support; opposition...

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