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JAPAN
Feb 11, 2001

Electric Town has its red lights, too

Shinichi, a 33-year-old photographer, has dated more than 500 women in the past three years.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2001

Electric Town has its red lights, too

Shinichi, a 33-year-old photographer, has dated more than 500 women in the past three years.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 11, 2001

You haven't seen Japan till you've been in a bus

The bus is one of the best places for observing Japan. It's different from the train, where people pack in and do "gaman" till they get to their destination.
COMMUNITY
Feb 11, 2001

Shinto priestess finds freedom while minding duties of past

On summer weekends, Kugenuma Beach turns into a parody of the nearby metropolis' encroachment on the holidaymaker, with girls in bikinis and 20-cm platform sandals struggling across the sand while loudspeakers on towers belch J-pop at 50-meter intervals, making it difficult to find a moment for quiet...
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2001

Stiffer penalties sought on flagrant traffic crime

Nearly 80 percent of people who submitted opinions to the National Police Agency on its proposed draft of an amendment to the Road Traffic Law favor harsher punishments for flagrant violations such as drunken driving, the NPA said Friday.
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2001

Stiffer penalties sought on flagrant traffic crime

Nearly 80 percent of people who submitted opinions to the National Police Agency on its proposed draft of an amendment to the Road Traffic Law favor harsher punishments for flagrant violations such as drunken driving, the NPA said Friday.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 9, 2001

Richard Thompson defies death and lives to tell

By his own estimate, Richard Thompson played about 100 concerts last year, "which means you're on the road for about 150 days."
CULTURE / Art
Feb 8, 2001

Calligraphy: a goodwill ambassador for Japanese culture

MADRID -- I used to take it for granted in my youth that my practice of "sho" (Japanese calligraphy) would bear no relation to my career as a diplomat, but over the past half century I have often found that sho serves as a good topic of conversation with my guests.
LIFE / Travel
Feb 7, 2001

Saved from the 'bitter sea'

XIAN, China -- When "Black Bean" was 4 years old, his mother and her lover stabbed his father to death. The lover was executed for murder and the mother was sentenced to 15 years in prison as an accessory to the crime. Yet the little boy's nightmare had only just begun. Reviled by the whole village,...
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2001

Parasitologist says excess hygiene threatens Japan

Far from being next to godliness, the Japanese obsession with cleanliness puts individuals at higher risk of disease and may even threaten the entire country, according to parasitologist Koichiro Fujita.
COMMUNITY
Feb 4, 2001

Heaven to Earth without explanation or apology

Anyone who thinks the art of painting is dead should head for the Towa Building on Tokyo's Meiji-dori and take the lift to Galerie Le Deco on the fifth floor. It is here that German artist David Garde is showing work created since last September: objects, installations and paintings that disturb and...
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2001

Blame pinned on air traffic controllers

Confusion apparently led an air traffic controller to guide one Japan Airlines jetliner into the path of another, but it was only the first of several miscommunications that led to a near disaster earlier in the week, transport ministry officials admitted Friday.
EDITORIALS
Feb 2, 2001

Mr. Mori's vision fails to inspire

In a policy speech at the opening of this year's regular Diet session on Wednesday, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori took great pains to win over a skeptical public. It was his first formal address to the Parliament since he took office last April. It was also the third longest such speech ever, perhaps reflecting...
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2001

Demands for safer railway platforms rise

The public clamor for safer train platforms is growing louder following the Jan. 26 deaths of three men at JR Shin-Okubo Station on Tokyo's Yamanote Line.
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2001

Demands for safer railway platforms rise

The public clamor for safer train platforms is growing louder following the Jan. 26 deaths of three men at JR Shin-Okubo Station on Tokyo's Yamanote Line.
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2001

Female entrepreneurs seeking fulfillment

Kyodo News Rie Karasawa is the latest addition to a growing number of Japanese female entrepreneurs moving into a business world long dominated by men.
JAPAN
Jan 31, 2001

Jobless rate unchanged at 4.8% for December

The nation's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 4.8 percent in December, unchanged from November and keeping the monthly average jobless rate for 2000 at the annual record high of 4.7 percent logged in 1999, the Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry said Tuesday....
COMMENTARY
Jan 29, 2001

'Bubble' ethics cripple Japan

Chaos prevailed at some of the coming-of-age ceremonies held across the nation on Jan. 8. Youngsters who had joined the ranks of adults behaved like rogues, swilling sake from king-size bottles, throwing firecrackers at a mayor, or shouting "go home" to a governor. These and other acts of gross incivility,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 28, 2001

Challenges for South Korean democracy

SEOUL -- Nov. 28 was a black day for local autonomy in South Korea. On that date a group of lawmakers introduced a bill in the National Assembly, aimed at abolishing the democratic election of lower-level mayors. The 42 lawmakers from different political parties who presented the bill argued that the...
CULTURE / Art
Jan 27, 2001

Wear black, be seen -- and be photographed

She is there week after week, down on the Ginza strip, up in Aoyama and over in Shinjuku, maneuvering from gallery to gallery on the Tokyo contemporary art exhibition opening party circuit. She is Kazumi Sugita, a retiring middle-aged woman (she does not give out her age, thank you very much), and chances...
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2001

Steelmaker NKK comes to terms with correct words

Sometimes words hurt. But an NKK Corp. employee is trying to ensure that the language fellow workers use at the major steelmaker does not discriminate against people.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2001

Macroeconomic pacing urged

Both Japan and the United States are vulnerable to the same macroeconomic policy mistakes -- overreacting to short-term bad news and making wrong policy decisions, a renowned American economist warned during a recent symposium held in Tokyo.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 23, 2001

Okinawa's fate through women's eyes

WOMEN OF OKINAWA: Nine Voices from a Garrison Island, by Ruth Ann Keyso. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000, 168 pp., $16.95 (cloth). Ruth Ann Keyso traveled to Okinawa in 1997 to write a history of the island's postwar past. Following conversations with various people on the island, she decided...
COMMUNITY
Jan 21, 2001

Taking cloisonne art to city walls

Twenty years ago, walking through Tokyo, Atsuko Kitamura suddenly became aware of a blank wall rearing up in front of her, high into the sky. "The building was so ugly. This is when I decided cityscapes needed cheering up, beautifying. The problem was, how? My usual medium, paint, wouldn't last long....
COMMENTARY
Jan 15, 2001

Calling off all bets on Japan

Predictions can be dangerous when Japan is involved.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2001

China tightens grip on the Net

CAMBRIDGE, England -- The Chinese government has been issuing more regulations to control the use of the Internet. As with the earlier ones, there are no surprises. They simply tidy up what was already accepted practice and add nothing new. It is still the slow bureaucratic machine catching up with reality....

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