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EDITORIALS
Sep 9, 2000

Dreaming of a better world

It is tempting to dismiss this week's Millennium Summit at the United Nations as pure hype. After all, it declared its aim was the eradication of poverty and war in the 21st century. Good luck. Yet, if the U.N. and its members do not hold such ambitions, then there is very little hope for our world in...
LIFE / ALTERNATIVE LUXURIES
Sep 7, 2000

Seeding philosophy in the rice paddies

The zapping racket of cicadas rising and falling, undulating in and out of sync wakes me up soon after sunrise. Although it's not yet 7 a.m., the thick, steamy heat pours in through the open window in waves, and seems fused into one substance with the yazz and clatter of the insects.
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
Sep 7, 2000

Tattoos: painful to acquire, but even harder to remove

More and more people are getting tattoos, so perhaps it is not surprising that more and more people are getting tattoos removed.
JAPAN
Sep 4, 2000

Gov. Ishihara tells troops to take heart

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, who led the charge for expanding the participation of Self-Defense Force troops in Sunday's disaster drill by the metropolitan government, urged SDF personnel to take pride and retain confidence as a military force.
JAPAN
Sep 3, 2000

East Japan basking in record heat

Scorching sunshine beat down across eastern Japan on Saturday, with the mercury nearing 40 C in some parts as hot, humid air streamed into the Japanese archipelago from the south, the Meteorological Agency said.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 3, 2000

Following in the footsteps of Lafcadio Hearn

"What's it like living in Japan?" my friends back home often ask me. It's a hard question to answer. So instead, I'll describe what I did today, a typical day in Japan for me.
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2000

Miyake Island faces full evacuation

Following two months of earthquakes and eruptions on Miyake Island in the Izu island chain, Miyake Mayor Ko Hasegawa on Friday effectively ordered all residents to evacuate the island within three days as the threat from Mount Oyama intensified.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 31, 2000

Frugality boom highlights fun and fulfillment of the simple life

As explained in this column several months ago, Japanese TV often adapts successful programming ideas from abroad. Still, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a local version of "Survivor." Reality-based programming is already available in Japan. Years ago, "Denpa Shonen" moved beyond such simplistic...
BUSINESS
Aug 30, 2000

Unemployment holds at 4.7%

The nation's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 4.7 percent in July, unchanged from June, the Management and Coordination Agency said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 30, 2000

Little reason to celebrate in East Timor

Just over a year ago, in August 1999, I was in the Baucau district of East Timor, helping to monitor the leadup to the referendum on independence as a U.N.-accredited observer with the independent International Federation for East Timor Observer Project.
COMMENTARY
Aug 30, 2000

The 21st-century neurosis

LONDON -- I think I've discovered a new neurosis of the 21st century. It involves frustration, guilt, shame and outbursts of destructive violence. The neurosis lurks wherever there are personal computers. (Business computers, and the work and commercial systems they create, produce similar feelings,...
COMMUNITY
Aug 27, 2000

SHARE and help the world

SHARE is Japan's version of Medecins Sans Frontieres, a small nongovernment aid organization that sends volunteer doctors, nurses and health workers to assist in stricken areas abroad. It also helps those in need on the domestic front -- women involved in the sex industry and people who have overstayed...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 27, 2000

Yoko Ishii

LONDON -- "I am very proud that I really did find a wonderful job. I can travel the world with my scissors and comb, and wherever I go not only can I find work, but by making people beautiful I can also give them hopes and dreams," said Yoko Ishii.
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2000

Youth restoring 'chindon-ya' name

"Chindon-ya," traditional street performers who promote shops, pachinko parlors and other local businesses, were once on the verge of extinction due to a lack of successors.
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2000

Kansai business adviser gains fame for book on Hiroshima bombing

OSAKA -- While Yoshikuni Inoue's is a familiar face in Kansai business circles, he is better known for his efforts to boost the region's economy as joint chairman of the Kansai Association of Corporate Executives in the early 1990s than as a survivor of the 1945 Hiroshima atomic bombing.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 22, 2000

AIDS takes a toll in African classrooms

Since physicians first described its symptoms almost 20 years ago, HIV has infected 53 million people, of which 19 million have died. Of the 34.3 million people now living with HIV/AIDS, 24.5 million are in sub-Saharan Africa, where the epidemic has left 11 million children orphaned.
COMMUNITY
Aug 20, 2000

A decade of anecdotes to order

There are books about spending time in Japan, written in the main by Alice-in-Wonderlands who believe a short stretch makes them authoritative on all things Japanese. And there are books about Japan. Bruce McCormack's "Tokyo Notes and Anecdotes: Natsukashi" falls into this second, far more recommendable,...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2000

Suffer the stolen children

Mahatma Gandhi, asked what he thought of European civilization, replied, "I think it's a very good idea."
COMMUNITY
Aug 20, 2000

Messages from Hanshin quake survivors move to the Internet

KOBE -- Masano Goto still exchanges letters with people from other prefectures who helped her overcome difficulties in the aftermath of the devastating Great Hanshin Earthquake in January 1995, which claimed more than 6,000 lives.
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2000

War surrender anniversary draws 1,500

About 1,500 people attended an annual memorial service to pay tribute to the war dead at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward on Tuesday, the 55th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2000

Ministry to launch new lifestyle survey next year

The Health and Welfare Ministry will launch a survey next year to track the lives of newborns and certain groups of adults in a bid to better understand social problems such as the dwindling birthrate, ministry sources said Monday.
COMMUNITY
Aug 10, 2000

Have lifestyle, don't need kids

Kazumi Kato has been married for 15 years. When she got married at the age of 22, she planned to have a baby once she turned 26 or 27. But when she reached that age, she still did not feel like becoming a mother, and decided to wait until she was 30. When she turned 30, however, she still did not feel...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 10, 2000

It's summertime, and the news is slim

LONDON -- Those of us whose job is to feed the world a steady diet of "news" (99 percent of which is actually recycled "olds") are always grateful when a loon like Rabbi Ovadia Yosef opens his mouth and lets fly. Especially in August.
EDITORIALS
Aug 6, 2000

Between a rock and a riptide

Where culture and technology are concerned, the news isn't just news any more; it's a chronicle of emblems. Barely a week passes without some fresh development highlighting the fact that everyday life is caught up in a riptide of change. Even those still standing timidly on the shore can see the way...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 6, 2000

It's Delhi's move in Kashmir

India recently celebrated the first anniversary of victory over Pakistan-backed incursion into the Kargil sector of Kashmir. Some victory: The two had faced off in the most dangerous nuclear confrontation since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. They have gone to full-scale war three times already and...
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 6, 2000

'Rakugo' artist takes sit-down shtick to Edinburgh festival, with subtitles

OSAKA -- Traditional comic storyteller Koharudanji Katsura will be participating in an international festival in Edinburgh this month, reciting a "rakugo" piece in Japanese.

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