Search - special

 
 
BUSINESS
Mar 18, 2005

March perks get short-term shareholders

As the end of March nears, more and more people are looking to acquire stocks -- many just for a short time.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 16, 2005

A star is born as an actor gets his name

The Kabukiza in Ginza is presenting special kabuki programs in March, April and May to celebrate the shumei (succession to a stage name) of Nakamura Kanzaburo XVIII. Kanzaburo, 50, has mastered both tachiyaku (male lead) and onnagata (female) roles. He is showing off his prowess by playing the leads...
EDITORIALS
Mar 15, 2005

New leadership in Hong Kong

Hong Kong's chief executive, Mr. Tung Chee-hwa, resigned last week. His departure was in keeping with his entire term as chief executive: confused, messy and ultimately damaging to his office and Hong Kong itself. His replacement must break that tradition and restore the luster to Hong Kong's image....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 13, 2005

Kaki King

Kaki King spent plenty of time busking in subway stations, coffeehouses and small New York clubs in the '90s. But with two critically acclaimed CDs under her belt, she now has roadies to haul up on stage her largish collection of electric, acoustic and steel guitars. She plays all these with a sophisticated...
EDITORIALS
Mar 11, 2005

Recalling the alternative to peace

It has been 60 years since U.S. bombers destroyed much of Tokyo in the spring of 1945. Survivors of the "Great Tokyo Air Raids" -- most of them now in their 70s and 80s -- are few and far between. Words like "B-nijuku" (B-29), "bokugo" (air-raid shelter) and "shoidan" (incendiary bomb) are no longer...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Mar 10, 2005

"The Whispering Road," "The Pig in the Spigot"

"The Whispering Road," Livi Michael, Puffin Books; 2005; 336 pp. If you haven't read Charles Dickens yet, what could be a better introduction than Livi Michael's "The Whispering Road"? Michael's first novel for older children imbibes Dickens' influences, dramatic storytelling and colorful characterization...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Mar 10, 2005

Mandarin duck

* Japanese name: Oshidori * Scientific name: Aix galericulata * Description: The male Mandarin duck is the last word in avian cuteness. With a wingspan of 68-74 cm, and a body that's 41-49 cm long, he has highly elaborate plumage, with long orange feathers on the "cheeks" of his face, swished-back...
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Mar 10, 2005

A tip of the hat to a venerable series

The kingdom of Hyrule is in trouble. But then, the kingdom of Hyrule is always in trouble, and so is its legendary princess -- Zelda.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Mar 9, 2005

Thank you to all art

Today, in case you didn't know it, is Thank You Art Day, a day to celebrate contemporary art made by anyone anywhere. Artist Yoshiaki Kaihatsu, a Tama Art University graduate, began the annual event in 2001 with an eye to, as he says, "vitalizing the Japanese art scene, because the Japanese art market...
BUSINESS
Mar 8, 2005

Capital spending rises a disappointing 3.5%

Corporate capital spending grew a disappointing 3.5 percent in the October-December quarter from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said Monday, making it likely that gross domestic product data for the period will be revised downward.
EDITORIALS
Mar 7, 2005

Risk-free deposit era nears dusk

With Japanese banks regaining financial health, the ad hoc regime of full-deposit insurance is about to end. Beginning April 1, deposits will be protected only up to 10 million yen in principal plus interest -- the same limit that was in force until 1996 when it was removed temporarily amid growing instability...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 7, 2005

U.S., Taiwan miss communication cues

TAIPEI -- Communications between the governments of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian and U.S. President George W. Bush have become increasingly muddled, adding to the possibility of a miscalculation in the confrontation between this island nation and China.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 6, 2005

New Western poetry from an old Japanese tradition

THE TANKA ANTHOLOGY, edited by Michael McClintock, Pamela Miller Ness & Jim Kacian. Red Moon Press, 2003, 231 pp., $24.95 (cloth). EDGE OF LIGHT: The Red Moon Anthology of English Language Haiku, edited by Jim Kacian et al., Red Moon Press, 2004, 175 pp., $16.95 (paper). The haiku, already well established...
COMMENTARY
Mar 5, 2005

India's new double standard

NEW DELHI -- The growing warmth in U.S.-Indian relations is getting strangely reflected in India's adoption of U.S.-style dual standards on democracy.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 1, 2005

Past the pain and language barriers

Even for a sumo wrestler, Kaido Hoovelson looks big. The 20-year-old Estonian, who goes by the ring name of "Baruto," stands 197-cm tall, making him one of sumo's tallest wrestlers.
Rugby
Feb 28, 2005

Rugby gods smile on Green Rockets

Having shown their allegiance to Wales in its cracking win over France in Paris on Saturday, the rugby gods traveled quickly to Tokyo to cast their celestial eyes over the 42nd All Japan Championship final at Chichibunomiya on Sunday.
Features
Feb 27, 2005

Workings of a watershed

One day, in just a few years' time, people all over Japan will begin to find unexpected official letters in their mailboxes. Perhaps anxious that they have done something wrong, or failed to make a payment, it will be with considerable tredipation that most seek out the contents.
Features
Feb 27, 2005

Judges 'on bended knee'

For the 21 years of his life as a judge, Akira Rokusha lived a closeted existence. From his home in an official residence alongside fellow judges and other courthouse employees, he was taken to the court in a special minibus, and he spent his days off reading and reviewing material related to his cases....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Feb 25, 2005

A reason to be happy: Spike Bar in Shibuya

Shibuya is now headquarters for Tokyo's cool party crowd. In the last six years or so, countless little bars have set up shop and made themselves part of the night circuit around the station. Whether along Miyamasuzaka toward Aoyama, up Dogenzaka toward Daikanyama or south along the Yamanote tracks toward...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Feb 20, 2005

"Hachiro: Haha no Uta, Chichi no Uta" on NHK and more

Hachiro Sato, who died in 1973, is one of Japan's most beloved writers of lyric poems and children's songs. His life, however, was far from gentle, as shown on the current nine-part NHK drama series, "Hachiro: Haha no Uta, Chichi no Uta (Hachiro: Songs for Mother, Songs for Father") (NHK-G, Mon., 9:15...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Feb 20, 2005

There's big, and Hoover Dam big

Take 4,360 cubic meters of concrete (enough to pave a single-lane highway from San Francisco to New York), add 21,000 workers (but deduct an average of 50 a day due to injury or death), stir in 5 million, 8-cubic-meter buckets of cement and 950 km of steel piping, then garnish the lot with a dog that...
Features / WEEK 3
Feb 20, 2005

Operation Evacuation

Not only are they a biodiversity disaster, but the millions of sugi (cedars) planted as official policy in the postwar years to yield cheap timber -- but which are now more expensive to harvest than the cost of imports -- have become a serious health hazard across Japan.
BUSINESS
Feb 18, 2005

Cell phone firms losing battle against junk mail

Cell phone users in Japan are being swamped with junk e-mail despite all-out efforts by telephone companies to combat the nuisance.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Feb 17, 2005

Natural numbers games

As island nations go, I have always maintained that Japan sits on a motherlode of biodiversity; it is rich in so many senses of the word.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 16, 2005

Sisters gonna work it out

There was a time when radio in the United States was full of surprises -- a time when catchy, clever tunes were just a turn of the dial away. Pop music carried less baggage then, before marketing and demographics moved in and warped station programming into socio-economic formulas.
BUSINESS
Feb 16, 2005

With ANA back in black, next chief eyes new overseas routes

Chicago, Delhi, Bombay and Moscow.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 13, 2005

Julius Hemphill Sextet: "The Hard Blues, Live in Lisbon"

Julius Hemphill died in 1995 but his revolutionary approach to saxophone lives on in this all-sax sextet dedicated to his music. Hemphill is best known as co-founder in the 1970s of the World Saxophone Quartet, a group who managed the rare trick of remaining resolutely, some might say stridently, avant-garde...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Feb 13, 2005

Iraq election exposed two faces of China

HONG KONG -- One unintended consequence of the Jan. 30 election in Iraq was that it exposed the hypocrisy and shortsightedness of China's policy toward Hong Kong and reunification with Taiwan. China not only expressed support for the rushed national election in its controlled press; it also donated $1...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 11, 2005

Brr -- diving in Atami in winter

As any scuba diver knows, when the diving itch hits, you just gotta scratch. But what if the itch strikes in midwinter when you have neither the time nor funds to fly to a tropical resort? Not to worry. Not only is it possible to dive around mainland Japan in the winter months, it can even be done on...

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’