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Japan Times
Features
Jul 10, 2005

DEPRESSION

'Istarted to get to work late -- sometimes at 11, then at 12 and then at 2; and then I had to quit my job."
Japan Times
Features
Jul 10, 2005

Support groups to aid of all affected

When people become clinically depressed, it's not just they who suffer. Families of the depressed are deeply affected -- riding an emotional roller coaster -- and when a breadwinner is afflicted, as is often the case, financial struggles inevitably ensue. Worst of all, many families must live with the...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jul 9, 2005

Japan -- where the oldies are always golden

That pitter-patter you hear right now is probably only the remains of the rainy season slipping drop by drop from your eave spouts. Yet there is another melancholy drizzle in this land that falls all year round. It is that misty-eyed drool for all things past. Yes, this country is literally dripping...
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Jul 9, 2005

Brace for more bipartisan battles in wake of Supreme Court justice's retirement

WASHINGTON -- The July 1 announcement by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor that she is retiring marks the end of a distinguished 24-year career, and the beginning of a crucial struggle by President George W. Bush to find a replacement.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Jul 7, 2005

Battling for nature in the face of greed and neglect

I started to buy neglected woodland on a mountainside near where I live in Nagano Prefecture more than 20 years ago. Together with a local forester (and now long-time friend), Nobuyoshi Matsuki, we began tending the woods. One of the delightful results was the blooming of hundreds of wild Calanthe discolor...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 6, 2005

No swansong yet for a modern diva

Ballet is a fickle master. It demands years of selfless dedication from its young and beautiful devotees, only to discard them the moment they pass their prime. Ballerinas rarely remain centerstage beyond their early 30s, so when Royal Ballet star Darcey Bussell became pregnant with her first child,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2005

China, India key to containing AIDS pandemic

KOBE -- Providing effective AIDS prevention and treatment in China and India will determine whether the global epidemic can be contained, officials at the 7th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific warned Monday.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 3, 2005

This is Japan and yes, it's easy to net a pet to enjoy a dog-day life

Ten years ago I was in San Francisco and dropped by the local SPCA's pet-adoption facility in the Mission District to make a donation. When I was living in the city years before, I had adopted a cat there that was still living with me, and I wanted to express my appreciation.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 3, 2005

Writers ask: Are you being served?

SAYING YES TO JAPAN: How Outsiders are Reviving a Trillion Dollar Services Market, by Tim Clark and Carl Kay. New York: Vertical, 2005. 175 pp., $14.95 (paper). Readers familiar with Japan are in danger of whiplash when reading this entertaining and informative book about Japan's services sector. Some...
COMMENTARY
Jul 2, 2005

A clash of European visions

PARIS -- The latest EU crisis could be one of the worst the European Union has known, and nobody can say if, when and how it will be overcome.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 30, 2005

A revealing peek inside working women's purses

Let me confess my weakness: women's briefcases. I don't mean buying them; I mean peeking into those belonging to my friends, and begging them to take out the contents so I can look them over and go "Heeeee, soonandaaa (Oooh, so THAT's what it's all about)."
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jun 30, 2005

Changing values pose problems for terminal care in Japan

Several years ago, I read cancer surgeon Fumio Yamazaki's unforgettable book titled "Dying in a Japanese Hospital." Through case studies of his patients, he describes the final moments in the lives of terminal cancer sufferers. Invariably, just as a patient is slipping away, doctors battle to resuscitate...
COMMENTARY
Jun 29, 2005

A tidal wave of optimism

LOS ANGELES -- Talk about an ocean of optimism! Here's a positive current for you if there ever was one: A close friend -- whom I dub The Very Successful Korean-American Businessman (VSKAB), who doesn't want his name to be used (but whose last name is Kim like several million other Korean-Americans),...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 29, 2005

A painter of his time?

When Alfred H. Barr (the founder of the Museum of Modern Art, New York) was sketching out the shape of modern art in the 20th century -- its movements, influences and directions -- he drew a kind of family tree showing how all the different "isms" connected to one another in an evolutionary way.
BUSINESS
Jun 28, 2005

New Toyota chief thinks locally, ups output goal

In a sign that Toyota Motor Corp. is promoting local production and enjoying brisk sales, new President Katsuaki Watanabe said Monday its output of vehicles introduced under its Innovative Multipurpose Vehicle project is likely to reach 700,000 units, up from 500,000 as originally planned.
COMMENTARY
Jun 28, 2005

Pitching a Japan that can

A clash of interests among major U.N. member states is clouding the prospects for reform of the Security Council. While Japan, Brazil, Germany and India, known as the Group of Four (G4), seek permanent membership on the council, the Uniting for Consensus coalition, including Italy, South Korea and Pakistan,...
COMMENTARY
Jun 27, 2005

Perceptions that defy amity

On a recent Korea Air flight from Narita to Inchon, South Korea, I was surprised when they showed images of air routes on the in-flight video system. The Tok-do islets in the Sea of Japan, the source of a Japan-South Korea territorial dispute, were shown as prominently as Tokyo and Seoul. The islets,...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jun 27, 2005

Economists, remember to mind your Ps and Qs

Children are told to mind their Ps and Qs when they go visiting. They must be on their best behavior. They have to be able to speak like well-educated young people. They have to know P from Q. Well, so do economists, actually.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 26, 2005

Intriguing mix of loose ends and aimless youth

THE METHOD ACTORS, by Carl Shuker. Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005, 512 pp., $16 (paper). There has been a great deal of discussion and debate about where literary modernism ends and postmodernism begins. The confusion arises in part because, far from being something entirely different than...
EDITORIALS
Jun 25, 2005

A mind to reduce waste

Two jointly announced government white papers -- one on the environment and the other on the establishment of a recycling society -- are the first such annual reports since the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty on global warming, went into effect in February following ratification by Russia in...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jun 25, 2005

NHK -- the way it should be

This year has not been kind to national broadcaster NHK, as a series of scandals have caused hundreds of thousands of households to withhold their service payments, from which NHK draws 97 percent of its income.
JAPAN
Jun 24, 2005

Ishihara seen as X-factor in metro race

Four years ago, it was Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi who appeared on the posters of Liberal Democratic Party candidates for the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election.
JAPAN / A GENERATION CLOCKS OUT
Jun 24, 2005

Companies eager for baby boomers to retire with lots of money and time

The looming retirement of the baby boomer generation has become a national concern as it will cause a drastic decline in the labor force, but some firms are excited about the massive shift.
JAPAN
Jun 22, 2005

Only 16% of younger generation want to emulate parents

Young Japanese are not interested in following in their parents' footsteps, with only about 16 percent of them saying their parents' lives are worth living, according to a government report released Tuesday.
Japan Times
JAPAN / A GENERATION CLOCKS OUT
Jun 22, 2005

Manufacturers face mass reduction in skilled ranks

For manufacturers, the mass retirement of baby boomers will mean losing leagues of highly skilled workers still indispensable even in this age of automation and computerization.
COMMUNITY
Jun 21, 2005

Should we hunt whales?

The pro-whaling position anguishes those nations that resent Japan's apparent cruelty.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jun 21, 2005

Are you for or against whaling?

Yuka Saito Finance, 23 Anti, because I don't think we need whale to eat. I've never eaten whale, but I've heard that it doesn't taste too good. There are lots of other things that we can eat besides whale, I think.
Rugby
Jun 20, 2005

Ireland too strong for Brave Blossoms

Japan ended its 2005 international rugby campaign on a losing note as it went down 47-18 to Ireland at Tokyo's Chichibunomiya on Sunday.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan