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CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 27, 2005

New truths from broken conventions: travel writing outside Japan

MUSASHINO IN TUSCANY: Japanese Overseas Travel Literature, 1860-1912, by Susanna Fessler. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2004, 297 pp., + xii pp., 29 b/w illustrations, 2004, $65.00 (cloth). Japan has a long history of travel literature. From the 10th-century "Tosa...
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.
COMMENTARY
Feb 27, 2005

Let trade cement Indo-Pakistani peace

ISLAMABAD -- After more than 57 years, an agreement by India and Pakistan to allow people within the divided state of Kashmir to cross the border by bus, beginning in April, is the most important confidence-building measure yet achieved in the two countries' yearlong peace process.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Feb 27, 2005

NHK's "Chikyu Fushigi Daishizen" sees green back in wasteland and more

There are few happy stories on the environmental front these days, but NHK will cover one of them on its nature program, "Chikyu Fushigi Daishizen (The Earth's Amazing Nature)" (NHK-G, Mon., 8 p.m.). Ashio Mountain in Gunma Prefecture has been bare for almost a century, the victim of sulfur-dioxide pollution...
Features
Feb 27, 2005

New order in court

May 21, 2004, was an epoch-making day for Japan; it was the day the Diet passed a law to introduce a new criminal court system that will involve ordinary citizens in the administration of justice for the first time in postwar history.
Japan Times
Features
Feb 27, 2005

Schools in saibanin front line

One morning late last month, Public Prosecutors Ryuji Hatano and Kunio Ooyama were immersed in an alleged robbery case in court. But the court was in a classroom.
BUSINESS
Feb 25, 2005

Ito deems banks ready for end of unlimited deposit insurance

Japanese banks nationwide are prepared for April 1, when the government will remove its full guarantee on ordinary bank accounts, according to Tatsuya Ito, state minister in charge of financial services.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Feb 23, 2005

Lights up on gifted artist

The Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts is the ne plus ultra of honors in Canadian art. Some 2,000 of the country's cultural elite attend the annual awards ceremony, a black-tie affair held at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. But last year, organizers faced a dilemma:...
EDITORIALS
Feb 23, 2005

More challenges face EU charter

Spanish voters approved the European Union's new constitution by an overwhelming majority in Sunday's referendum -- the first time that a EU country had put the charter to a popular vote. This victory is no cause for complacency, however. The document, signed in October, will not take effect if it is...
COMMENTARY
Feb 21, 2005

Seoul's survival hangs on U.S. restraint

LOS ANGELES -- Hostage theory in international relations can explain why a lot of things do not happen. There's no better example than the North Korean crisis. The reason for continuing to talk to the North Koreans is not that we like them; it's that we care about the South Koreans.
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...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Feb 18, 2005

Outcry over Arsenal's all-foreign squad is misguided

LONDON -- Arsenal became L'Arsenal or El Arsenal last Monday after Arsene Wenger chose an all-foreign squad of 16 for the 5-1 win over Crystal Palace.
BUSINESS
Feb 17, 2005

Vstone leader Yamato gears up for RoboCup

OSAKA -- Members of Team OSAKA bubbled over with excitement after their teammate scored a goal in a penalty-kick shootout, leading the team to victory in a sort of world soccer championship. The little goal-scorer is a 39-cm humanoid robot named VisiON.
EDITORIALS
Feb 16, 2005

Flawed compromise takes effect

The Kyoto Protocol on climate change takes effect Wednesday after more than seven years of difficult and complex negotiations aimed at reducing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases. Perhaps future generations will remember Feb. 16, 2005, as the day the world launched a determined...
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.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Feb 16, 2005

Former prime minister's pride of pots

"On a sunny day I go to the fields, and, when it rains, I read. Simple enough, isn't it?" Sounds like the words of a cute obachan out in the countryside, but these are the words of former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa who now leads a quiet, secluded life.
Japan Times
Features
Feb 13, 2005

Go! Go! Kingyo!

If you go down to Roppongi tonight, you're sure of a few surprises. Not least, in Tokyo's favorite party zone renowned for its glitz and sleaze, you're guaranteed a world tour of ethnic restaurants, along with enough bars, dance clubs and strip joints to satisfy every taste.
EDITORIALS
Feb 13, 2005

Dead man moonwalking

Pity Michael Jackson. Of course, that's after checking off a long list of other justifiable reactions to the sad, clown-like figure whose trial on child molestation and other charges is now getting under way in California with all the solemnity of a circus. Amazement, impatience, sympathy, repugnance,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 12, 2005

Taking play therapy to Sri Lanka tsunami orphans

Dr. Akiko Ohnogi is a vision in red. She is wearing red from top to toe -- from earrings to handbag and shoes -- because, put simply, "It's my favorite color."
MORE SPORTS
Feb 11, 2005

Kitajima says that despite the fame, he is still the same

It has been nearly six months now since he shot to stardom at the Athens Olympics, but swimmer Kosuke Kitajima says that, in spite of all that has transpired since, fame has not altered his personality, though it has changed his life.
EDITORIALS
Feb 11, 2005

Middle East truce opens a door

How many times has the world observed an Israeli-Palestinian handshake and breathed a sigh of relief that hostilities in that sliver of the Middle East finally appeared to be ending? The answer, of course, is far too often for the latest declaration of peace to promise much. Camp David, the Rose Garden,...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 10, 2005

Toyota family scion seen being groomed for helm

Toyota Motor Corp. announced Wednesday that Senior Managing Director Akio Toyoda, a scion of the founding family, will become an executive vice president, in what is widely speculated as a step toward the top job at the nation's largest automaker.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 10, 2005

Ramen food courts seek to slake slurping throngs

Ramen eateries in Tokyo have started banding together in food court-style complexes in response to red-hot competition.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Feb 10, 2005

A treasure for the Game Boy

"Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories," a new role-playing adventure from Square- Enix for the Game Boy Advance, is an astounding achievement by Game Boy standards.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 10, 2005

DNA 'flip' highlights our ongoing evolution

Stung by the phenomenal success of the "Harry Potter" books, some people like to preach about the infantilization of culture, and some critics worry that adults are wallowing in childhood.
EDITORIALS
Feb 9, 2005

Good sportsmanship in Saitama

Japan's national soccer team plays the North Korean team today in a qualifying match for the Asian World Cup in Saitama City, just north of Tokyo. Given the continued tense relations between the two countries, the Japanese government is calling on Japanese supporters to avoid quarreling with supporters...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 9, 2005

Howard Baker will be missed

The image of ambassadors has changed greatly over the years. Until the mid-20th century, ambassadors were said to be "dwellers among the clouds" -- a Japanese phrase for the nobility. This metaphor showed what ordinary people thought of nobles. To the commoners busy with their daily work, the privileged...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Feb 7, 2005

Sanctions against Cuba only assist Castro

MOSCOW -- To go or not to go? To trade or not to trade? To invest or not to invest? These are the questions asked nowadays by many Western governments following a recent EU decision to lift sanctions against Havana.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 5, 2005

Davenport strolls into Pan Pacific semis

Top-ranked Lindsay Davenport overpowered Iveta Benesova of the Czech Republic in straight sets Friday to advance to the semifinals of the Pan Pacific Open.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 5, 2005

Kerel Zebrakovsky

Karel Zebrakovsky, ambassador of the Czech Republic to Japan, came late to the role of diplomat. A man of enthusiasm and wide, cultivated tastes, he finds delight in everything he does, and in the different appointments he has held. He has the right attitude to be representative of his country. "I am...

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