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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 25, 1999

Gesture your way to Japanese fluency

Yesterday I went into a convenience store to buy some aspirin. I asked the clerk using the English loanword "asupirin." The clerk pointed to the freezer section and said, "it's over there." "No, not 'aisu kurimu,' asupirin," I said. "Pudding?" he asked. At that point, he did what all befuddled clerks...
JAPAN
Jul 23, 1999

Norota urges new heliport site by yearend

Defense Agency chief Hosei Norota expressed hope Friday that the site to relocate U.S. Marine Corps helicopter operations at Futenma Air Station in Okinawa will be selected by the end of the year.
JAPAN
Jul 23, 1999

Yosano declares Japan ready for steel talks

Japan is ready to hold talks with the United States over the contentious issue of steel trade, International Trade and Industry Minister Kaoru Yosano said Friday.
CULTURE / Music
Jul 23, 1999

Foreigner rock scene blooms in city's pubs

Shaft is pumping up another Saturday night gathering in a cranny of Tokyo. Just as the five musicians lope to the end of the first verse of their self-proclaimed rock anthem "Shaft of Light," the infectious dribble of sticks across bass drums reels the audience into the chorus.
EDITORIALS
Jul 22, 1999

Pointless and reckless in Taipei

It is still unclear why Mr. Lee Teng-hui, the president of Taiwan, said earlier this month that relations between his government and China's mainland government should be conducted on a "special state-to-state" basis. (Any hopes that he had been misquoted were shattered when he repeated the comments...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 1999

Tax cuts put Japan on track

The Japanese economy is now out of the worst phase of the recession. But the process of achieving recovery and even- tual prosperity has not been entirely smooth. First, we cannot yet claim that firms in various industrial sectors have earnestly initiated their restructuring with real zest. Second, fiscal...
JAPAN
Jul 20, 1999

Tour agents target families to survive lean times

Staff writer
JAPAN
Jul 19, 1999

Upper House panel approves extra budget

A House of Councilors special committee Monday approved a 519.8 billion yen supplementary budget designed to generate 700,000 new jobs and cope with the falling birthrate.
COMMENTARY
Jul 17, 1999

Cross-strait relations at risk

"What is Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui up to?" That remains the burning question, following Lee's apparent abandonment of the long-standing "one-China" policy that used to be the one important common denominator underwriting cross-strait relations and Sino-U.S. and Sino-Japanese relations regarding Taiwan....
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 17, 1999

Time for women to 'hold up half the sky'

Adrian Cozette Chandler, a U.S. educator and colleague of mine, has come up with a great idea and hopes to see it materialize: the publication of a bilingual book, written in easy-to-understand English and Japanese, in which ordinary American and Japanese women review and candidly discuss issues crucial...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 15, 1999

Free of corporate connections, Kinyobi targets toxic offenders

As a buzzword, "dioxin" has quickly come to represent all that's wrong with Japan's mish-mash of contradictory and ineffective environmental policies.
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Jul 14, 1999

Sendai garden lets it all hang out

Garden designers around the country could take a few ideas from the Sendai Yasoen (Wild Flower Garden) by using more native plants in their own designs.
EDITORIALS
Jul 13, 1999

Hard questions for Hong Kong

It has been a bitter two years for Hong Kong. On July 1, 1997, the British Crown Colony reverted to the mainland amid an outpouring of pride and Chinese nationalism. The celebrations were short-lived. The very next day, the Thai baht imploded, launching Asia on a downward economic spiral from which it...
COMMENTARY
Jul 13, 1999

Break deadlock on base issues

U.S. President Bill Clinton expressed hope June 25 that all pending issues concerning U.S. military bases in Okinawa, including the issue of the Marine Corps Futenma Air Station, will be resolved before he attends a Group of Eight summit there in July 2000. "I don't want to go over there and have all...
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jul 9, 1999

'Showa 64' puts reverse spin on club scene

With his goatee and finely pointed ears, James Vyner has a puckish quality that makes it difficult to imagine him, bewigged, in Her Majesty's court. In an alternative life, yes, Vyner was a barrister.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 8, 1999

'Wabi-sabi' with a modern edge

Wasabiya epitomizes the very 1990s genre that has come to be known in Japanese as "dining bars." That means you can treat it as a restaurant, as an izakaya or even as a kind of designer drinking hold; it just depends on how hungry or thirsty you are.
JAPAN
Jul 7, 1999

Favor sought for protecting corporate accounts

The Financial System Council is recommending that corporate deposits for use in settling business transactions be protected after the introduction of a reduced guarantee scheme in April 2001.
JAPAN
Jul 6, 1999

Ailing prefecture wants city to share teacher pay

OSAKA -- Faced with critical financial difficulties, Osaka Prefecture will request the central government to have the city of Osaka share the burden for salaries of public elementary and junior high school teachers, it was learned Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jul 6, 1999

Setouchi Special: Museum a journey into Hirayama's art

SETODA, Hiroshima Pref. -- A museum dedicated to one of Japan's most prominent artists, Ikuo Hirayama, traces the artistic growth of the famous native and his travels throughout the world.
JAPAN
Jul 6, 1999

Constitutional review panel approved by Lower House

The first Diet debate on the Constitution since it was written in 1946 could come in January.
JAPAN
Jul 5, 1999

Parents unprepared for child seat law

Staff writer
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 4, 1999

Promise of autonomy fades in Hong Kong

HONG KONG -- Right from the start, the current legal and political case concerning "right of abode" in Hong Kong has been a journalist's nightmare. Highly complex, profoundly nuanced, and containing contradictory strands, the case was impervious to easy simplification. Both sides to the dispute could...
JAPAN
Jul 2, 1999

Weaker deposit safety net worries Nonaka

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka on Friday said measures to help small businesses in the event of bank failures need to be drawn up after the government introduces a ceiling on guaranteed deposits in April 2001.
JAPAN
Jul 1, 1999

NTT now holding company, three carriers

Monolithic NTT Corp. reorganized Thursday in a step being watched by a rapidly transforming telecom industry eager to learn whether the move will foster competition or make the giant even stronger.
CULTURE / Art
Jul 1, 1999

Wood blocks carved from nostalgia

Tsuzen Nakajima's woodblock prints trigger memories in the same way certain melodies or particular scenes may whisk us back to pleasant moments of the past. Nakajima depicts the landscapes of Japan and often uses geta, Japanese umbrellas or tatami rooms as his subjects, complementing those backgrounds...
COMMUNITY
Jul 1, 1999

No sacrifice made in taste of new low-malt beers

A high tax rate is to blame for remarkably expensive beer in Japan. Current taxation is 222 yen per liter, pushing the price of an ordinary 350-ml can of beer to 225 yen.
EDITORIALS
Jun 29, 1999

Getting tough on dioxin pollution

After years of neglect, politicians and bureaucrats are finally getting their acts together and addressing the issue of dioxin contamination. In March, the government announced plans to cut nationwide dioxin emissions by 90 percent of its 1997 level by 2002, and the ruling parties are poised to submit...
JAPAN
Jun 29, 1999

Telecom Realignment: Rival carriers prepare to combat Goliath

Second in a five-part series on reorganizing the domestic telecommunications industry
CULTURE / Books
Jun 29, 1999

American haiku now holds its own

THE HAIKU ANTHOLOGY, by Cor van den Heuvel. W. W. Norton, pp. 363, $27.50. Cor van den Heuvel is the most important anthologist of haiku composed in English in North America. He has published three collections, all simply called "The Haiku Anthology" and all through prominent commercial houses: Doubleday,...
JAPAN
Jun 28, 1999

Base not Ishihara's only target

Staff writers

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami