U.S. Sailors Dock Again in Former Saigon

U.S. Sailors Dock Again in Former Saigon
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:45 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Vietnam-US-Ship-Visit.html

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (AP) -- The streets of what was once Saigon were again teeming with American sailors on Wednesday following the arrival of the first U.S. Navy ship since the Vietnam War.

The crew of the USS Vandegrift -- many of them sons and daughters of Vietnam veterans -- made a historic port call in Ho Chi Minh City during a symbolic visit aimed at boosting bilateral relations between the former foes.

Japan Heads to Iraq

Japan Heads to Iraq, Haunted by Taboo Bred in Another War
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/19/international/asia/19LETT.html

TOKYO, Nov. 18 — Not one Japanese soldier has been killed, or has killed, in combat since the end of World War II.

That remarkable fact is being repeated here often these days, precisely because, as Japan prepares to send ground forces to Iraq, things could change in the near future. The death of a soldier, a sad though common reality for most nations, would be a pivotal point in Japan's postwar history.

The government twice pushed back the date of deployment because of mounting violence in Iraq, evidently wary of the public's reaction to any casualty. But the government's hesitation runs deeper than that. While Japan's wartime leaders sent more than two million soldiers to their deaths, its postwar leaders are proud of having avoided a single combat fatality. A single casualty would tarnish that record and, some fear, reopen the Pandora's box of ultranationalism, which thrived more than a half-century ago.

A Tokyo Novelist Mixes Felonies With Feminism

A Tokyo Novelist Mixes Felonies With Feminism
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/17/books/17TOKY.html

TOKYO — As a former jazz club waitress, ceramics shop owner and homemaker, Natsuo Kirino began her life as a writer more than two decades ago, tossing off entertaining but forgettable bodice-rippers in the velvety-red tradition of the Harlequin novel. From the beginning, though, she knew that she had more to say, so in the late 1990's she switched genres, churning out hard-boiled crime stories that have won her prizes for mystery writing and have perennially been high on best-seller lists in Japan.

With her novel "Out," a best-selling and highly acclaimed murder caper that has been translated into English for the American market, Japanese critics say Ms. Kirino has finally found her calling, mingling biting feminist commentary with engrossing storytelling. In the process she has become Japan's writer of the moment.

Forced Repatriation -- Just Punishment?

[a heartbreaking narrative that questions whether justice is being served, where we draw the line, and competing and overarching rationales for setting rules and boundaries. also, why is it that we often only appreciate something after it is taken away...]

In a Homeland Far From Home
By DEBORAH SONTAG
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/magazine/16CAMBODIA.html

One witless day forever changed the life of Loeun Lun, a Cambodian-American who fled the killing fields as a baby and grew up in a crime-ridden housing project in Tacoma, Wash. It was not even a whole day, really, but an afternoon, a costly afternoon at the mall.

Lun himself doesn't remember the exact date. With his wide eyes and steady gaze, he is a gentle, somewhat passive guy who doesn't bother with facts and figures, even if they are the data that define him. Is he 27 or 28 years old? Lun gets it mixed up. His life, from the time he was a baby, a bag of bones in his mother's rucksack on a forced march through rural Cambodia, has been profoundly disorienting. Most of the time, Lun just tries to go with the flow.

According to court records, the particular day on which he stumbled into his fate was Aug. 20, 1994. Lun had been in the United States since kindergarten, one of the lucky Cambodians who survived Pol Pot's genocidal regime, a harrowing flight through a mine-laden jungle to Thailand and years in squalid refugee camps before making it to America. By 1994, he was a rudderless teenager, acculturated, like so many of the Cambodian refugee children, to the American inner city.

On that particular afternoon, Lun bumped into a drifter selling a nickel-plated .25-caliber handgun for $20. Unlike many other Cambodian-American guys his age, Lun had never sought refuge in a gang like the Loko Asian Boyz or the Royal Cambodian Brothers. He was a loner by nature. He had no criminal record and an aversion to risk-taking. But he was tired of being harassed in the projects and worried about his widowed mother's security. He bought the gun.

Japan's Governing Party Keeps Power, but Loses Strength

Japan's Governing Party Keeps Power, but Loses Strength
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/10/international/asia/10JAPA.html

TOKYO, Monday, Nov. 10 — Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's governing coalition held on to power in parliamentary elections on Sunday, even as voters handed big gains to the main opposition party in a ballot that could help lead Japan toward a two-party system.

Despite his personal popularity, Mr. Koizumi failed to get the popular mandate that could help him decisively push through economic and political reforms against the conservatives in his own Liberal Democratic Party.

But the strong showing by the Democratic Party, the main opposition, which campaigned on a reformist agenda, could put pressure on the governing party to stick to Mr. Koizumi's plans to curb public spending and to reshape the economy, the world's second largest.

Japan Farms: An Old Man's Game

Japan Farms: An Old Man's Game
By JAMES BROOKE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/07/business/worldbusiness/07farm.html

MIHARU, Japan, Nov. 6 - When the motorcade of earnest agricultural promotion agents rolled up the other morning to his father's rice paddy, Shunseki Ouchi sensed a lecture on the virtues of farming. Without even a bow, Mr. Ouchi, a 22-year-old college student, ran away.

Here in the heart of what was once a Japanese rice bowl, young people are voting with their feet on farming. Since 1980, the number of people in this town of 20,000 making most of their money from farming has dropped 56 percent, to 1,655. In the 15- to 59-year age group, the drop has been more precipitous: 83 percent, to 455. The only segment that has grown is of farmers over 70, currently 633.

On Sunday, Japanese voters are expected to return to power the Liberal Democrats, the politicians who over the last half-century have irrigated Japan's farm sector with subsidies and kept city food prices high through tariffs.

A Japanese Witness to History

A Japanese Witness to History Adroitly Survived It
By JAMES BROOKE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/08/international/asia/08FPRO.html

KAMAKURA, Japan -- SEEN through the prism of old photographs that sit atop the piano in the family living room, Toshikazu Kase is the Zelig of Japanese diplomatic history.

In this seaside town of gardens and temples, the forgiving light of a recent afternoon illuminated faded snapshots from a tumultuous century. There he was with Stalin in Moscow. There he was on the deck of the battleship Missouri for the signing of Japan's surrender to the United States at the end of World War II. He was there, too, raising the first Japanese flag at the United Nations.

Now 100 years old, Mr. Kase was witness to virtually every historical watershed to shape modern Japan, having walked through the 20th century's halls of power half a step behind the famous, and the infamous.

Nepal Maoist Rebels Move Their Attacks Into Cities

Nepal Maoist Rebels Move Their Attacks Into Cities
By AMY WALDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/12/international/asia/12NEPA.html

KATMANDU, Nepal — In less than a month in this once tranquil capital, a police official cleaning his motorbike was shot at close range. Five bombs exploded with one, planted near a school, killing a 12-year-old boy. An army colonel was assassinated outside his home.

In each case, the police have blamed Maoist rebels, who have been waging an insurgency since 1996. In late August, they pulled out of peace talks and called off a seven-month cease-fire. In the weeks since, they have opened a new urban front in their campaign to replace the country's constitutional monarchy with a Communist republic.

Since the cease-fire ended, more than 400 Nepalis have died in the renewed fighting — more than triple the number who died in the month before the cease-fire was imposed. Most of the deaths, as with those before the cease-fire, have been in the countryside, where 85 percent of Nepalis live. But now the urban elite are also watching their backs.

Currency Rumors in China Shake Hong Kong

Currency Rumors in China Shake Hong Kong
By KEITH BRADSHER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09hong.html

HONG KONG, Oct. 8 - Speculation that China will be forced to let its currency rise has sent a flood of money into the Hong Kong dollar, pushing up its value and inflicting heavy losses on traders while driving short-term interest rates here almost to zero.

The Hong Kong dollar is often described as having been pegged at 7.8 to the American dollar for the last two decades. But as currency traders have been reminded lately, to the anger of many, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority is only committed to maintaining a floor of 7.8 but has not set a ceiling for the currency's value.

Goldman to Buy $9.1 Billion in Sumitomo Loans

Goldman to Buy $9.1 Billion in Sumitomo Loans
By KEN BELSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09yen.html

TOKYO, Oct. 8 - The Goldman, Sachs Group will set up an investment fund to buy as much as 1 trillion yen ($9.1 billion) in nonperforming loans from the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, the latest effort by a foreign firm to help a Japanese bank strengthen its balance sheet.

Goldman Sachs, which has longstanding ties with the Sumitomo banking group, says it hopes to make a profit by rehabilitating the borrowers and repackaging the loans into potentially lucrative investments, like asset-backed securities. Goldman Sachs has been buying golf courses and other Japanese properties with steady cash flow and is considered one of the best foreign firms at reviving distressed assets.

Vietnam, U.S. to Resume Air Travel Ties

Vietnam, U.S. to Resume Air Travel Ties
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 9, 2003
Filed at 4:41 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Vietnam-US-Flights.html

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Vietnam and the United States initialed a landmark agreement on Thursday, allowing passenger and cargo flights between the two countries for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War.

The agreement was initialed in Hanoi by Pham Vu Hien, deputy director of Vietnam's Civil Aviation Administration, and Laura Faux-Gable, deputy director of the U.S. State Department's Office of Aviation Negotiations.

A Flashy Teenage Trend Capital, and Its Dark Side

A Flashy Teenage Trend Capital, and Its Dark Side
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/international/asia/16TOKY.html

TOKYO, Sept. 15 — Up and down Shibuya's iridescent streets, Japan's teenage girls come and go, on their pilgrimage to their own corner of Tokyo. The heavily made-up Ko-gals, the tanned surfers in their beachwear, the dancers, or those sticking to the now fashionable school uniforms — they represent the panoply of Japan's quickly shifting teenage fashion.

Shibuya, the capital of Japan's teenage girls, is where fashion and consumer trends are born before spreading to the far reaches of the Japanese archipelago and to Taipei, Seoul and Shanghai. In Japan, with the world's second largest economy, the teenage girl is a highly sought-after consumer; the Shibuya girl, who knows each floor of "109," the shopping citadel that dominates a main crossroad here, leads the trend leaders.

Snacker's Paradise: Devouring Singapore's Endless Supper

Snacker's Paradise: Devouring Singapore's Endless Supper
By R. W. APPLE Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/10/dining/10SING.html

SINGAPORE -- "FOOD is the purest democracy we have," K. F. Seetoh said as we dug into breakfast bowls of bak kut teh, a peppery, restorative Teochew soup of pork ribs, mushrooms and kidneys. "Singaporeans recognize no difference between bone china and melamine."

Slurp, slurp. Yum, yum. The clear, aromatic broth, full of tender, close-grained pork, perked up by herbs and whole garlic cloves, was cooked in a hole in the wall next to a busy expressway and eaten at a sidewalk table. Cab drivers, teachers and a few junior executives slurped around us. Bak kut teh is the city's preferred hangover remedy, and Ng Ah Sio makes the best, which is why Mr. Seetoh took me there.

An Indonesian Leader Wins Attention for Her Clean Politics

An Indonesian Leader Wins Attention for Her Clean Politics
By JANE PERLEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/08/international/asia/08JAKA.html

KEBUMEN, Indonesia — On special occasions in this rural Javanese town, women cover their heads, wear long flowing clothes and, according to Muslim custom, sit separately from the men in a place where they are barely seen and certainly not heard.

But no one seemed to mind when the district leader, Rustriningsih, addressed an audience not long ago (the men in front, the women off to the side) in a green uniform that stopped at the knees and with her glossy black hair on show for everyone to see. Nor did they mind when she earnestly lectured them about the responsibilities of living in a new democracy.

Ms. Rustriningsih broke all the norms here three years ago when she was elected Bupati, a title that roughly corresponds to that of regional governor.

Now she is one of only 5 women among more than 400 Bupati in Indonesia, and people are taking notice of her not just because of her sex or her youth. (She is 36.)

Ms. Rustriningsih has carved out a reputation for being rigorously honest, a rare attribute in a government official in a country that regularly scores in international surveys as among the world's most corrupt.

Memories Are Priceless

Memories Are Priceless
By QUANG BAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/travel/31bpviet.html

MY father and I boarded the plane for Vietnam, carrying $15,000 in cash to give away to relatives. We were making our first trip back home four years ago, after nearly three decades in the United States. We purposely scheduled our trip to coincide with the lunar New Year, and we thought nothing could be a better augur for better times ahead than two long-lost family members showing up unexpectedly at the doorstep bearing gifts.

We hid money in suitcases, tucked it into pockets my mother sewed on the underside of our shirts and stuffed it inside socks and underwear. My father had saved money for this trip from his job managing a convenience store, and we were also carrying money and parcels from friends and relatives in the United States who wanted us to deliver the gifts to their families in Vietnam. During the 18-hour flight from Los Angeles to Taipei to Ho Chi Minh City, I pictured myself running from the airport straight to the bank and trying to deposit my entire self into a vault, while a young boy chased me, throwing rocks, until I detonated, all our money flying into the air like chicken feathers.