Word: sounding
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Watching someone carefully rinsing out a spent mustard packet doesn't sound like entertainment, but in Japan it's big-time television. On a recent segment of Tokyo's popular morning show Hanamaru Market, a waste-recycling expert submerged a flimsy plastic packet in a tub of water, gently allowing water in and out to rinse it clean. A host of the segment stood by, watching intently, and asked if it was necessary to use soap. No, said the expert, water and a little elbow grease are all it requires...
...That may sound obsessive, but sorting trash, Japanese-style, has become a rite of passage for responsible Tokyo citizenry. Gaggles of housewives think that being environmentally conscious is a trendy way to care for their families. Once Japanese people embrace an idea, they do so wholeheartedly. Environmental consciousness is no exception. Over the past 34 years, Japan has renewed a 25-yen ($0.25) per liter gasoline tax - anathema in the U.S. - four times. A decade after hosting the conference that led to the Kyoto Protocol, Japan will host the G-8 Summit on Hokkaido this year, which will focus...
...paper towels - sometimes no toilet paper. In their purses, yamato nadeshiko (women who are, among other things, mindful and prepared) make a point to carry packets of tissue paper with them into the stall, and handkerchiefs to dry their hands. What other country would install devices to mimic the sound of a toilet flushing to discourage the waste of water by modest Japanese anxious to cover the sound of their micturition with multiple flushes...
...Kingdom's Shame Your report on Bhutan's experiment with democracy paints an incomplete picture of the real political situation in Bhutan [April 7]. Democracy and the pursuit of "gross national happiness" sound ludicrous when nearly one-sixth of the population has been languishing as refugees in eastern Nepal for nearly two decades. The international community's indifference to the situation is a sign of how the ruling establishment has successfully diverted the world's attention. Adwait Silwal, Kathmandu...
...comedy is McDonagh's signature. He can shock an audience into laughing at just about anything (suicide, patricide, terrorism, famine), and his expletive-ridden dialogue - its cadence and Celtic slang borrowed from his Irish background - can make even the most banal comment sound like a punch line. Audiences first fell for McDonagh's gritty, witty brand of theater in 1996, when his first play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane - about the love-hate relationship between a spinster and her domineering mother - won the then 26-year-old a handful of awards and the first of many Tony nominations. Since then...