Time features Matsui, Yoko Ono, Asashoryu among 'Asian heroes'

LINK to story. There are quite a few comments about this article, both good and bad, on that site. To save space, I didn't post them here.

Time features Matsui, Yoko Ono, Asashoryu among 'Asian heroes'

Monday, April 21, 2003 at 17:00 JST
TOKYO — New York Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui, artists Yoko Ono and Mongolian yokozuna Asashoryu are among 29 individuals and groups Time magazine features in its second annual "Asian Heroes" edition published Monday, the publisher of the U.S. weekly said.

Also among the 2003 heroes picked from Japan are Satoshi Fukushima, the first deaf and blind professor at the University of Tokyo, as well as musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, who is based in New York.

In Japan, the April 29/May 6 edition will hit newsstands on Tuesday, Time Inc said.

Matsui, who will be on the cover of the Japanese edition, was chosen as his "unparalleled work ethic makes him the paragon of a Japanese everyman" and his move to the Major League Baseball team makes his countrymen proud, Time said.

Asashoryu, whose real name is Dolgorsuren Dagvadorj, is the first non-Japanese, non-U.S. wrestler to rise to the highest sumo rank, while Fukushima has helped "break down prejudices and misperceptions of handicapped people," it said.

Ono, widow of John Lennon, has "finally, at the age of 70, won her due as a groundbreaking artist" after being long reviled as the woman who supposedly broke up the Beatles, and Sakamoto was picked for setting up an environmental group to advocate renewable-energy sources, it said.

"In these treacherous times of war and plague, we look to their bravery as an example and an inspiration. By refusing to succumb to apathy or despair, they give us the will to forge ahead when we might otherwise lose heart," writes William Green, deputy editor of Time Asia.

"Of course, not all of the heroes we profile are selfless samaritans. But they are all, in their own way, purveyors of hope," he said.

Also included in the list were "SARS Heroes," which Time said referred to various medical professionals from Hong Kong to Singapore who "willingly place themselves on the front lines of the war against the killer disease" called severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). (Kyodo News)

thanks for the article, i may have to pick this up.