Smokin' Mirrors

English Web Design: A Niche for Someone to Fill It might be that my poor Japanese language skills are to blame, sending me on a futile trajectory into the world's most pointless English-language banking website, but I can't help feeling a little frustrated. I've just spent the last 15 minutes looking for some simple information on my bank's site. What's depressing is that the bank's Japanese-language version seems to have a lot more going on, and I'll be buggered if I can't find my 'Babel fish', which in "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" provides an instant translation of any language, when I need it. Back in Australia, I can do everything over the Net: the catch is that personal service is often sacrificed - just ask anyone who has spent the last five minutes trying to get through to a real live person on the phone. In Japan, the service is usually outstanding, but the technology often undermines it. Any visitor to Japan will

Dramatic stretch to bridge one of the great divides There's a touch of the Australian way in the Tokyo maze, writes Willhemina Wahlin. In a city with no street names like Tokyo, it's hard to find home, let alone the nearly invisible entrance to a small theatre tucked behind a cracked glass door and a faded velvet curtain. But Rakutendan Theatre is proof you can never judge a playhouse by its maintenance budget. The director Yoshio Wada's passion for contemporary theatre breathes life into the walls, bringing a record number of Australian plays to its stage. "I love Australia," Wada says. "People embrace their multi-ethnic background. I think it makes the Australian people modest and gentle." Wada will next year lead some of the best in Australian and Japanese theatre in staging the Dramatic Australia Festival, part of the Australia-Japan Year of Exchange, for the 30th anniversary of the Basic Treaty of Friendship, signed in Tokyo in June 1976. In contras