A man with big plans for the small world of bonsai

Strolling through Shunka-en's dark wooden gate in the Nihori district of Tokyo's Edogawa Ward, hues change to green, and your eyes focus on trays of plants placed on single rows of trellis tables, or in massed tiers. This is one of the foremost bonsai centers in Japan. Built in 2002, it now displays more than 2,000 specimens. The "en" of its name suggests "garden," and that's the initial ...

Bonsai offers learning process

For Vietnam veteran Pete Logan, practicing the art of bonsai has been therapeutic, helping him deal with some of the problems of his post-traumatic stress disorder.

‘Bonsai People,’ a Documentary About Muhammad Yunus

Whatever the impulse behind Holly Mosher’s glowing documentary “Bonsai People: The Vision of Muhammad Yunus,” the film — save for a fleeting, easy-to-miss coda — would work perfectly as an advertisement for microfinance in general and the Grameen Bank in particular.

Movie review: 'Bonsai People: The Vision of Muhammad Yunus'

Holly Mosher chronicles the Nobel Peace Prize winner's program of helping the impoverished in Bangladesh start businesses. Can a $70 business loan change the life of someone long entrenched in poverty with little education and less hope? And would that loan ever be repaid?

Bonsai People

Muhammad Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his pioneering work fighting poverty in his homeland, Bangladesh, where he lends money to poor women to start businesses. The concept has been enormously successful, and Time magazine has included Yunus, 71, on its list of “60 years of Asian heroes...