Abe and the Historians
Koizumi enacted a Japanese equivalent of the “Willy Brandt moment” at the Marco Polo bridge
Get Ready for the Asian History Games
British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm riposted “We cannot invent our facts. Either Elvis Presley is dead or he isn’t.”
Tomorrow’s Joe
The Japanese Red Army militants who hi-jacked a JAL plane to Pyongyang in 1970 claimed “we are Tomorrow’s Joe.” The survivors remain in Pyongyang today and are now on Twitter.
The Seagull Laughs
The “Queen of the Japanese Underground” stuck to her unique personal style – long black dress, dark glasses, cloud of cigarette smoke
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
By then she had jettisoned her hippy chanteuse persona and joined Blues Creation, featuring Japan’s answer to Jeff Beck, Kazuo Takeda on guitar.
The Wave of the Future: Japan’s “Happy” Chinese New Year
Until recently in Japanese eyes a typical foreigner meant a white Westerner. Now the foreigners that ordinary Japanese meet in the flesh are likely to be fellow Asians
Terayama on Life, Death and Fathers
Matsu-san the sushi chef died in a car accident. Mari the hostess committed suicide and my father Hachiro died of disease when fighting in the war. My young cousin Tatsuo was stabbed to death.
The World is not Flat
Even in a wealthy G8 country the primitive urges of the limbic brain are a match for cold economic calculations
Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
Yoshida’s fibs were meat and drink to foreign journalists eager to emphasize the uniqueness of Japan’s depravity….
Japan’s Scottish Option
Was there a racist assumption that Japan was inherently more aggressive than the countries that produced the Nazis and Mussolini? Or was it a question of geopolitical strategy?