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July 16, 2024
 

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THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 22, 2003
Mapping out Japan
MAPPING EARLY MODERN JAPAN: Space, Place, and Culture in the Tokugawa Period (1603-1868), by Marcia Yonemoto. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003, 234 pp., 86 illustrations, $49.95, (cloth). It was at the beginning of the 17th century that Japanese scholars first began to articulate the notion...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 15, 2003
Expressing pathos amid alienation
A GESTURE LIFE, by Chang-rae Lee. Hew York: Riverhead Books, 2000, 356 pp., $14 (paper). UNDERKILL, by Leonard Chang. Hew York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2003, 356 pp., $24.95 (cloth). THE INTERPRETER, by Suki Kim. Hew York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2003, 294 pp., $24 (cloth). For most Americans, until fairly...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 8, 2003
Empowered by consumerism
THE NEW JAPANESE WOMAN: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan, by Barbara Sato. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003, 241 pp., $19.95 (paper). Barbara Sato's excellent analysis of changes in gender discourse and women's identity in the 1920s recasts the landscape of 20th-century women's...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 8, 2003
Taisho Sophisticates
TAISHO CHIC: Japanese Modernity, Nostalgia, and Deco, text by various contributors. Honolulu Academy of Arts, 2002, 176 pp., 7,390 yen (cloth). There are certain historical periods that resonate with a style and sophistication that is inimitable. They last for only a short, intense few years. The Restoration...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 1, 2003
The flowered margin
TATTOOS OF THE FLOATING WORLD, by Takahiro Kitamura; foreword by Donald Richie. Hotei Publishing, 2003, 120 pp., 2,600 yen (cloth). In an age excessively concerned with outward appearances, official disapproval of tattoos in Japan is perhaps understandable. The Japanese are less seriously spooked by...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 1, 2003
Plagued by military politics
MILITARY POLITICS AND DEMOCRATIZATION IN INDONESIA, by Jun Honna. London: RoutedgeCurzon, 2003, 300 pp., $904 (cloth). With the collapse of a fragile ceasefire in Aceh, the Indonesian government has decided on a military solution to this long-festering problem. The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has fought...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 25, 2003
Vietnamese cuisine in a Parisian scene
The Book of Salt, by Monique Truong. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003, 261 pp., $24 (cloth). It's Paris, 1929. You're young, Vietnamese and gay. You don't speak much French, but you can cook a mean omelet. You see an ad in the paper: "Two American Ladies Wish to Retain a Cook." You answer the ad. You get...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 25, 2003
Anthropology through the lens
GUNMA: Life and People. by Greg Davis. Tokyo: IPJ, 2002, 107 pp., 5,000 yen (cloth). Greg Davis had lived in Japan since 1970, working as a photojournalist throughout Asia. His sudden death on May 4 of liver cancer at the age of 54 is a major loss to his profession and those whose lives he touched all...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 18, 2003
'Out' of the ordinary
OUT, by Natsuo Kirino. Kodansha International, 2003, 359 pp., 2,500 yen (cloth). Mystery novels and short stories, both original works and translated works, have a huge following in Japan. The flow of translations, however, is not entirely one way, but overwhelmingly favors English to Japanese. A scholar...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 18, 2003
From romance to murder
Already an established writer of romantic novels, Natsuo Kirino (nom de plume of Mariko Hashioka, born in 1951), burst onto the mystery scene with "Kao ni Furikakaru Ame" ("The face on which rain falls"). The novel took the prestigious Japanese crime fiction award, the Edogawa Rampo Prize, in 1993.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 11, 2003
Koreans make good moves
THE KOREAN DIASPORA IN THE WORLD ECONOMY, edited by C. Fred Bergsten and Inbom Choi. Washington D.C.: Institute for International Economics, Special Report 15, January 2003, 180 pp., $25 (paper) In recent years, increasing attention has been given to the social and economic role of diasporas -- communities...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 11, 2003
Changes in consumer concerns
CONSUMER POLITICS IN POSTWAR JAPAN: The Institutional Boundaries of Citizen Activism, by Patricia Maclachlan. Columbia University Press, New York, 2002, 270 pp., $18.50 (cloth) This excellent study richly evokes the struggle and frustrations of Japanese consumer organizations in the post-World War II...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 4, 2003
Still howling with emotion
HOWLING AT THE MOON: Poems and Prose of Hagiwara Sakutaro, translation and introduction by Hiroaki Sato. Kobenhavn & Los Angeles, Green Integer, 2002, 316 pp., $11.95, (paper) Hagiwara Sakutaro is one of Japan's most important, and most cherished poets. His first volume of poetry, "Howling at the...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 27, 2003
University exam pressure
JAPANESE HIGHER EDUCATION AS MYTH, by Brian J. McVeigh. M.E. Sharpe: Armonk, NY, 2002, 301 pp., $25.95 (cloth) In this withering critique, Japanese universities are portrayed as an educational Potemkin village. McVeigh's excellent analysis of institutional dysfunction focuses on how learning is sacrificed...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 20, 2003
Changing narratives of Korean history
COLONIAL MODERNITY IN KOREA, edited by Gi Wook Shin and Michael Robinson. Harvard University Press, 2000, 466 pp., $49.50 (cloth) Until very recently most English-language general histories of Korea treated Japanese colonial rule or "Japanese occupation" as a rupture or distortion of the "natural development"...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 20, 2003
Dancing detectives
A LOYAL CHARACTER DANCER, by Qiu Xiaolong. New York, SOHO Press, 2002, 351 pp., $25 (cloth) Popular fiction can be a fairly reliable indicator of changing public sentiments. One harbinger that the Cold War was beginning to wind down was the appearance of the now-famous police procedural novel. Such novels...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 13, 2003
Making a stanza for life
HOW TO HAIKU: A Writer's Guide to Haiku and Related Forms, by Bruce Ross. Tuttle Publishing, 2002, 167 pp., 1800 yen (paper); TAKE A DEEP BREATH: The Haiku Way to Inner Peace, by Sylvia Forges-Ryan & Edward Ryan. Kodansha International, 2002, 129 pp., 1,800 yen (cloth); THE NICK OF TIME: Essays on...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 13, 2003
Laying the ghosts of doubt in Laos
LOST OVER LAOS, by Richard Pyle and Horst Faas. Da Capa Press, 2002, 239 pp., $30 (cloth) In American hands, the deadly serious business of warfare, the very way war is conducted, can seem at times more like an extension of its own pop culture, a cartoon warp of the real grotesqueries.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 13, 2003
Siam's Greek Faulcon
FALCON: At the Court of Siam, by John Hoskin. Bangkok, Asia Books, 2002, 275 pp., 425 Baht (paper) Constantine Phaulkon, a famous Greek adventurer of the 17th century, who had a meteoric rise in King Narai's Siam (former name of Thailand) and an equally dramatic end, seems to continue attracting the...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 6, 2003
Popping up everywhere
GLOBAL GOES LOCAL: Popular Culture in Asia, edited by Timothy J. Craig and Richard King. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002, 310 pp. with illustrations, $24 (paper) It is commonly observed that as the political hegemony of the West has grown, so has its cultural dominance: Mickey Mouse, Elvis...
Who needs AI when you have Hatsune Miku?
Over the first six months of 2024, a handful of songs using Vocaloid singer Hatsune Miku’s voice have enjoyed widespread attention, underlining a global interest in the character and the technology she represents.
Bloodied Trump survives assassination attempt at political rally
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is surrounded and evacuated by Secret Service agents at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. Trump was rushed off stage at the rally after shots rang out.
Shooter came within inches of killing Trump, but left few clues as to why
An aerial view shows the stage where Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump had been standing during an assassination attempt the day before, and the roof of a nearby building where a gunman was shot dead by law enforcement, in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Sunday.
Yen’s woes seem too big for even a BOJ hike this month to solve
The Bank of Japan headquarters in Tokyo
How to beat Japan’s summer heat in ways better for the planet
Tenugui towels hang up to dry at a dyeing company in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on May 8. The durable and versatile tenugui, which many people have in their homes, can be used in many ways to cool one’s body.
The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'
Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
How to beat Japan’s summer heat in ways better for the planet
Tenugui towels hang up to dry at a dyeing company in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on May 8. The durable and versatile tenugui, which many people have in their homes, can be used in many ways to cool one’s body.
After Trump shooting, U.S. presidential race might take a violent turn
United States Secret Service Counter Snipers stand guard on a rooftop during a campaign rally for U.S. President Donald Trump in Avoca, Pennsylvania, in 2020.
No AC this summer? No problem (for me).
Think air conditioning is a requirement for a Tokyo summer? Think again.
She’s paying ¥1 million to help behind the scenes at the Paris Olympics
Mai Tarumi, who previously volunteered at the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, has a travel budget of ¥1 million for her trip to volunteer at the Paris Games.

Podcast

You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.
Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Longform

Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'
By Tomoko Otake

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Exploring Japanese culturevia Tohoku’s festivals

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