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Fiona Webster
For Fiona Webster's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 3, 2002
Nasty, brutish, and flawed
A SUDDEN RAMPAGE: The Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia, 1941-1945, by Nicholas Tarling. London: Hurst & Company, 2001, 286 pp., $36 (paper) As a rule, there are few positive accounts in Western literature of Japan's occupation of Southeast Asia during World War II, and this book by Nicholas Tarling is no exception.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 10, 2002
Japanese women 'defect' to the West
WOMEN ON THE VERGE: Japanese Women, Western Dreams, by Karen Kelsky. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001, pp. 294, $18.95 (paper) The pursuit of "things foreign" has become an increasingly common activity of Japanese women in recent decades. Whether it be through study and work abroad, or through romance with Western men, the fascination for and idealization of "the West" has also led to a proliferation of debates about what it means to be a woman in contemporary Japan, and a questioning of why so many young Japanese women attempt to escape or turn away from the life courses expected of them.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 4, 2001
Isabella Bird's letters from Japan
UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN: An Account of Travels in the Interior Including Visits to the Aborigines of Yezo and the Shrines of Nikko, by Isabella L. Bird. New York: ICG Muse, 2000, 1,700 yen, 342 pp. (paper) "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan" documents the journeys of Isabella Bird, an extraordinary woman for her time, who at various stages of her life visited America, Hawaii, Japan, Malay, Tibet, Korea, China, Turkey and Morocco. In 1878, at the age of 47, she set out from her native England to explore Japan -- a country only recently opened up to the outside world -- and did so with apparent confidence and ease. Moreover, she did not set out to visit just the well-known cities of Japan or other easily accessible areas; she deliberately embarked, as the title of her book suggests, off the beaten track -- to the northeastern district and Hokkaido.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 30, 2001
A pervasive power that goes largely unnoticed
POLITICS AFTER TELEVISION: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Public and India, by Arvind Rajagopal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, 15.95 British pounds, pp. 393 (paper) In "Politics after Television," Arvind Rajagopal presents a theoretically and empirically rich account of the role of television in consolidating Hindu nationalist sentiment in India and in reshaping the very basis upon which political parties garner and mobilize popular support.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 20, 2001
Globalization does its work on Japan
GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN, edited by J.S. Eades, Tom Gill and Harumi Befu. Trans Pacific Press, Melbourne, 2000. 295 pp., 3,250 yen (paper). The word "globalization" is used with increasing frequency these days. It is variously employed to describe the increasing degrees of communication and travel across national boundaries. Importantly, it is not just economies that are feeling its effects -- globalization impacts upon the politics, culture and family life of all countries within its reach.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 23, 2001
Okinawa's fate through women's eyes
WOMEN OF OKINAWA: Nine Voices from a Garrison Island, by Ruth Ann Keyso. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000, 168 pp., $16.95 (cloth). Ruth Ann Keyso traveled to Okinawa in 1997 to write a history of the island's postwar past. Following conversations with various people on the island, she decided to write this history through the eyes of nine women who represented three periods of Okinawan history. Three of the women Keyso interviewed survived the Battle of Okinawa, three grew up during the U.S. Occupation (1945-1972), and three were born shortly before or after the island's reversion to Japan in 1972. The war, she discovered, does not hold the same significance for each generation.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 5, 2000
What is the weight of a fractured atom?
ATOMIC FRAGMENTS: A Daughter's Questions, by Mary Palevsky. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000, 272 pp., $24.95 (cloth). With the benefit of hindsight and a distant or nonexistent memory of World War II, we pass moral judgment on those who were directly involved with the invention and construction of the atomic bomb with relative ease. We voice opinions about whether or not the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified and freely debate the pros and cons of weapons of mass destruction as a means of achieving "peace."
CULTURE / Books
Oct 9, 2000
Confronting a legacy of shame
WHAT DID THE INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE AMERICANS MEAN?, edited by Alice Yang Murray. Boston, Mass.: Bedford/St. Martins, 2000, 163 pp., $13.50 (paper). This book is part of a series called "Historians At Work." Aimed at the undergraduate student, the series is designed to introduce students to a historical issue and provoke thought and discussion through the study of several scholarly interpretations or perspectives on the subject. Although it is primarily intended as an educational tool, the series is also of value and interest for the general reader.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 19, 2000
Kwangju: a turning point for South Korea
THE KWANGJU UPRISING: Eyewitness Accounts of Korea's Tiananmen, edited by Henry Scott-Stokes and Lee Jai Eui. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2000, 268 pp. $18.95 (paper). "Covering the Kwangju uprising -- and writing of it in the aftermath," a Korean observer writes, "I was stuck for words. A reporter is supposed to be able to write. I couldn't get down on paper, for myself even, what I had seen. Some events, some actions, resist words. They beggar description." For Korean and foreign correspondents alike, the days of the Kwangju uprising were filled with both action and horrible suspense.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 8, 2000
Think global, act local; or is it think local, act global?
LANDSCAPES AND COMMUNITIES ON THE PACIFIC RIM: From Asia to the Pacific Northwest, edited by Karen K. Gaul and Jackie Hiltz. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2000, 254 pp., $24.95 (paper). Lives are complex, and if this era of globalization has taught us anything, it is that this complexity extends beyond local communities and across regional, national and international boundaries. Advanced communication and transport technologies further underline the way in which the actions of one community affect the conditions of another, whether it be culturally, politically or environmentally. When it comes to the environment, we face problems on a global scale. Understanding and appreciating the various cultural perspectives on the environment are essential to addressing the challenges of this "global world."
CULTURE / Books
Jul 13, 2000
No easy explanation for overseas Chinese success
ETHNIC CHINESE: Their Economy, Politics and Culture, edited by Yu Chunghsun. Tokyo: The Japan Times, 2000, 247 pp., 2,800 yen (cloth). The essays in this book explore the role of the ethnic Chinese economies in economic recovery and development in Asia in the 21st century. They are largely the product of an international conference on ethnic Chinese and the world economy that was held in China in May of 1998, which brought together scholars from a range of disciplines, from politics and sociology to mainstream economics. The belated publication of the papers has been edited by Professor Yu Chunghsun from Asia University in Tokyo.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 12, 2000
The wellspring of pacifism in Japan
PROPHETS OF PEACE: Pacifism and Cultural Identity in Japan's New Religions, by Robert Kisala. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999, 242 pp., $24.95 (paper). The so-called Peace Constitution is a defining feature of modern Japan. In the aftermath of World War II, Japan has perceived itself, and has been perceived internationally, as a nation devoted to peace, both constitutionally and ideologically.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 8, 2000
Life during wartime through a child's clear eyes
A BOY CALLED H: A Childhood in Wartime Japan, by Kappa Senoh, translated by John Bester. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1999, 528 pp., 3,200 yen (cloth). In Roddy Doyle's "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha," and again in Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes," we are told of life in poverty-ridden back streets of Ireland's cities as seen by young and precocious boys. In each book, the boy's view of the world and his adventures within it share qualities with childhood the world over, despite the appalling conditions in which they live, the abuse that is dealt out within their families and the tragic circumstances that befall them.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 20, 1999
Battle for women's rights in Japan
THE RISE OF THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT IN JAPAN, by Akiko Tokuza. Tokyo: Keio University Press, 1999, 302 pp., 3,000 yen (cloth), ISBN 4-7664-0731-8. Buddhism instructed wives that " . . . even if (your husband) seems more lowly than you are, man is the personification of the Buddha . . . (and) you must bear in mind that you have married a Buddhist saint."
CULTURE / Books
May 18, 1999
Progress is fleeting in the fight for sexual equality
THE MOUNTAIN IS MOVING: Japanese Women's Lives, by Patricia Morley. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1999, 240 pp., $39.95 (cloth). The mountain is moving, according to Patricia Morley, but mountains are, by nature, difficult to budge, and this particular one is demonstrating a firm attachment to its foundations.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 24, 1999
Frustration and anger produce great Korean fiction
A READY-MADE LIFE: Early Masters of Modern Korean Fiction, selected and translated by Kim Chong-un and Bruce Fulton. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998, 191 pp., $38 (cloth), $15.95 (paper). "What's driving me to drink isn't anger and isn't the dandies. It's this society -- our Korean society -- that drives me to drink."

Longform

A statue of "Dragon Ball" character Goku stands outside the offices of Bandai Namco in Tokyo. The figure is now as recognizable as such characters as Mickey Mouse and Spider-Man.
Akira Toriyama's gift to the world