One welcome exception to the gloomy news in Japan last year was the unexpected awarding of a Nobel Prize in chemistry to an apparently ordinary company worker. Koichi Tanaka's steadfastness, lack of personal ambition and open, nice-guy persona were a refreshing throwback to a less cynical age, and his success gave new hope to Japan's beleaguered middle-aged salarymen.
The potential inspirational power of role models like Tanaka can be seen in an earlier example of a Japanese who seemingly came out of nowhere to win success and fame. Sadako Ogata emerged from relative obscurity as an academic to achieve worldwide recognition for her work as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1991 to 2000.
In the recently published "Watakushi no Shigoto" ("My Work"; Soshisha), Ogata looks back at her 10 years as commissioner as well as reprinting a work journal from 1993-4 and various interviews and speeches. In one particularly interesting newspaper essay, Ogata gives advice to young people about to go out into the world.