Florian Coulmas - The Japan Times

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Dec 21, 2003

BLESSED WITH OLD AGE: Demographic Change and the Family in Japan's Aging Society, edited by John W. Traphagan and John Knight. New York: State University of New York Press, 2003, 248 pp., $71.50 (cloth), $23.95 (paper). Aging is not what it used to be. Fuwaku, "no longer straying off course" once described the wisdom of old age, 40; and kanreki, one's 60th birthday, was when a lifetime was completed and started all over again, at least for those lucky enough not to be abandoned on the obasuteyama, the "granny dump mountain" of the old folk legend.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Aug 3, 2003

Visitors to stay -- for the time being

GLOBAL JAPAN: The experience of Japan's new immigrant and overseas communities, edited by Roger Goodman, Ceri Peach, Ayumi Takenaka and Paul White. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, 241 pp., £65, (cloth). Many in Japan have been slow to accept the fact that international labor migration does not stop at Japan's doorstep. But in recent years, the presence in Japan of workers from various Asian and Latin American countries has become a fact of life that cannot be overlooked anymore.

CULTURE / Books

Mar 31, 2002

The human face of migration to Japan

FOREIGN MIGRANTS IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN, by Hiroshi Komai, translated by Jens Wilkinson. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2001, 230 pp., AU$44.95 (paper) The Japanese economy has been in all but permanent recession for more than a decade. Yet, the number of foreign migrants has not diminished. What seemed during the high-growth period of the 1970s and '80s to be a phenomenon entirely driven by the insatiable demand for labor has turned out to be more complex. It is not just high wages that draw people from other countries to Japan, and those who come are not always in transit -- many are here to stay.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jan 20, 2002

Redefining the role of education in Japan

THE JAPANESE MODEL OF SCHOOLING: Comparisons with the United States, by Ryoko Tsuneyoshi. New York and London: Routledge Falmer, 2001, 219 pp., $80 (cloth) What role should schools play? Should they reflect the existing social order, or should they be active agents that set a course for social transformation? As cracks appear in the Japanese educational system and a sense of crisis grows, these questions are being asked with increasing urgency by educators and policymakers.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Dec 30, 2001

Tokugawa diplomacy: Foundering in the waters of distrust

PRISONERS FROM NAMBU: Reality and Make-Believe in 17th-Century Japanese Diplomacy, by Reinier H. Hesselink. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001, 215 pp., $47.00 (cloth), $24.95 (paper) The Dutch presence in Japan during the Edo Period is one of the most intriguing episodes of Europe's global expansion. In contradistinction to other Europeans in Asia, the Dutch in Japan weren't there to physically or spiritually subdue the natives by spreading their religion or building an empire. They came as traders and, therefore, were tolerated by the shogunate.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Nov 25, 2001

A spark that ignited social change

ORGANIZING THE SPONTANEOUS: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan, by Wesley Sasaki-Uemura. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001, 293 pp., $27.95 (paper) The events accompanying the revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in 1960 aroused strong emotions among those involved, making it difficult for a long time to discuss what took place in a disinterested manner. Now, more than four decades later, the political is gradually being transformed into the historical, and a fresh look at this important juncture in Japan's democratic development seems possible.

CULTURE / Books

Sep 30, 2001

An ancient cult with contemporary significance

ENDURING IDENTITIES. The Guise of Shinto in Contemporary Japan, by John K. Nelson. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000, 324 pp., 5,271 yen (paper) In 1475, a fight erupted between the priests of a shrine in Kyoto and local farmers, who claimed that the priests had unlawfully driven them off their land and incorporated it into the shrine's estate. While some of the priests were away on official duties at the imperial court, the farmers broke into the shrine and attempted to remove the "goshintai" (an object of devotion believed to contain sacred power) from within the main hall, but were pushed back by members of the shrine militia.

CULTURE / Books

Aug 26, 2001

Shaping the future:the politics of language

LANGUAGE PLANNING AND LANGUAGE CHANGE IN JAPAN, by Tessa Carroll, Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 276 pp., 40.00 British pounds (cloth) Most countries consider their official language to be an area of state responsibility requiring "planning" by government agencies or special institutions. Language, from this point of view, is seen as a collective good whose development can, and should, be controlled. Typical language-planning activities are aimed at fending off contaminating influences from other languages, protecting the norm against decay, or steering the language in a desired direction.

CULTURE / Books

Jun 24, 2001

Japan's endless search for identity

HEGEMONY OF HOMOGENEITY: An Anthropological Analysis of Nihonjinron, by Harumi Befu. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2001, 181 pp., A$44.95 (US$29.95) Nihonjinron, the discourse on "Japaneseness," has been with us for quite some time.

CULTURE / Books

Apr 22, 2001

The enigma of power in medieval Japan

THE GATES OF POWER: Monks, Courtiers, and Warriors in Premodern Japan, by Mikael S. Adolphson. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000, 456 pp., $29.95 (paper), $60.00 (cloth). Who rules Japan? This question has a modern ring to it and has been belabored by many a student of political science. It is of considerable interest to ask this question, for a change, about the past. "The Gates of Power" does just that. It investigates the "enigma of Japanese power" in the Middle Ages, focusing on the period from the late 11th to the late 14th centuries.

CULTURE / Books

Feb 12, 2001

Forget Big Brother -- it's little brothers that count

ORDER BY ACCIDENT: The origins and consequences of conformity in contemporary Japan, by Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2000, 156 pp., $25/17.99 pounds(cloth). The title of this book is misleading, although it captures the main idea of the authors, two social scientists working in Japan and in the United States. When compared to the U.S., Japanese society is more orderly or, to put it differently, more conformist. More people than in the U.S. comply with important norms of society and thus generate a higher level of social order. Why?

CULTURE / Books

Jan 8, 2001

When two worlds collide

JAPAN AND THE DUTCH 1600-1853, by Grant K. Goodman. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000, 304 pp., 40 pounds. Thanks to the Tokugawa shogunate's decision at the beginning of the 17th century to expel the Portuguese and other Christian missionaries who had started to meddle in Japanese affairs, the Netherlands, from 1640 to 1853, was the only Western nation with which Japan had any direct contact.

CULTURE / Books

Nov 28, 2000

When writing Asia-Pacific history, the rhetoric is the reality

JAPAN AND PACIFIC INTEGRATION: Pacific Romances 1968-1996, by Pekka Korhonen. London/New York: Routledge, 1998, 246 pp., $50 (cloth). The title of this book suggests that it is about the integration of the Asia-Pacific area, about regionalism, and about the role Japan plays in this process.

CULTURE / Books

Oct 17, 2000

Japanese will fight for rights

THE RITUAL OF RIGHTS IN JAPAN: Law, Society, and Health Policy, by Eric A. Feldman. Cambridge University Press, 2000, 219 pp., 14.95 British pounds (paper). Debunking myths is a noble endeavor, especially for scientists who are in the business of separating fact from fiction. The belief that Eric Feldman here sets out to expose as myth is that Japanese culture is antithetical to the idea of rights.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 26, 2000

Language questions reflect changing times

In times of transition, when the need for reform is felt more keenly than usual, there is heightened openness to bold suggestions. Japan is in the middle of such a period. Public debt exceeds 100 percent of GDP. The social-welfare system needs a drastic overhaul. Unemployment is at an all-time high. The school system is deteriorating. When, if ever, economic recovery will be accomplished is anybody's guess. The state is steadily weakening, as the recognition gains ground that the government cannot be responsible for everything. It is no longer trusted, as the guarantor of the public good. Radical proposals are in order.

CULTURE / Books

Aug 8, 2000

White guys to the rescue

OUTPOSTS OF CIVILIZATION: Race, Religion and the Formative Years of American-Japanese Relations, by Joseph M. Henning. New York and London: New York University Press, 2000, 243 pp., $35 (cloth). U.S. foreign policy has a mission. Many American politicians or diplomats would be proud rather than hesitant to confess that they are missionaries at heart. They are convinced that the U.S. way of life is superior to all others and that they have a calling to spread this truth far and wide. The world would be a better place, they think, if only it were like the United States.

CULTURE / Books

Jun 14, 2000

Japan's path from imitator to world-beating innovator

CULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY IN MODERN JAPAN, edited by Ian Inkster and Fumihiko Satofuka. London/New York: Tauris, 2000, 169 pp., unpriced. The relationship between culture and technology is complex and multilayered. Technological innovations that had profound effects on culture are easy to find: Think of the printing press and the automobile.

CULTURE / Books

May 30, 2000

Ghost in the political machine

NATION AND RELIGION: Perspectives on Europe and Asia, edited by Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999, 231 pp., $17.95 (paper). The modern world is characterized by the differentiation and separation of social domains that in ancient and medieval times could not easily be disconnected. Economics, politics and religion were closely interwoven. Put differently, the secularization of the state is one aspect of modernization.

CULTURE / Books

Apr 25, 2000

The 400-year-old bridge

BRIDGING THE DIVIDE: 400 Years The Netherlands -- Japan, edited by Leonard Blusse, Willem Remmelink and Ivo Smits. Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2000, 288 pp., $60. Japan and the Netherlands have a special relationship. No two other European and Asian countries have maintained such long and continuous contact undisturbed by the trauma of colonialism. It began 400 years ago when, after a gruesome crossing of the Pacific, the Rotterdam trading vessel Liefde, or "Love," washed ashore in Usuki Bay, Kyushu, on April 19, 1600.

CULTURE / Books

Mar 15, 2000

Fertile soil for Japanese environmentalist groups?

ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS IN JAPAN: Networks of Power and Protest, by Jeffrey Broadbent. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, 418 pp., $13.95, (paper). Given Japan's economic growth after World War II -- a period often termed "miraculous" -- it is not surprising that the worst problems of ecological destruction were experienced here. The generation then at work was not very concerned with sulfur dioxide in the air, mercury in the rivers or toxic waste in landfills. Smokestacks belching out poisonous gas were a symbol of economic growth that promised a better life, not environmental degradation. And it worked: By 1976, the economy was 55 times its size in 1946.

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