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David Cozy

For David Cozy's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jul 13, 2003

Join the club: Today's Japanese fads

THE IMAGE FACTORY: Fads & Fashions in Japan, by Donald Richie, photographs by Roy Garner. London: Reaktion Books, 2003, 176 pp., £14.95 (cloth). Fads and fashions are not, of course, exclusively Japanese. Still, the unself-conscious abandon with which fads and fashions are adopted in Japan assures that they are forever in one's face and that one is, therefore, compelled to respond to them. In Donald Richie's "The Image Factory: Fads & Fashions in Japan," we have the pleasure of seeing how the best writer on things Japanese offers his response. By no means does he serve up the typical curmudgeonly dudgeon of everything was better in the old days and the kids today are no darned good, etc.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Mar 30, 2003

Behind the silver screen

THE FLASH OF CAPITAL: Film and Geopolitics in Japan, by Eric Cazdyn. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2002, 316 pp., $21.95 (paper) Those who dislike that branch of criticism and cultural studies that has come to be known as "theory" will probably not care for Eric Cazdyn's "The Flash of Capital: Film and Geopolitics in Japan." In it he does many things that they are likely to deplore. He insists, for example, upon "pushing together into the same idea two elements [Japanese film and Japanese geopolitics] that seem to have nothing to do with each other," and then uses these apparently unrelated items as a springboard from which to speculate about, for example: "other cultural forms, philosophical concepts, economic policy, the international division of wealth and labor, [and] aesthetic theory."

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Nov 24, 2002

When 'home' holds uneasy welcome

BROKERED HOMELAND: Japanese Brazilian Migrants in Japan, by Joseph Hotaka Roth. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2002, 161 pp., $16.95 (paper) The story that was once told about citizens of foreign countries who could demonstrate Japanese ancestry was that even if they had never been to Japan, even if they couldn't speak the language, they nevertheless remained, in some essential way, Japanese. Thus the Japanese government believed that if such people were to emigrate to Japan, they could and would fit smoothly into Japanese life. They were, after all, simply coming home.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Oct 6, 2002

Postmodern tales of the unexpected

"NEW JAPANESE FICTION," The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Summer 2002: Vol. XXII, No. 2. 262 pp., $8. Japanese literature, at least as it is known to those of us who cannot read it in the original, is in a position similar to that of Western classical music. Just as classical music lovers are likely to be more familiar with composers who died 100 or more years ago than with those who are now writing music, so readers of Japanese literature in translation are more likely to have read "The Tale of the Genji," prewar masters such as Soseki Natsume and giants of the immediate postwar years such as Yukio Mishima than they are (with the exception of a couple of big names) to have read the work of Japanese authors now writing. That this is the case becomes abundantly clear when one scans the list of writers featured in the recent "New Japanese Fiction" issue of the American journal The Review of Contemporary Fiction. Those of us who keep up with Japanese literature will certainly know Haruki Murakami and may recognize the name Masahiko Shimada, but the other eight authors chosen by editors Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory will almost certainly be new. We must be grateful, therefore, to McCaffery and Gregory for expanding our literary horizons.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Aug 4, 2002

Finding a place in history

SENTO AT SIXTH AND MAIN: Preserving Landmarks of Japanese American Heritage, by Gail Dubrow with Donna Graves. Seattle: Seattle Arts Commission, 2002, 220 pp., $19.95 (paper) A lumber camp in Selleck, Washington; a sento at 302 Sixth Avenue in downtown Seattle; a bowling alley in Los Angeles's Crenshaw district: each are "tangible remains of Japanese American heritage" and as such, argue Gail Dubrow and Donna Graves, are worthy of attention and preservation. Thus, "in the hope of stimulating public support to protect the remaining landmarks," they have given us "Sento at Sixth and Main," a book about these sites and seven others that they consider significant.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.

Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

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