I have been absent for a few days, in part because I've been busy with the unusual task of translating an interview Mr. Asao did earlier this year in the Swiss St. Galler Tagblatt -- which has required using not only my German skills, which have gone unused for some time now, but also translating …
Year: 2006
Bell on the Chinese way of sport
The always enjoyable Daniel Bell has an essay in Dissent called "The Politics of Sports: Watching the World Cup in Beijing." Before elaborating further, I just want to note as an aside how much I look forward to Bell's essays from Beijing. Bell is one of my intellectual heroes, and he has an extremely sharp …
Japan considers its own NSC
This past weekend saw Prime Minister Abe move into the Kantei, meaning that he will now be on the job twenty-four hours a day. It is hard to believe that the head of government of a major developed democracy could spend the first month of his term living away from the Official Residence.Abe's move comes …
The paranoid fantasies of Lou Dobbs
This morning before work I caught Lou Dobbs on CNN International while flipping through the news channels. In the span of the few minutes I watched, he reported on grassroots efforts to fight illegal immigration quashed by the US corporations and the government, US cooperation on policing with "totalitarian" Red China, "the march of the …
Quality control for "Cool Japan"
The Washington Post has an interesting article about the corrosion of Japanese cuisine abroad. Of all the "products" that signify the export of "Cool Japan," Japanese cuisine might be the most significant, having grown to occupy a significant place in haute cuisine throughout the Western world.The version of Japanese cuisine presented to Western diners, however, …
Asia changes — will Japan change with it?
Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to India this week supposedly signifies a shift in Asia, as Hu's visit indicates that the region's two emerging giants are drawing closer to one another. This conventional wisdom perhaps contains not a small amount of wishful thinking, because, as this article in the FT suggests, major differences remain between …
Another take on the abductions issue
The Japan Times reported yesterday on comments by Columbia's Gerald Curtis at a forum at the Korea Society in New York, in which he suggested that the abduction issue -- the dispute that has followed upon North Korea's 2002 admission to having abducted Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s -- has isolated Japan.It's worth …
(Thanksgiving) Evening in Japan
Meanwhile, Thanksgiving here has come and gone. Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers.Thanksgiving being my favorite of American national holidays, I would have liked to find somewhere to have Thanksgiving dinner tonight, but emails went unanswered, so I made pancakes and watched Simpsons DVDs while waiting for Kamakura Cable to set up my internet and …
Morning in Japan
In my Cambridge M.Phil dissertation, I wrote the following:Koizumi, a self-described ‘henjin’ (literally ‘odd person’), was elected on a platform calling for extensive political and economic reforms, in a sense similar to Ronald Reagan’s conservative, reform-minded campaign in 1980. Like Reagan, Koizumi was elected as Japan confronted debilitating economic turmoil and a profound crisis of …
Tightrope walking
Before I continue with my running commentary on Japanese politics, I want to just make it clear to my readers the fine line I'm treading. Because I'm on the staff of a senior member of the opposition DPJ, I'm perhaps not as free to be objective about Japanese politics as my academic's mind would prefer …
Tobias S. Harris 