Blog
Counting Japan鈥檚 Students Abroad (2026 Ian Nish Prize Recipient)
In 2018 Japan鈥檚 education ministry could report that 115,146 Japanese students were studying abroad. In the same year the UNESCO Institute for Statistics counted 32,071. Both figures claimed to measure the same group of people, and over the preceding decade ...
Spies, Tribes and the Fight for India鈥檚 Eastern Frontier
In December 1943, under cover of darkness, eight men waded ashore near Dwarka on the Kathiawar coast of Gujarat. They carried wireless sets, firearms, explosives and signalling equipment. Trained in Penang and led by an instructor from the Japanese Indian ...
Encores and Entrepreneurs: how commercial bands taught Meiji Japan to love Western music
In late 1886, six former navy bandsmen gathered at a colleague's house in Tokyo and decided to start a business. They had no office, no rehearsal room and no instruments. The plan was to sell live Western music, played on ...
[Guest Post] Breaking the Bars: Ichikawa Danj奴r艒 VII and the Tenp艒 Reforms by Kimura Ry艒
The stage name 鈥業chikawa Danj奴r艒鈥� stood at the summit of Edo Kabuki, the supreme icon of the theatrical world (Zui-Ichikawa). Each generation gave the name its own character, but the seventh holder, Ichikawa Danj奴r艒 VII (1791鈥�1859), was extraordinary even by ...
What Katakana Reveals 外网天堂 Japanese Society
Walk around any Japanese city and you'll encounter katakana everywhere 鈥� on shop signs, product packaging, menus, advertisements. Most people who know anything about Japanese writing will tell you its job is straightforward: katakana is the script for foreign words. ...
How Tokyo Learned to Live with COVID-19: Vigilance, Habit and the Texture of Daily Life
The comedian Ken Shimura died of COVID-19 at the end of March 2020. Haruka, a student in her twenties living in Tokyo, had no personal connection to him. But she knew his face from watching TV with her grandmother, and ...
