Word: clams
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...song among Japanese students had a refrain that ran "dekansho, dekansho." It was shorthand for "Descartes, Kant, Schopenhauer." In the early 1950s, the hit refrain was "chiiku dansu" i.e., dancing "cheek to cheek." In symbolic miniature, the two songs reflect two staggering cultural encounters between Japan and the West. Clam-shut to the outside world for centuries, Japan was pried open by Commodore Matthew Perry in 1854 and avidly, if erratically, soaked up Western thought and technology. In 1945, the vanquished paid the victors the sincere, if at times embarrassing, flattery of trying to adopt with gusto not only...