Word: meiji
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That's where Japan's duality comes in. It is a nation that does not always find it easy to change, to embrace the future. In Tokyo's Ota Memorial Museum of Art this month, there is an exquisite exhibition of ukiyo-e woodblock prints displaying Japan during the Meiji Restoration in the late 19th century, when Western habits - European music and military uniforms, crinolines - were beginning to replace the old ways. In one print, a woman in traditional kimono and lacquered hair watches wistfully as a young girl, hair flying behind her, joyfully rides a bicycle...
...sure, Japan has the capacity to renew itself. It has done so twice in modern times, first after the Meiji Restoration in the late 19th century, when a traditional, closed society modernized so thoroughly that by 1905 it was able to defeat a major European power, Russia, in war; and again after 1945, when a new economy was built from the ashes...
...three girls walking down Meiji Street in the heart of Tokyo's Harajuku district are talking loudly in cute high voices, sometimes breaking into giggles. They could be any group of teenage girls on a merry shopping expedition in the Japanese capital's mecca of youth fashion - except for the fact that they are clad in clothing and accessories that mimic the look of comic-book heroines wearing the style of 18th-century princesses...
...century collection Manyoshu; the sublime socio-psychological epics by the legendary 11th century Heian court ladies; Zen-inflected 14th century battle tales and Noh dramas; haiku, travelogues, kabuki and puppet plays of the Edo period (1600-1868); and the panoply of modern novels, poetry and plays from the Meiji era on. Still read by Japanese-literature students, the anthology alone would have secured Keene's stature. But he has since published, on average, an English-language book every two years - gems on Japanese culture and history, in addition to his acclaimed translations of the country's classical and modern literature...
Haruki Murakami doesn't much go in for metaphors, but even he wouldn't deny the aptness and symbolism of the moment when he decided he would write his first novel. It was April 1978 and Murakami was in the stands at Tokyo's Meiji-Jingu Stadium, watching a baseball game, beer in hand. He was verging on 30, and nearly a decade into running a jazz café with his wife Yoko. A journeyman American batter named Dave Hilton came to the plate for the Yakult Swallows, stroked the first pitch into left field, and safely reached second base...