Word: meiji
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...JAPAN The jinrikisha (human-force wheel), thought to have been invented here by local carpenters or American missionaries, became the most popular form of transport during the time of the Meiji Restoration. Over 25,000 rickshaws roamed Tokyo's streets in the 1870s...
...This is a familiar pattern. In the late 19th century, the rapid risers were Germany, Japan and the U.S. itself. Though oceans apart, they embarked on similar careers. The first step was national unification. In Japan, the Meiji Restoration consolidated fragmented, feudal power into a technocratic and imperial state. In Germany, Bismarck fused 25 kingdoms and duchies into the Second Reich. In the U.S., the Civil War ended with the Union restored. Step two was rampant economic growth, with all three overtaking the established powers in the production of iron, steel and energy?those industries that would soon yield guns...
Fast-food restaurants specializing in ethnic and regional fare--like the California-based New Meiji chain of Oriental food--are adding to the diversity. "The earlier cycle of fast foods was primarily concerned with supplying sustenance in a cheap, quick manner," says Lamar Berry, a spokesman for Popeyes, a growing chain specializing in spicy, Cajun-style fried chicken. "Now you can get convenience everywhere. People want to get the ethnic experience and titillate their taste buds...
...What is Yasukuni? Built in 1869, it's a Shinto shrine in central Tokyo honoring the souls of Japanese killed in battle since the Meiji Restoration. Names of the deceased are added to Yasukuni's book of souls, a list of dead who are worshipped as Shinto deities. There are about 2.4 million spirits enshrined there?87% of whom died in World War II, including 14 Class-A war criminals and about 1,000 Class-B and -C war criminals, as well as roughly 50,000 people from Korea and Taiwan who died fighting for the Japanese...
...American masters, from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Raymond Carver. So vast is Murakami's fame that nearly as many books have been written about him as by him. A Taiwanese newspaper has even suggested that his visage may one day grace a Japanese banknote, as does that of Meiji-era novelist Soseki Natsume, a Murakami influence. Others Murakami admires, he has admitted, include Fitzgerald, Carver, David Foster Wallace and Tim O'Brien, all of them Americans. Indeed, Murakami's fondness for U.S. pop-cultural references has moved local critics to complain that he worships the West at the expense...