Imagine if there were no window-dressing, no face-saving double-talk. Imagine if there were no tatemae. Imagine if everyone just called things as they are with no adornment.
We'd all kill each other.
(Just in case there is anyone on earth who has not seen that video yet...)
There ain't no samurai, there are few geisha, Japanese are not the most polite people in the world. In practice, there is no special love or care for nature, nor is Japan uniquely unique. Sorry, but the sugar-coated fantasyland-Japan of Edwin O. Reischauer et al does not exist--if it ever did.
Frequented Japan blogs/sites
- σ1 (sigma 1): Japan Politics/Foreign Policy from NZ
- 1000 Things about Japan: The good and the bad. This lady knows of what she speaks.
- Shisaku: Required reading for anyone interested in Japanese politics
- Our Man in Abiko: A different style of Japan Politics blog by a British fellow north of Tokyo.
- Observing Japan: No introduction needed for the Japanese politics observer
- Loco In Yokohama: Outstanding writing on Japan-related and other topics
- Japan-US Discussion Forum: A moderated forum with some interesting discussion of US-Japan issues.
- Japan Subculture Research Center: Think Japan is all purity and light?
- Japan Focus
- Japan Echo: The website of the old Japan Echo magazine
- Global Talk 21: Japan politics blog written by a real live Japanese fellow (in English)
- Cat Foreheads & Rabbit Hutches: A blog about housing in Japan
- Balefire: Posts on various topics by an ex-pat with nearly 4 decades in Japan
- Asia Policy Point Blog
- Armchair Asia: A view of Japan-US issues from DC
Japan-related plus---a variety of blogs of current/former Japan residents
Blog Archive
Non-Japan related sites
Japan-related books currently or recently read
Some favorite Japan-related books
- Tokyo: A Cultural and Literary History
- Japan Rising: The Resurgence of Japanese Power and Purpose
- Asia, America, and the transformation of Geopolitics
- Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
- Bamboozled: How America loses the intellectual game with Japan
- Japanese Higher Education as Myth (anything by Brian McVeigh is good.)
- Nationalisms of Japan
- Cartels of the Mind
- The Enigma of Japanese Power
- Japanese Society by Chie Nakane
- Japan's Policy Trap
Who's the fool?
- D
- Denenchofu, Tokyo-to, Japan
- I live in Japan: The only country on earth with four clearly distinct seasons.
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