Book Break
Living Japan
By Harumi Kimura

(The speech and Q & A will be in English, with Japanese interpretation)

The aim of the Book LIVING JAPAN is to tell to all the world who we Japanese are through everyday life essays by ordinary housewives. Most foreigners may know we Japanese have the special attachment to Mt. Fuji and cherry-blossoms. But I am afraid few foreigners actually know how we Japanese behave and express those emotions in ordinary life. They will find many such answers in the refined essays in this new book published in England.

"Living Japan was reviewed in The Japan Times and The Asahi Shinbun. I would like to explain at this event how I could help so many essayists and keep so many classes for thirty years. In Japan, there has been a traditional system of licensing the teaching of the arts, tea-ceremony or flower arrangement, kendo, judo, and so on, since the Edo Period. The talent of traditional arts and sports has been nurtured and succeeded through this system in which human relationships are very important in both teaching and learning. I have been supported by the system. I think
this system is unique in the world," Harumi Kimura says.

Harumi Kimura is Professor Emeritus of Kyoritsu Women's University. She graduated from the postgraduate school of Tokyo University of Education with a Master of Arts (English and American Literature) and has published many academic essays in English and Japanese. She stayed in London from 1974 to 1975 and her first book 'Letters from London at Twilight' was awarded the eighth Ohya Soichi Nonfiction Award. Since then she has been active as a writer and journalist in various fields. She is the president of KEG (Kimura Harumi Essayists' Group), which has
published many books of essays.

A dinner will be served at a cost of 1,850 yen (including tax). Sign up now at the reception desk (3211-3161) or online at http://www.fccj.or.jp. To help us plan proper seating and food preparation, please reserve in advance, preferably by noon of the day of the event. Those without reservations will be turned away once available seats are filled.

Reservations cancelled less than 24 hours in advance will be charged in full.

Library Committee

Book Break

Japan Through Writers’Eyes

By Elizabeth Ingrams

Friday, October 2, 2009, 6:30PM to 8:30PM

(The speech and Q & A will be in English)

How do you understand the enigma of Japan? From the first observations of the great cities and countryside of Japan by outsiders to more recent appreciations of Japan's culture, Japan Through Writers' Eyes is an anthology of accounts by Japanese and European travellers in Japan through the ages. The book glances at Japan from the perspectives of many famous Japanese writers such Shōnagon Sei and Murasaki Shikibu; Sugawara Michizane and Bashō Matsuo; Sōseki Natsume, and Tanizaki Junichirō in addition to some of Europe's finest adventurers, diplomats, and literary talents from Joao Rodrigues to Rudyard Kipling; Isabella Bird, William Empson, Pico Iyer, Alan Booth, Alex Kerr, LesleyDowner and Kazuo Ishiguro. The book is intended as inspiration for visitors to Japan.
‘This lively anthology will be equally enjoyed by Japanophiles and the merely curious,’
The Independent
'An inspirational treasure trove,' Japan Society review
The talk will feature authors Leza Lowitz, Stephen Mansfield on travel literature in Japan in conversation with Elizabeth Ingrams.
Elizabeth Ingrams is the editor of Japan through Writers' Eyes. While living in Tokyo she worked as Arts Editor for the Japan Times newspaper.

Leza Lowitz is a writer, editor and interpreter of Japanese culture. She has published over fifteen books. Her work has recently appeared in Expat: Women's True Tales of Life Abroad (Essay, Seal Press, 2002); Body & Soul Escapes (Footprint Travel Press, 2007); To Japan With Love (Things Asian Press, 2009). Her latest book is Green Tea To Go (Printed Matter Press). In addition to fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and California Arts Council, she also received the 2003 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Award from Columbia University.

Stephen Mansfield is a photojournalist, writer and long-term Tokyo resident. His photo-journalism has appeared in over 60 magazines, newspapers and journals worldwide. As an author, his books include Japan: Islands of the Floating World; The Insight Pocket Guide to Tokyo (Dorling Kindersley); Tokyo: A Cultural and Literary History (Signal/OUP was published in 2009); A guide, Top 10 Tokyo (Dorling Kindersley). Japanese Stone Gardens: Origins, Meaning, Form, will be published later this year by Tuttle publishing.

A dinner will be served at a cost of 1,850 yen (including tax). Sign up now at the reception desk (3211-3161) or online at http://www.fccj.or.jp. To help us plan proper seating and food preparation, please reserve in advance, preferably by noon of the day of the event. Those without reservations will be turned away once available seats are filled.

Reservations cancelled less than 24 hours in advance will be charged in full.

Library Committee, THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS' CLUB OF JAPAN

Book Break

You Gotta Have Wa 2009

By Robert Whiting

Thursday, September 24, 2009, 6:30PM to 8:30PM

(The speech and Q & A will be in English)

Best-selling author Robert Whiting will speak about his new book You Gotta Have 2009 (Vintage Departures), an updated version of the original You Gotta Have Wa published in 1989 by Macmillan. Wa '89 was a book about the cultural conflict between Japan and America, as seen through the common sport of baseball. It was written at the height of US-Japan trade difficulties and received considerable media attention, including 3 reviews from the NY Times in the span of 15 months and a feature in Time Magazine. Mr. Whiting appeared on many TV shows, including Larry King and the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour. Bill Clinton mentioned in a ballpark press conference that he was reading it. The book was required reading at the Japan Desk in the State Department, as well as in the Japanese departments of several American universities, and has thus far been　through 22 printings in the US, selling over 125,000 copies of hardcover and trade combined. The Japanese translation was a best-seller and was named one of the best non-fiction books of the year.

The new book is in celebration of Wa's 20th anniversary. It contains a new introduction and a lengthy afterward, amounting to more than 12,000 words, describing how the US-Japan equation has changed--and not changed--and how that is reflected in the sport of baseball. Special focus is given to the influx of Japanese stars to MLB, like Dice-K Matsuzaka and the recent unprecedented migration to Japan of American managers, led by Bobby Valentine and Trey Hillman, who have all faced unusual obstacles. In his talk, among other things, Whiting will address the question of whether Japanese and Americans understand (and like))each other more than they did two decades ago and the subject of how culture still manifests itself in baseball.

Robert Whiting is the author of several highly acclaimed books on Japan including Tokyo Underworld (Pantheon), a book about organized crime in Japan and the corrupt side of the U.S. Japan relationship, which is being made into a film to be directed by Martin Scorsese. His previous book was The Meaning of Ichiro (Warner Books), chosen one of the best sports books of 2004 by ESPN.com's Jim Caple. Whiting has been in Japan for 32 of past 47 years. He currently divides his time between homes in Kamakura, Tokyo and California. His wife Machiko Kondo, recently retired as an officer for the UNCHR, after a 25 year career in which she was posted in Geneva, Mogadishu, Karachi, Dhaka and Stockholm, among others. The Wa 2009 Update was written in Paris in the summer of 2008 following extensive research in Japan. Whiting currently writes a weekly column for a Japanese newspaper.

A dinner will be served at a cost of 1,850 yen (including tax). Sign up now at the reception desk (3211-3161) or online at http://www.fccj.or.jp. To help us plan proper seating and food preparation, please reserve in advance, preferably by noon of the day of the event. Those without reservations will be turned away once available seats are filled.

Reservations cancelled less than 24 hours in advance will be charged in full.

Library Committee, THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS' CLUB OF JAPAN

Book Break

Gender Gymnastics: Performing and Consuming Japan's Takarazuka Revue

By Leonie Rae Stickland

Tuesday, September 8, 2009, 6:30PM to 8:30PM

(The speech and Q & A will be in English)

Across from Tokyo's Imperial Hotel in Yurakucho, groups of young women dressed in identical tops emblazoned with crests or cryptic slogans often are observed loitering in palpable anticipation outside a tall, narrow building somewhat reminiscent of New York's Radio City Music Hall. At intervals, they cleave in gleeful yet disciplined excitement as tall, slim, androgynous-looking women in flamboyant trousers and jackets-the much-adored male-role stars of Japan's oldest and largest all-female musical theatre company, the Takarazuka Revue-stride confidently among them on their way to or from the stage door.

These performers, together with their equally-talented but less-renowned female-role counterparts, are the product of a unique theatrical genre with almost a century of tradition, in which they learn how to mimic male or
female gender, which is not merely a natural offshoot of biological sex, but rather something that must be
rehearsed and perfected through repeated performance, both onstage and off. The lives and experiences of these
exceptional women, as well as of the fans that nurture and applaud them, form the focus of Stickland's book, Gender Gymnastics.

From nearly 40 years of engagement with Takarazuka-as a stage-struck teenager and would-be performer, a fan, a
translator and voice-actor for the Revue's English Earphone service, and ultimately an academic-Stickland has
marshalled her personal observations, archival research and exclusive interviews into a comprehensive volume
offering what critic Donald Richie, in The Japan Times, calls a 'near anthropological account of this singular
entertainment... [Stickland] answers all the questions you may have had about the performances, as well as realiz
[ing] her intention to explore the significance of gender in the Takarazuka production.'

Glimpses of the Revue can be accessed from the Company's official website: http://kageki.hankyu.co.jp/

A dinner will be served at a cost of 1,850 yen (including tax). Sign up now at the reception desk (3211-3161) or
online at http://www.fccj.or.jp. To help us plan proper seating and food preparation, please reserve in advance,
preferably by noon of the day of the event. Those without reservations will be turned away once available seats
are filled.

Reservations cancelled less than 24 hours in advance will be charged in full.

Library Committee, THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS' CLUB OF JAPAN

Book Break: Gender Gymnastics