The Japan Society 2009 – 2010
Heidi Potter
An Overview
During 2009 and 2010, the Japan Society continued to be very active,
programming on average eighty-five events each year. Runningalongside the core programme of activity for members, the Society
offered support to schools teaching about Japan and, through its
small grants scheme, made possible workshops, exchanges andcommunity activity throughout the UK. A wide range of projects
was undertaken over this period; none of which would have beenpossible without the generous financial support of our donors, who
are listed elsewhere, or the help of many committed volunteers who
gave so much of their time and skills.
As one gets older, significant anniversaries seem to become
increasingly frequent and it is a measure of the long history of
UK-Japan relations that we have had much to celebrate. Japan-UK
150, marking 150 years since the signing of the Anglo-Japanese
Treaty of Amity and Commerce, began in 2008 and continued withfurther commemorative events throughout 2009. The centenaryof the 1910 Japan British Exhibition in White City was marked
with events beginning in 2009 and culminating in a family day in
Hammersmith Park in May 2010.
This was also a period of consolidation and house-keeping
behind the scenes, involving a great deal of work in launching a
new website and developing a new database to combine the recordsof the Japan Society with those of Japan 21. This important activity
should bear fruit in the coming years as we improve the way
information is disseminated and shared.

Cultural Events and Lectures
The Japan Society continued to offer a very varied programme of
events designed to appeal to people of all ages and diverse interests.
A highlight in the annual calendar is always the lecture by the
British Ambassador in Tokyo, when David Warren gave members aJapan Society Proceedings7

2009 Annual Dinner, with Taro Hakase

2010 Annual Dinner

8 Japan Society Year in Review

wide-ranging overview of the state of the UK-Japan relationship as
seen from the Embassy in Ichibancho. Other recurring events were
the Christmas party, kindly hosted by the Japanese Ambassador at
the Embassy and supported by the Japan Centre, and the annual
dinner. In 2009, dinner guests were entertained by the charismatic
violinist, Taro Hakase, who gave a short performance and was laterjoined by actress Mayuko Takata in conversation with Christopher
Purvis, speaking about their life in London. For our dinner inJanuary 2010, we partnered with Phillip Neil Martin who produced
an eye-catching fashion show featuring work created by Japanesedesigners based in the UK.
Leading up to the centenary of the Japan British Exhibition,members of the Japan Society partnered with the Friends ofHammersmith Park, Nippon Club and visiting Japanese gardeners
for working parties in order to restore what was left of the Japanese
Garden created in 1910. Led by Setsuo Kato and Ayako Hotta Lister,
local residents learned of the historical association through active
engagement with this practical project as well as an exhibition
at Fulham Palace, which included loan material from the Japan
Society’s library. Two family days saw hundreds of people visit thePark to enjoy performances, arts and crafts, and Japanese food in
the spot where one hundred years previously so many others hadcome for their first glimpse of Japanese cultural traditions.
On a larger scale, the Society partnered the Japanese Residents’
Association, Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, andNippon Club on Japan Matsuri. This was one of those occasions
where an idea seemed to develop organically within a communityfrom discussions that were taking place independently among different groups. The result was an enormously successful urban festival, which transformed the Spitalfields market area. Performances
showcased the talents of the local Japanese community, with strong
involvement by school groups, amateur musicians and world-classacts, as well as volunteers leading participatory activities. Boastinga main stage, family stage and martial arts stage, Japan Matsuri wasable to provide a setting for both large-scale and more intimate performances. A photo essay follows later in this volume.
Japan Society Proceedings

9There were many opportunities to visit exhibitions or toattend concerts and plays, with over thirty arts & culture events
being organised. Highlights included a breakfast and private viewof the Kuniyoshi exhibition at the Royal Academy in April 2009,
thanks to JTI, where members were able to study the works withcurator, Timothy Clarke; a recital in May of the same year by the
exciting young Quartet Excelsior who performed a programme ofcontemporary work with a strong Japanese focus. The quartet also
visited local schools to conduct workshops. In February, members
attended Theatre de Complicité’s acclaimed production of Shunkin,with a post-show reception with members of the cast and company,
as well as a Japanese-themed production of A Midsummer Night’s
Dream at the Southwark Playhouse, which was followed by an
in-depth discussion and question and answer session. 2010 saw
the return of Yukio Ninagawa to the Barbican, with a spectacular
production of Musashi, with Kabuki Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura at
Sadler’s Wells in June. On her retirement from the Royal Ballet,

In the Footsteps of Isabella Bird, at the Royal Geographical Society

10 Japan Society Year in Review

Miyako Yoshida delighted members with an insight into the life ofa Principal Ballerina and an overview of her career, in conversation
with Kevin O’Hare, Administrative Director. A traveller in the otherdirection had been celebrated earlier in 2010, with an exhibitionat the Royal Geographical Society; In the Footsteps of Isabella Bird
provided a fascinating record of Kiyonori Kanasaka’s contemporary
recreation of Bird’s 19th century travels in Japan and beyond. The
arts year finished with a private view of Future Beauty: 30 Years ofJapanese Fashion, a major exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery, incollaboration with Kyoto Costume Institute.
Visits to English gardens, to exhibitions such as the Treasuresof Lambeth Palace and Scottish Colourists at the Fleming Collection,
as well as seats for the Major General’s Review in the lead up to the
Trooping the Colour, were intended to allow Japanese members
the chance to experience more of British culture, though proved
equally popular with other members.
The Japanese Conversation Group continued its monthly
meetings which allow participants to maintain and develop theirlanguage skills in an informal pub setting, as well as organising special events such as hanami parties, summer trips and a barbecue.
Those who preferred a more structured learning experience werecatered for by the Society’s 10-week courses for intermediate level
students, organised in association with SOAS. These were kindly
hosted in 2009 by the Japan Local Government Centre and in 2010
by Toray Industries, allowing us to make the classes available at low
cost.
An informal book club began in 2009 and, by the end of 2010,
was a firm fixture in the Society’s monthly calendar. At the outset,
the books alternated between Japanese and non-Japanese authors,with the only criteria being that the work for discussion should
be available in both English and Japanese languages. However, it
soon became clear that members were most interested in Japanese
literature which then became the focus.
Food and drink was the focus for other popular lifestyle events
as members learned about Japanese whisky, now rated amongst
the best in the world, and the more familiar sake and sushi, withJapan Society Proceedings

11

tutored tastings including a lecture by Ole Mouritsen at a special
dinner at Saki restaurant.
The Japan Society continued to partner the Daiwa AngloJapanese Foundation on themed series of lectures: Changing World
Views: International Challenges for the UK and Japan (2009) andStates in Change: National Identity in the UK and Japan (2010), in
which broad themes were explored by expert panels from a different
angle each month. In 2009, we also partnered the Japanese Embassy
on a short series of lectures to mark Japan-UK 150. Japanese andBritish speakers took a different aspect of the relationship as they
discussed developments since the signing of the Treaty in threebroad time frames. In honour of the contribution made by the lateCarmen Blacker to Japanese studies in the UK, as well as to theJapan Society, we launched a new annual lecture with the Sainsbury
Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures: Professor
Donald Keene’s inaugural lecture is reprinted in this volume.
In addition to the series above and to those featured in thisvolume, lectures included a talk on the work and changing practiceof contemporary craftspeople involved in the creation of woodblock
prints by Rebecca Salter, Senior Research Fellow at TrAIN; Hideta
Kitazawa’s lecture on noh mask-making; the last stand of theTokugawa forces in Hokkaido by author Lesley Downer; Audrey
Sansbury Talks’ memories of Japan in the ten years before Pearl
Harbor; Cultural images and narratives about the problem ofcompensating the emotional, domestic and sexual labour of womenby Sharon Kinsella, lecturer in Japanese Studies at the Universityof Manchester; and a history of Japanese golf by Angus Lockyer,
lecturer in Japanese History at SOAS. A special event was held at
SOAS in September 2010 to mark the publication of Volume VII
of Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, which brought the Japan
Society’s collection of individual memoirs to a cumulative total inexcess of 350.

The Business Events Programme
The programme of business events provided topical briefings andseminars useful particularly, but not exclusively, to our corporate
12 Japan Society Year in Review

Professor Donald Keene (front row, second from the left) at the Sainsbury
Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures

members. Talks by leaders in business and government were followedby discussion and exchange of views on a wide range of subjects. As
usual, the chairman held a series of small lunches, kindly hosted bymember companies, in which key figures from the UK and Japan
were invited to meet senior members of the Society. These included
Sir William Castell, Chairman, The Wellcome Foundation; Stuart
Chambers, President & CEO, Nippon Sheet Glass Group; Roger
Godsiff MP, Chairman, British Japanese Parliamentary Group; Sir
Richard Needham, Vice Chairman, NEC and Dyson; Sir Andrew
Cahn, Chief Executive of UK Trade and Investment; Nick Anstee,
Lord Mayor of London.
Lunchtime lectures and seminars, the majority of whichwere hosted by JETRO, allowed more time for detailed analysis ofparticular subjects. They included reports on the global economiccrisis and its impact on Japan by Ian de Stains, Director, British
Chamber of Commerce in Japan and David Cairns, Head of Trade &Investment, British Embassy in Tokyo; financial services legislation
and reforms by Sir David Tweedie, Chairman, International
Accounting Standards Board and Graham Bishop; The UK’s
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13Response to Climate Change by David Cope; The Business ofAgeing and the impact on companies of an older workforce byJohn Llewellyn; and a discussion with the Asia Pacific Technology
Network on how to attract further Japanese investment to the UK.
The Society continued to arrange joint lunches in conjunction
with the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the UK.
Speakers during 2009 and 2010 included: John Armitt, Chairman,
Olympic Delivery Authority; Lord West of Spithead, Minister for
Security; The Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke MP, Shadow Secretary ofState for Business & Enterprise; John Greenwood, Chief Economist,
Invesco Perpetual Fund; Bernard Bulkin, Former Vice President
for Environment Affairs, BP; Alec Williams, Transport for London;
and The Rt Hon The Lord Howell, Minister of State at the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office.

Schools Education
Through its activities for schools, the Japan Society encourages
the study of Japan across the curriculum and supports teachers
in providing opportunities for their students to gain a greaterawareness and understanding of the country and its culture.
The Society’s education team provides ongoing advice andresources to schools engaged in teaching and learning activities
relating to Japan. As well as working in partnership with local
authorities, it offers materials directly to schools throughout thecountry, including loan resources supplied to approximately 70
schools each year.
Workshops for secondary art and primary school teachers
were held in Denbighshire and London, providing expert tuition
and guidance for incorporating Japanese activity in the curriculum.
The Japan Conference for Schools, a joint undertaking with the
British Council, Japan Foundation and Embassy of Japan, involved
participants from throughout the UK for seminars and workshops.
The focus was on language teaching, school links as well as subject
specific study of Japan.
A second sixth form conference was held at the Barbican Centre,
offering students the chance to visit the Future Beauty exhibition,
14 Japan Society Year in Review

Nihon buyo workshop with Hiroko Tanaka at the Sixth Form Japan Day
at the Barbican Centre

and undertake a variety of practical workshops, as well as attending
lectures about the lives and aspirations of their peers in Japan andtechniques in Japanese lacquerware. A lecture demonstration by
Blind Summit, the company which had provided the puppets forthe production of Shunkin had participants spellbound.
The Japan Society was delighted to be involved in a major
project to organise a programme of events for schools and teachersin conjunction with Pagoda Noh. This involved workshops andwriting projects led by the creator of Pagoda, Jeanette Cheung andmembers of Theatre Nohgaku, culminating in performances oforiginal noh-inspired work by students. The project is described in
more detail elsewhere in this volume.
Visits were made by the Society’s Japan in Your Classroom
volunteers in Greater London, Brighton, Derby, Manchester andSouth Wales to some 160 schools. For most students a JIYC visit istheir first opportunity to meet a Japanese person and to hear about
Japan first-hand; the visits have a lasting impact. The volunteers
were also active outside the classroom, providing family activities
at Japan Matsuri, at the Hammersmith Park Japanese Garden Party
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15

Blind Summit at Sixth Form Japan Day

and at events such as the Premiere Japan Film Festival. Special
workshops by furoshiki expert Hiroaki Koyama as well as by lacquer
and maki-e craftsmen were arranged at ten schools in London
and the South East involving some 500 pupils. The experience ofworking with expert artists and craftsmen, passionate about theirwork and generous with their time and explanations, had a great
impact on the young people involved.
The Society continued to provide support for school links:
approximately 40 new links were created and over 60 schools
made use of the Japan UK LIVE! website and related services todevelop their links. With support from the Daiwa Anglo-JapaneseFoundation, Japan UK LIVE! was rebuilt in 2010 to make it easierfor schools to use.
A review of school links was completed in 2009; this hadmonitored fifty-two links set up between April 2006 and March
2007 in order to generate data about the linking process andincluded fourteen detailed case studies of UK-Japan school links.
The key findings of the review were that:• Interest in and incentives for UK-Japan school links wereincreasing, particularly at primary / elementary school level
16 Japan Society Year in Review

Lacquer workshops in London schools

Japan Society Proceedings17•More schools were deciding to work together oncurriculum-related projects• More than half (56%) of links monitored came to an end
before or shortly after 12 months. A third of links that had
ended had never in fact got going• The most common reasons cited for links coming to an end
was a lack of time, the movement of staff to other schools
and a shortage of funds.
• 80% of schools whose links had ended were keen to set up
new links.
• The differences in timetables and school years, which
reduces the time available for joint activities, were seen to
be big challenges for UK-Japan links.
• Visits between partners had a significant impact on thestrength and continuity of links, especially if made afterpartnerships had been formally established.
• The majority of UK schools felt that links with Japan were
well supported and teachers recognised the important role
played by the Japan Society and the British Council aswell as funding bodies such as the Daiwa Anglo-JapaneseFoundation and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.
• Japan UK LIVE! was considered to be a valuable tool forestablishing and supporting links between schools in the
UK and Japan, with many schools commenting that it
would not have been possible to carry out links without
this infrastructure.
• The biggest need identified in terms of extra resources was
funding, in particular for exchange visits to support links.
One gap in provision that emerged was funding to enable
Japanese schools to visit their UK partners.
• Links had a beneficial impact on pupils and staff
involved and in many cases on pupils’ families and thewider communities. A link with Japan often led to otherdevelopments such as the introduction of Japanese or
taking part in national events.
The Society also worked with Japan Airlines on its biennial
18 Japan Society Year in Review

haiku contest. The 2009-10 World Children’s Haiku Contest had
as its theme ‘School’, which elicited a thoughtful response fromentrants. The first prize winner was William Duggleby (12) from
Thomas Keble School, Stroud with Myles Cullum (9) from St.
Cedd’s School, Essex taking second place.

Japan Society Small Grants
An annual sum of up to £30,000 is set aside for grants in supportof small-scale projects and events related to Japan. Priority is given
to applications for grassroots projects and for activities involving
schools and other educational establishments. Over the two years
covered here, ninety-three grants were made averaging just under£600 each.
The majority of projects supported were organised in schools orprovided opportunities for school students to participate in Japanrelated activities. These ranged from Japan Days to complement
ongoing study of Japan or Japanese language to music and drama
workshops and activities in partnership with link schools in Japan.
Japan Society support helped exchange activities between
Yamabiko-za children’s theatre from Hokkaido with Funny
Wonders in Buxton; Looking for Yoghurt, a cross cultural theatricalcollaboration between artists in the UK, Japan and Korea; between
young environmental leaders in the UK and Japan; as well as
between scouts in Fife and Iwate.
Over twenty-nine schools Japan Days were supported alongwith thirty community projects; thirty two had an arts focus, while
forty projects involved person-to-person exchange or workshops.
Although the individual amounts granted are relatively small,these grants provide opportunities for people throughout the UK
to participate in education and exchange relating to Japan and thus
contribute to raising awareness and understanding of the country
and its culture in places where the Japan Society has no regular
activity.

Japan Society Proceedings19