The magazine of The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan

June 2020 Vol. 52 No. 6 ¥400

THE VIRUS

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OUTSIDE TOKYOIn this issueVol. 52, Number 5June 2020

contact the editors

no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Publisher FCCJTHE FRONT PAGE

From the President by Khaldon Azhari
History lessons:
A look back at last century’s pandemic
From the Archives
A cardiac surgeon pioneer
by Charles Pomeroy

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FEATURES

The virus outside Tokyo
by Eric Johnston
Flushed with prideThe Mainichi Shimbun’s secret wartime toilet source
by Mark Schreiber

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FCCJ BOARD OF DIRECTORS
President Khaldon Azhari, PanOrient News
1st Vice President Monzurul Huq, Daily
Prothom Alo
2nd Vice President Robert Whiting, Freelance
Treasurer Mehdi Bassiri, Associate Member
Secretary Takashi Kawachi, Freelance
Directors-at-Large
Mary Corbett, Professional/Journalist
Associate Member
Abigail Leonard, FreelancePeter O’Connor, Freelance
Akihiko Tanabe, Associate Member
Kanji Kazuo Abiko, Freelance
Associate Kanji Makoto Honjo,
Associate Member
Ex-officio vacant
FCCJ COMMITTEE CHAIRSAssociate Members Liaison Keiko Packard,
Yuusuke Wada
Compliance Kunio Hamada, Yoshio Murakami
DeRoy Memorial Scholarship Peter O’Connor
Entertainment Sandra Mori
Exhibition Bruce Osborn
Film Karen Severns
Finance Mehdi Bassiri
Food & Beverage Robert Kirschenbaum,
Peter R. Tyksinski
Freedom of Press Abigail Leonard
House & Property Khaldon Azhari
Human Resources Khaldon Azhari
Information Technology Yuusuke Wada
Library, Archives & Workroom
Koichi Ishiyama, Suvendrini Kakuchi
Membership Andrew Horvat, Peter O’Connor
Membership Marketing TBA
Professional Activities Tetsuo Jimbo,
David McNeill
Public Relations Dan Sloan
Publications Geoff Tudor
Special Projects Haruko Watanabe

In Memoriam:12
In memory of Stefano
By Pio d’Emliia
Toast to Old Nic
by John R. Harris

Editor Gregory Starr
Art Director Andrew Pothecarywww.itsumo-music.jp/design
Editorial Assistant Naomichi Iwamura
Photo Coordinator Michiyo Kobayashi
Publications Committee members
Geoffrey Tudor, Orient Aviation (chair)Peter O’Connor, Freelance
Sonja Blaschke, Freelance
Marina Yoshimura, Student

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Page 12:
Stefano Carrer
at work

Foreign Press in Japan Robin Harding

PROFILE

Kantaro Suzuki
Freelance
by Gavin Blair

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The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan
Marunouchi Nijubashi Building 5F
Marunouchi 3-2-3 Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 100-0005
Tel: (03) 3211-3161 Fax: (03) 3211-3168 fccj.or.jp

CLUB NEWSClub removes controversial Number 1 Shimbun cover image
from website; New Members; New in the libraryLens craftby photographer Members
FCCJ

JUNE 2020

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Published by the FCCJ All opinions contained within
Number 1 Shimbun are those of the authors. As such,these opinions do not constitute an official positionof Number 1 Shimbun, the editor or the Foreign
Correspondents’ Club of Japan.
Please pitch and send articles and photographs, oraddress comments to no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Read the Number 1 Shimbun online:
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The Front Page

FROM THE PRESIDENTHISTORY LESSONS

Dear Fellow Members,
The FCCJ is emerging from the coronavirus
lockdown to face new challenges, not the leastof which is to put the Club onto a sounderfinancial footing by extending our professionaland social activities.
As we prepare to upgrade our operations in the Club to the “newnormal” of reduced hours, distanced tables at the Bar, temperaturechecks and name registration at the entrance, etc., we are hoping Japan
will flatten the curve and get out from the coronavirus soon along withthe world.
Here, I must express on behalf of the board our profound thanks andappreciation to our dedicated staff who have worked on throughout the
lockdown. They will continue to do their utmost to maintain maximum
sanitary health on the club premises. Our valued members’ continued
cooperation will be appreciated in this regard. From June we expect
more news events, while the library and work room are still open as usual.
Please visit your club and enjoy the benefits of your membership,as our vendor, Bplan, has been serving us in the lockdown time and ispreparing to upgrade the service. In this regard, the board adopted aresolution at its emergency meeting on Friday May 29 to negotiate to
upgrade the service to meet the expectations of the whole membership.
My thanks also go to the Number 1 Shimbun team who produced themagazine tirelessly and although the April issue made some news in town
in the last week of May, over the cover design, at the end of the day wecan confirm that the respect that the editor and designer have for Japanand its people is beyond doubt. Humor is in the eye of the beholder.
On that issue, the board confirmed to the membership and to thewhole of Japan that the FCCJ has been and will remain a hub of thefreedom of the press and expression in Japan. This is a not a matter ofcompromise but we also had to listen to our lawyers’ advice who saw
this issue was ultimately one of copyright: a legal issue. If there had notbeen a copyright issue the BOD would not have agreed to the removalof the illustration from the website. The decision was unanimous. No
one opposed it. We believe in following Japanese law that we respect.
This issue is hopefully behind us now. We look forward to the futureand hope that at this existential crossroads in the club’s history we can
avoid getting lost in the past.
Before any plans or marketing, we need to be a united membership.
Civil wars destroyed more countries that external wars did.
Something was in my mind during my press conference: mostquestions were from FCCJ members who were not happy withremoving the cover from the website. I was glad to hear mycolleagues’ grilling questions. Some found that a “division.” I found ita healthy, direct and transparent show for all of those watched it live.
Yes there was a difference of opinion among some members overthe board decision, but this is normal in an organization that has along tradition of free expression, and in a country that respects the
freedom of reporting.
I personally see no constraints against reporters in this country, Japan,
and I am confident this will only continue.
We, at FCCJ, are waiting eagerly to cover Tokyo Olympics’ next year,
and hoping the current pandemic ends with the upcoming warm windsof the approaching summer.
In conclusion I remind you that June is traditionally the election
month of the FCCJ. I hope the membership gets involved this year, andhelps the club stabilize in our new grand location and building.
– Khaldon Azhari
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FROM THE ARCHIVES

A look back at lastcentury’s pandemic
The first flu patients in Japan began showing
symptoms around April, 1918. Initially, reported
Shukan Gendai (May 2-9), it was referred to as thesumo kaze (sumo cold) because a contingent of sumo
wrestlers contracted it while on a Taiwan tour. Threeof them expired before they could return home. As thecontagion spread, the summer grand sumo tournamentin Tokyo was cancelled.
At Yokosuka, 150 sailors in the Imperial Navy aboard
the Suwo, a battleship salvaged from the Russian Navyafter the Battle of Port Arthur and kept as a war trophy
by Japan, contracted the disease. It soon spread to thearmy, rapidly filling a hospital located in present-day
Shinjuku ward to capacity. By this time people werereferring to it as guntai-byo (the military disease).
The first newspaper article to cover the pandemic
was in the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun of June 6, 1918 withthe headline “Strange epidemic in Spain.” At that time,
Japan’s newspaper readers still saw it as “foreign news”
that would have little effect on their own lives.
That was to change from late September when, as theGifu Shimbun (May 4) reported, female workers at the
Nichibo textile factory in Ogaki City began collapsingat their looms. More than 8,000 lives were lost in
Gifu prefecture and news coverage at the time noted,“Each day several dozen caskets were lined up at thecrematory in Takayama, and were cremated without
Buddhist priests even taking the time to chant sutras.”
THIS WAS THE SPEARHEAD of the “first wave” ofwhat came to be called the ryukosei kanbo (literally,
contagious influenza). By October, the contagion had
spread throughout the nation. Schools began closing
and it was noted more than vulnerable age groups suchas children and the elderly, people in the prime of life
were dying.
The prime minister during the worst of the outbreak
was Takashi Hara, who had succeeded army general
Masatake Terauchi in September 1918. A former
journalist for the Yubin Hochi Shimbun (later absorbed
by Yomiuri), Hara was not only the first commoner toserve as prime minister, but also the first Christian.
Like his counterpart in the UK a century later, Hara
also had the distinction of contracting the Spanish flu.
After running a sustained high fever, he took to bed,
but recovered and returned to work without requiring
hospitalization. He was cut down by an assassin inTokyo central rail station on November 4, 1921.
In Osaka, over 20 percent of the drivers of thecity’s commuter trains and trams became infected,
adversely affecting rail services. Another job category
severely hit was telephone operators, who called

JUNE 2020

FCCJ

in sick in such numbers that there weren’t
enough people available to transcribe telegrams
announcing deaths.
The flu peaked at 130,000 in November and by
the time the first wave had tapered off, about 38
percent of the population, or 21.16 million people,
had been sickened, with 266,000 deaths.
By May 1919, flu fatalities had tapered off to zero;but from December of that year, a second wave
began and peaked a month later. Health authorities
noted that while the overall number of patients was
fewer than in the first wave—probably due to more
people having acquired immunity—around 20
percent of those contracting the disease died.
IN ANOTHER VIEW FROM a distant mirror, theKobe Shimbun of April 9 reported that “Unethicalbusinesses were gouging the prices of face masks.”
Its issue of November 30, 1918 noted that at least
13,000 people in Hyogo Prefecture had contracted
the flu, with numbers growing exponentially.
causing schools and factories to close.
In Tokyo, the period from mid-January to earlyFebruary was described as “three weeks of hell.”
From Jan. 14 onward, the city’s newspapers issued
daily reports of fatalities, with each day carrying
more black-bordered obituary announcements.
One paper was said to have run four full pages
containing nothing but obits.
Not surprisingly the impact on the Japanese
economy was severe, particularly on mining
industries.
Not having the scientific means to identify thevirus—the electron microscope was still over a
decade away—scientists were in the dark about
the nature of the virus. In desperation, people
turned to oddball preventions and cures, such asa “medication” produced from grinding up
roasted earthworms.
The two waves of the pandemic killed at least
450,000 people in Japan, and many more in its
colonial territories of Korea (230,000) and Taiwan(50,000). Among the victims were a number ofnotable figures, including Prince Tsunehisa Takeda(age 36), author and critic Hogetsu Shimamura (47)and noted architect Kingo Tatsuno, designer of the
Bank of Japan building (64).
According to the late Keio University professor
Akira Hayami’s 474-page history of the pandemic,
titled The Spanish Influenza that Struck Japan: theFirst World War between Humanity and Viruses,
in January, 1919, the Public Health Bureau of
the Ministry of Internal affairs issued several
advisories to citizens: maintain distance from sickpersons; avoid crowded places; wear a face maskor, if unavailable, use a scarf or handkerchief—practically the same regimen being recommended
today, with the addition of frequent hand-washing.

(K.M.)

FCCJ

JUNE 2020

A cardiac surgeon pioneer

Dr. Juro Wada, a Hokkaido cardiac surgeon who in 1968 performed
Japan’s first heart transplant in which the recipient survived for 83
days, speaks at the Club on Apr. 1, 1999. Charged with manslaughter
over suspected misdiagnosis of the donor’s brain-death—a charge
later dropped—he became the epicenter of an ethical storm that
discouraged such transplants until after the Organ Transplant Law
was passed in 1997. His appearance at the Club followed the first hearttransplant to take place after passage of that law. Seated to his left is
the FCCJ’s 1st VP Ed Neilan (Washington Times) and to his right is 2nd
VP Kazuo Abiko (AP).
Juro Wada was born in Sapporo on Mar. 11, 1922, the son of aprofessor at the University of Hokkaido. He received his medical
degree at the same institution in 1944 and worked in a local
hospital. In 1949, he went to the US to further his clinical training
and became a fellow at the University of Minnesota in 1950.
Following stints at Ohio State University in 1952 and at Boston’s
Brigham Hospital (Harvard University) in 1953, Wada returned toJapan in 1954 and established the Department of Cardiovascular
Surgery at Sapporo Medical University in 1958.
The heart transplant in 1968 by Wada, the thirtieth in the world,
was not his only pace-setting procedure in Japan. Between 1959
and 1965, he introduced several surgical procedures for heart andchest repair. He also performed the first successful operation tocorrect congenital heart defects in babies, the “Mustard” procedure
named after its doctor creator. And in 1968, he developed the WadaCutter valve prosthesis for the heart in conjunction with the Cutter
Biomedical Corporation. That device was later used in creating thefirst artificial heart.
In 1977, Wada moved to Tokyo to become Chairman of Surgery
at Tokyo Women’s Medical University, and began traveling worldwide to attend meetings, give lectures, and meet with other cardiac
surgeons. He retired from this position in 1987 to establish the
Wada Heart and Lung Institute in Tokyo. In 2007, he was chosen
as one of the top seven cardiac surgeons in the world in Athens,
Greece, the same year he celebrated his fiftieth year of marriage.
Juro Wada passed away at the age of 88 on Feb. 14, 2011 at his
home in Tokyo.

– Charles Pomeroy
editor of Foreign Correspondents in Japan,
a history of the Club that is available at the front desk
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Regional variations

By Eric Johnston

In Nara prefecture, where I live, the coronavirus seemed
far away. Less than 100 people have been infected, only adozen or so seriously, and only two have died in a prefecturewith a population of 1.35 million. Not once between February
and May did any of the park areas in my neighborhood close
down. No busybody old men or rent-a-cop types standing atpark entrances, putting up barriers or shooing children andadults away from enjoying a day outdoors.
There were no picnics allowed in the park. But people werestrolling around—without facemasks—taking in the cherry
blossoms, playing with their children, relaxed, and enjoying
the excellent spring weather. It was madeall the more excellent by the cleanest air in
Taking care
decades with everything shut down and with
Face masks being
no appearances of Chinese yellow sand, whichworn in Nishinari
can hit western Japan particularly hard in theward, Osaka onlate winter and early spring months.
April 15
There was plenty of food at local supermarkets. But I also noticed several neighbors
tending newly-dug vegetable gardens. Planting small, vegetable gardens in your back yard to get through a second waveof the coronavirus crisis might well be the next social “boom”
that Tokyo media “discover.”“Y

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The virus
outsideTokyo

KYOTO: WHERE TOURISM RULES
RICHARD ATRERO DE GUZMAN

ou’re so lucky you don’t live in Tokyo!”Over the years, I’ve heard that remark from any
number of friends, colleagues, and total strangers
overseas and throughout Japan who live in or visit Tokyo(though rarely in Tokyo itself). Usually, it comes from those
who had a bad day at their office somewhere in the capitaland are just blowing off steam.
Sometimes, it’s utteredin weary frustration by
The frenzy of news
Tokyo residents who say
are fed up after years ofstories about theliving with the obstinate,coronavirus spread inbureaucratic “Tokyo Way”
Tokyo has obscured theof doing things, are burned
fact that much of Japanout by the city’s stressful
lifestyle, or feel that theirhas—so far, at least—
fellow Tokyoites are cold,
managed to dodge theboring, and superficial.
worst of the first wave.
What I had never heard,
until this year, was that I
was lucky not to be livingin Tokyo because of its vulnerability to a pandemic.
In early February, three weeks before Hokkaido declared astate of emergency over the new coronavirus, I found myself
in Sapporo. The annual Snow Festival was underway. But
there was concern the raging coronavirus in China would
keep attendance way down. Foreign tourists in town for the
event appeared to be mostly from Southeast Asia or Japanbased Western residents on holiday. There was a noticeable
absence of Chinese-speaking tourists. A few scattered groupsof younger Chinese standing around the snow sculptures
could be spotted, all of whom were wearing face masks. As
were most other visitors, including myself.
In Sapporo’s Odori Koen, those of us standing in line at
the food stalls for the lamb kebabs or local sake tensed up
when somebody in our vicinity broke into a fit of prolonged
coughing. But there was no panic or anger. Except for the
lower-than-usual number of tourists, all appeared normal.
In conversations with friends at the Hokkaido Shimbun, it
was clear the coronavirus was a big story but not yet thedominant one.
That changed on February 28, after Hokkaido Gov. Naomichi
Suzuki told people to stay at home and not go out unnecessarily. Suzuki took matters into his own hands and made theannouncement following much confusion at the prefecturallevel after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe issued a sudden requestthat schools be temporarily closed as a measure to control the
spread of the virus. At that time, Hokkaido led the nation in
infections, with 66.
Well before universities in the rest of the country wereforced to teach online, I heard grumbling from those teachingat colleges in and around Sapporo that their administrators
were running around like headless chickens, holding meetings about coronavirus safety measures for the upcoming
spring term. This meant groups of people sitting for hours
without facemasks in a small room with the windows shut.
It was a scene that would be repeated a couple weeks laterin Tokyo and the Kansai region, until Japan discovered Zoom
could be used to hold that three-hour meeting to decide whento the hold the four-hour meeting to decide.

AN OSAKA REBELLION?

Back in Osaka, we watched, along with the rest of the country, the saga of the Diamond Princess. There was a growing
sense of disbelief and anger over Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s
response. Osakans, not exactly strong believers in the wisdomof Tokyo bureaucrats and politicians, began to worry government officials were even more incompetent than they’d been
after the March 11, 2011 Tohoku quake and Fukushima disaster. It grew harder to find anyone who believed either Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe or Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike had the ability to take bold action or could speak plainly and openly about
the crisis. It was time to take what local action you could foryourself and your family.
In early April, Abe finally ordered a nationwide state of
emergency. But it was the local governors’ leadership or lackof it that would ultimately determine whether people agreed
to stay off the streets in large enough numbers to flatten theinfection curve. And here, an odd thing happened.
I would have bet any of my Tokyo friends a can of their favorite brand of lime chu-hai that Osakans would be the last to fallin line with a Tokyo “request” to self-isolate. The central government hoped for a 70 to 80 percent reduction in pedestrianand vehicular traffic, especially in the cities, in order to reduce
infection numbers. I would have—and did—say that, in Osaka,
we’d be lucky to see a 50 percent reduction.
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FCCJ

But parts of Osaka actually saw more than a 90 percent
reduction, a higher rate than the parts of Tokyo making thenightly news. Why? Because of the man-of-the-hour, Osaka
Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura, who urged everyone to stay home
in a local media blitz. Through appeals passionately delivered and free of bureaucratic jargon and the too-clever-byhalf English phrases that Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike (over)uses,
Yoshimura convinced Osakans to do the impossible: to listen
to Tokyo, whatever doubts they had about the competency of
its politicians and bureaucrats.

A KANSAI HERO

Yoshimura is now the talk of the nation’s media for his boldleadership. Quick decision-making, independent of what Abe
and Koike were doing in Tokyo, was an important reason hedrew a lot of admiration. But Hashimoto also pointed outthat Abe uses a teleprompter in his speeches while Yoshimura
speaks to the media and public off the cuff. Just as Hashimoto
did when he was in office.
Will Yoshimura’s political acumen lead to bigger things?
Maybe. But as I write this in mid-May, it remains unclear
if his independent “Osaka model” of standards for reopening businesses will lead to a second wave of infections. If it
does, Yoshimura could go from media hero to media goatvery quickly.
FCCJ

JUNE 2020

If Osaka—and even before that neighboring Wakayama—
showed political courage by taking their own actions quickly,
Kyoto finished, if not last, then close to it. Kyoto is not known
for being quick and flexible. But the prefectural and city leadership seemed exceptionally slow by comparison.
Kyoto’s tourism industry heavily relies on cherry blossom
season to bring in revenue for its (way too many) chain hotels
in particular, as well as local merchants. For a while in March,
Kyoto politicians said little about the coronavirus, and were
far more reactive than proactive. Worse, some Kyoto businesses didn’t appear to take the coronavirus seriously or
want to admit that the cherry blossom season would not be
a profitable one this year. The Arashiyama district of Kyoto
even briefly launched an “empty tourism” campaign in February, an ill-conceived plan to lure people to Kyoto precisely
because the coronavirus was scaring tourists away and Kyoto
was quieter than it had been in years.
On May 18, there were only three newly confirmed coronavirus cases outside of Hokkaido and the Kanto area andthings were reopening. Thoughts have turned to responding
to the economic damage and ensuring area hospitals will haveenough beds if (when) the second coronavirus wave hits. In
addition, prefectures throughout the country were nervously
looking ahead to the summer months. Heavy flooding during
the rainy season or massive typhoon damage in August and
September could mean lots of people, especially elderly, inevacuation centers, where the risk would be high of a coronavirus outbreak at a time when local emergency medical facilities were already overwhelmed.
In such a case, those living in a more rural area outside ofa major city and its highly developed medical infrastructure
may then tell their Tokyo friends and family: “You’re so lucky
to live in Tokyo.” ❶Eric Johnston is Senior Kansai Correspondent for The Japan Times. The

views above are his own and not those of The Japan Times.

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Wartime news

Flushed with pride

America’s United Press. The same day, a secret emergency
meeting was convened at the newspaper’s office, at which a
decision was made to monitor shortwave radio broadcasts.
In order to preserve secrecy, a women’s restroom on the 3rd
floor, adjacent to the newsroom, was cordoned off and converted to that purpose.
“On the wall outside the converted toilet, a wood fuda(name tag) identified the department as the Obei Besshitsu(Europe-America section annex),” the Mainichi reported.
“The door was reinforced with a second layer of insulation
to prevent sounds from leaking out, and black velvet curtains were strung on the windows. There was also a bunk bed
where shift workers could repose.”
The late Zenichiro Watanabe, a member of the newspaper’s
Europe-America section, recalled that the monitors consisted of a team made up mostly of eight nisei reporters in theirlate 20s or early 30s holding dual nationality.

The Mainichi Shimbun’s secretwartime toilet source

By Mark SchreiberBy the outbreak of the Second
World War, radio had become
the main means of disseminating news by most of the belligerents. In Japan, thanks to the government monopoly on radio, controllingthe contents of broadcasts proved
far easier than monitoring the print
media, and by the 1930s radio had
become the main vehicle for news
releases and propaganda from theInformation Bureau.
In Valley of Darkness: The Japanese
People and World War Two, historianThomas R.H. Havens wrote thatfrom 1934, all broadcasting stations in Japan had been absorbed by
the public corporation, NHK. Afterthe war began, the state expandedradio audiences by waiving themonthly subscriber fee of one yen
for large families or families withmen at the front. While Japan in1938 had only one-fourth as many
radio receivers per capita as the US,
authorities distributed receivers topoor villages, which could be sharedby multiple listeners.
Havens writes:
Beginning in January 1938, the government broadcast
ten minutes of war dispatches and news of the spiritual
mobilization movement each evening at 7:30. Like Japan’s
newspapers during the war, NHK carried few reports of theEuropean theater even after the fighting began in September 1939, and the Domei press agency remained the only
official source of news throughout the period. Controversial
political developments were never reported, and startingfrom the day Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, weather forecasts
were also suspended because they might provide the enemy
with useful information.

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Despite heavy wartime press
censorship, a few news organizations made efforts to obtain andprocess what they could fromthe enemy’s perspective. At theMainichi Shimbun, this was doneby slipping in alternative facts
obtained by illegally listening toforeign shortwave broadcasts, andattributing the material to Mainichicorrespondents who had become
stranded in neutral counties when
the war broke out, in such cities
as Stockholm, Zurich, Lisbon andBuenos Aires.
The memoir Fifty Years of Lightand Dark: the Hirohito Era (1975),
published by the Mainichi, contained this brief passage:
Staff members of the Mainichi
Shimbun stealthily vanished into
the women’s toilet, converted into
a “black chamber.” They set up a
monitoring apparatus inside thetoilet converted into a sanctuary free from military inspection
and listened to shortwave radio(forbidden to civilians at thetime) to the BBC, Voice of America, Treasure Island, Ankara,
and other foreign broadcasts.
The news obtained was circulated among the editors ofboth the vernacular and the English newspapers. Some of it
was printed under the datelines of neutral countries...where
there actually were Mainichi correspondents...This valuable
but highly secret newsgathering activity was given an inglorious name, Benjo Press.
A Mainichi Shimbun article dated June 22, 2015, shed further light on details of the operation. On December 8, 1941,
the day the war began, all newspapers were deprived of theirmeans of obtaining news from overseas. In the Mainichi’scase, this included news from its reciprocal agreement with
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FCCJ

ON THE DAY THE WAR BEGAN, ALL
NEWSPAPERS WERE DEPRIVED OF THEIRMEANS OF OBTAINING NEWS FROMOVERSEAS.
Since signal reception was generally poor during daytime
hours, the team would monitor frequencies late at night,
listening to broadcasts from the US, UK, France, Germany,
the Soviet Union, Turkey, Australia, China and others. They
scribbled down notes as they listened to news, advertising,and propaganda broadcasts. Their notes were then typed up.
Staff in the annex would push a button, sounding a bell in theeditorial section, summoning a messenger, who would collect
the transcription. At the editors’ prerogative, material to be
used in the print edition would be translated into Japanese.
The people engaged in these tasks had been sworn to secrecy. Insiders coined the name Benjo Tsushin (toilet press), whichcame into use in-house. The foreign broadcasts enabled Mainichi
management to keep abreast of the global news while obtaining agrasp of what military headquarters was concealing.
For example, in the case of the Battle of Midway, which
took place on June 5-7, 1942, foreign radio stations repeatedly broadcast news of the “decisive defeat of the Japanese
fleet,” with the sinking of four carriers, including Admiral
Nagumo’s flagship, Akagi. On June 10, the broadcast issued by
Japan’s military headquarters made no mention of the loss ofthe carriers, along with some 300 planes, but rather reported
it as a victory.
While the Mainichi Shimbun editors were aware of thecontradictory reports, the newspaper’s issue of June 11 wasunder a number of legal restrictions controlling the news
media and public security, and had no choice but to parrot
the military’s announcement.
Materials from the toilet press reported to the Mainichi
management judged unsafe to use were stored in a paper
bag and treated as top secret. Late editor-in-chief Motosaburo Takada recalled, “Newspapers were completely under
the control of national policy, and became nothing more than‘bullets of paper.’ Even toward the end of the war, they proclaimed that white was black, concealing the reality of defeat.
FCCJ

JUNE 2020

The toughest thing for us was to keep printing lies in order touphold fighting spirit.”
But sometimes the newspaper was able to slip in information in the form of tokuden (special wires)—claimed to havebeen filed from Lisbon, Stockholm, Zurich or other neutral
countries—which were actually compiled from radio transcriptions received in the company’s HQ building in Tokyo.
Via the shortwave broadcasts, “Toilet Press” was able tomonitor particulars from the battles in Europe and at Guadalcanal, the death of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Yalta
Conference, and the Potsdam Conference.
On May 7, 1945, German Chancellor Admiral Doenitz had
formally announced unconditional surrender of all German
armed forces via radio. In its morning edition of May 9, 1945,
the Mainichi Shimbun reported Germany’s unconditional surrender, with the report credited to an overseas correspondent.
Thanks in part to its proximity to the palace, which was off
limits to U.S. bombers, the Mainichi headquarters buildingin Yurakucho was undamaged by air raids. The secret unit’s
work continued through the end of the fighting, but staff
began urging it be shut it down because some felt, inexplicably, that “Things might go hard on us if the Americans findout about it.”On or about August 20, 1945, the toilet was restored to its
original purpose.
Given the unbridled power of the secret police and military
authorities during wartime, one wonders how the Mainichi
succeeded in concealing its secret unit for as long as it did.
Actually, it’s quite possible that it didn’t.
In March 2000, Taketoshi Yamamoto, professor of history
at Hitotsubashi University, published a paper on communications in which he cited postwar testimony by a certain Kempeitai major, referred to only as “Tsuneyoshi,” who claimed tohave been aware of the shortwave monitoring activity. And
the Mainichi, apparently, was not the sole offender.
“I personally did not listen to any broadcasts, but I clearly
remember that several Tokyo newspapers (Asahi and Mainichiat least) had receivers,” he testified. “It was decided to letthem monitor the broadcasts.”
The Kempeitai major claimed that nearly all officers ranked
above field grade (major) knew about the monitoring of foreign broadcasts. He also remarked that some members of themilitary who were party to this information shared details
selectively with civilians.
“While in Hokkaido in March 1945, I often heard comments
about broadcasts from Saipan,” he was quoted as saying.
“Most of the leaders of the government and military listened
to them every day. However ordinary people didn’t havereceivers that could pick up such broadcasts. So it became
natural for soldiers to leak bits of information to civilians.”Once Japan emerged from national seclusion in the mid19th century and energetically sought out knowledge about
the wider world, not even the draconian restrictions imposedby the military government could eradicate its appetite fornews and information from abroad. While limited in its influence on the public, the three and one half-year existence of theMainichi’s clandestine “Toilet Press” stands out as a notable
example of civil disobedience conducted by Japanese media
organizations and individual reporters during the war years. ❶Mark Schreiber currently writes the “Big in Japan” and “Bilingual”
columns for The Japan Times.
9Series: Profile

Kantaro Suzuki
Freelance
By Gavin BlairN

A self-portrait insocial distancing
times

10

JUNE 2020

FCCJ

coming anyway and that I’d bought a tickot graduating high school andet,” recounts Suzuki with a laugh. “I said I
then working for TEPCO for seven“I WANTED TO DO
would work for free for a month and if theyyears on the maintenance of powSOMETHING TO
thought I was worth hiring they could takeer cables under Tokyo is far from a typical
CONTRIBUTE TO
me on as a full-time employee.”
career arc for a bilingual Japanese jourSOCIETY, AND OBAMA’S
Working brutally long hours, he covered
nalist. Though with the name he bears,
politics, business, Filipino ‘comfort womKantaro Suzuki was perhaps always fated‘YES WE CAN’ SLOGAN
and crimes involving ex-pat Japanese,
to take the road less travelled.
KIND OF INSPIRED ME” en’as well as 2013’s super typhoon Haiyan. “I“My grandfather was a shinyo tokkowas one of the first journalists to land andtai (motorboat suicide unit) stationed inthere were still bodies in the streets,” says
Taiwan,” explains Suzuki in a socially-disSuzuki. While there, short of supplies, “Itanced interview via Zoom. “He was waithad to beg the military for water and food.”
ing for the order to attack when Kantaro
Having spent nearly five years in the
Suzuki, a former navy commander who
Philippines, where he met his wife, Suzubecame prime minister at the end of theki left in July 2016, a month after Rodrigo
war, convinced the Japanese government
Duterte took office. “He was not the reato surrender—so his life was saved.”
son I left, but all my sources at the minisHis grandfather wanted to name histries were out,” says Suzuki.
own son after the PM, who survived three
Back home again, he began writing for Buzzfeed Japan, but
assassination attempts, but decided that the postwar era wasfound he was ill-suited to churning out articles at breakneck
maybe not the time for such a moniker. It was given to his
speed and the associated demands of social media. A year latgrandson instead.
er, he began freelancing again, writing articles and working
Suzuki began teaching himself English while at vocationas a photographer and live-streaming producer.
al school and by the time he was ready to quit TEPCO had
In 2017, he teamed up with Norimitsu Onishi, with whom
become proficient enough to win a scholarship to a college
he had worked at the NYT in 2011, for a feature on isolated
in Ohio on the basis of his application essays. While majoringelderly people. Titled “A Generation in Japan Faces a Lonelyin East Asian Studies, with minors in Geography and Chinese,
Death,” it became a Pulitzer finalist. “We talked every day for
Suzuki says his view of Japan’s role in the war was impacted,
months with elderly people about life and death and I learned
not least by “many deep conversations with a great Chinese
a lot,” Suzuki says.
professor, who was intimidating at first.”
Another inspiring story was a recent piece on a Cambodian
Not interested in becoming a journalist at the time, Suzuki
para-athlete who was raised in Japan after being born in arecalls how the “passionate debates” on campus about thenrefugee camp in Thailand and is now a coach of young rowcandidate Barack Obama raised his awareness of politics anders. The article, in English, was his first for a Cambodian news
the media. “I wanted to do something to contribute to sociagency, and collaborating with media across Asia is someety, and Obama’s ‘Yes We Can’ slogan kind of inspired me,” hething Suzuki is keen to do more of. He is also set on coveringsays, and led him to journalism.
the largely untold stories of the growing number of Asians
Returning to Japan, he began a master’s in journalism atworking as interns or trainees in Japan.
Waseda University in 2009, writing about the rise of the DemSuzuki says his early belief that as a journalist he would
ocratic Party of Japan and other political issues of the day for“change society directly or make the world better . . . wasdomestic magazines while studying. Struggling to make ends
actually wrong.” He now thinks, “You have to distance yourmeet as his course came to an end and considering giving
self, you’re not an activist, you’re a reporter. I was also very
up on his new career, the triple disasters of 2011 led to a gig
idealistic; I didn’t think there were dishonest journalists, but
as a news assistant at the New York Times’ Tokyo bureau. His
now I know there are,” adds Suzuki with a wry smile.
contacts and inside knowledge from his TEPCO days proved
Despite some tough times and a little disillusionment,
invaluable, but coverage wound down in the aftermath, andSuzuki is sure he made the right choice in his change ofSuzuki “looked for a new challenge. I wanted to be a reporter,
career. “Financially it’s tough, but I enjoy this reporting job,”like the guys I’d been working with.”says Suzuki. “The idea that through my reporting and writHis heart set on working in one of Asia’s growing economies
ing I can inspire someone, or trigger or motivate them, is justwhere he could utilize his English and Japanese, Suzuki coldfantastic.” ❶called the Daily Manila Shimbun, a bilingual Japanese paper in
the Philippines. Although impressed by his experience at the
NYT, the editor said they had no vacancies. “I told him I was
Gavin Blair writes for publications in Asia, Europe and the US.
FCCJJUNE 202011

In memoriamInmemoryof
StefanoBy Pio d’EmiliaS

A life well lived
Above, Stefano at theClub in 2015; opposite,
clockwise from top,
as the only foreign
correspondent on
Emperor Akihito’s trip to
Vietnam; with the author(center) and friends on an
FCCJ ski trip; whena young man.
12

tefano Carrer, 59, our long-timefriend and colleague, passed away
on May 21, in Italy. He was returning from a whole day of hiking near hishome city, Como, where he he was serving the lockdown period at his parents’
old house. He was late, and called his
relatives who were waiting for him tojoin them at dinner. “Sorry I’ll be late,” hesaid. “Please go ahead. And don’t worry.”
They didn’t. They should have.
Sometime after that call, at around
7:30 pm, he disappeared. Rescue teams,
which are very efficient in Italy thanks
to thousands of volunteers and experienced alpine guides, started to look for
him in the middle of the night. It tookthem two full days, a helicopter and several drones to find his body at the bottom of a very steep ravine. We can only
hope that he died immediately, without
any painful suffering. Aldo, his brotherin law, joined the rescue team and formally identified the body. He also madesure nobody else saw it.
Stefano was an FCCJ member for thelast 20 years or so. A senior member andmutual friend once called him “the good
Italian,” as compared to the bad one, me.
He was right. For as much as I could benasty, irreverent and (at times) furious,
he was always gentle, polite, patient,and reasonable.
We knew each other for the last 30
years or so, and never, ever fought, or even got into a heateddiscussion, He was always on the side of wisdom. Ready to givein, even to somebody who was wrong, because he knew thatwhat counts, after all, is the truth. And he usually was right.
THE TRIPLE TRAGEDY OF March 11, 2011 brought us very close.
On the very first night of the earthquake I called him and told
him of my intention to try to reach the Sanriku coast and possibly Fukushima Daiichi on my scooter. My intention was just
JUNE 2020

FCCJ

to let him know, something colleagues usually do in emergencies. I never expected him to ask me, “Do you have a sparehelmet?” But he did; and I did.
In a matter of minutes we hit the road in the direction of
Fukushima in the middle of the night, doing live reports here
and there on Skype, which we were both using for the firsttime. Unfortunately, the road was totally blocked after Iwaki,
so we had to return to Tokyo, wondering what to do. He was
the one who had the brilliant idea to fly “beyond the battle
field”: if we can’t reach from south, he said, let’s get there
from the north.
We boarded the last flight to Akita (Haneda airport would
close shortly after) and went on a hectic and quite unusualquest for a car. (Eventually we got one for free from a small
public-works contractor who was a fan of Nakata and Moritomo, the famous Japanese soccer stars who use to play in
Italy.) We reached a totally devastated city of Kesenuma at
dawn. We were the first foreigners there, reaching it evenahead of the Self Defense Forces.
Among the first people we met was an old
man walking amid the ruins of his home. Whenhe heard us speaking he smiled at us, like only
Japanese people are able to do even in the mosttragical situation, and welcomed us in perfect
Italian. We later found out he was a leader of
the Japanese rowing team at Rome Olympics,
back in 1960. We continued exchanging nengajo
from then until he passed away last year.
AFTER ONE FULL DAY driving south along thecoast, we finally reached our destination rightin front of the main entrance of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. There were nocheck points, only a couple of unattended roadplacards that read: “danger, traffic subjected
to regulation.” I would never have imagined
Stefano could be so fearless and brave, determined to get ourstory out.
Stefano pursued a journalist career, specializing in economy and finances, after graduating with a law degree. Aftera few years as a stringer in the US, he was hired by the theprestigious economic newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, the Italianequivalent of the Financial Times or Nikkei Shimbun. Japanwas his dream, although nobody really knows what was thefirst impetus that drew him here. There must have been somepersonal reasons, probably an early love affair. He never married, but was very successfull in getting women’s attentions
until he settled for the love of his life, Keiko, whom he wasprobably going to marry, in the end.
From his first moments in Japan on a formal assignment,
he produced hundreds of stories—and, more recently, shortvideos—not only on the economy and finances. He was curious, deeply cultured, thanks to his classic studies, and a voracious reader. His stories, even the “driest” ones, always featured some proof of his deep understanding of the history,
culture and tradition of Japan and East Asia.
Quite often, he also competently covered China, despite avery difficult relation with the local colleague who saw him asa threat for her post. This internal conflict probably contributed to the recent decision by the paper’s bosses to close bothoffices, leaving East Asia with no resident correspondents.
Stefano accepted the decision, of course, but was despondent
FCCJ

JUNE 2020and frustrated by the move. The last time I met him in Italy,
back in February, he mentioned for the first time that he waslooking forward to retirement, something that was hard forme to imagine.
Besides being a great and competent collegue and a very
close friend, Stefano was a very active person. We would playtennis here in Tokyo and he used to join a sort of FCCJ ski clubthat we informally created a few years ago, along with Anthony Rowley, Joan Anderson and several other mutual friends.
We will always treasure deep in our hearts the memories ofour off-piste slopes and wild onsen adventures in wonderful,wild Hakkoda in Aomori prefecture.
Ciao Stefano, we will all miss you very much. ❶Pio d’Emilia is the East Asia Correspondent for Italy’s Sky TG24.
13

A life remembered

Toast to Old Nic

A tribute to theincomparable figure
whose love for Japan’s
forest was legendary

By John R. HarrisF

YOICHI YABE

or some reason, he hated the name Clive, so to friends
he was “Nic.” But to millions of Japanese fans he was CW
Nicol, that beardy old white guy, author of 100 books
and scads of newspaper columns in Japanese, subject ofcountless media interviews, and an orator who held the rapt
attention of audiences nationwide. No one who has come tothese shores in the past 60 years has had a greater impact on
Japan: its society, likely; its biosphere, beyond doubt.
Nic’s great feat was to reawaken Japan’s awareness of thevast forest that blankets this country, and the hideous damage done to it since the 1940s. Although he never shied fromforcefully pointing fingers where warranted, he went about
this more by inspiring awe and love for the forest throughstorytelling that was always at its most powerful before a live
audience. In a country inured to droning, stone-faced orators, Nic’s singsong, Welsh-inflected Japanese, his passionate
stage presence, his humor and innate narrative genius left
few who heard him unmoved.
He soon became such a widely beloved figure (and a Japanese citizen in 1995) that advertisers begged him to be theirpitch man, notably Nippon Ham and Nikka Whisky (of whose
product he was inordinately fond). This funding enabled him
in 1985 to establish his own forest reserve, the Afan Woodland Trust in Kurohime, Nagano—a 34-hectare tract lovingly
restored over decades since. Afan attracted a stunning procession of pilgrims, from Monty Python’s Michael Palin andMargaret Atwood all the way up to Prince Charles and even,in 2016, Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko.

14

JUNE 2020

FCCJ

TOKYOITES MAY BE TEMPTED to think, “That’s nice, but so
what?” You can live decades in the city only dimly aware that70 percent of this archipelago is forest. You may occasionallygolf on its edge or hike groomed trails on sunny afternoons
when all the forest denizens lay low, but few actually go deepin the woods. If like me, however, you live alone, smack in the
midst of a Chiba forest where macaques scamper on the roof,
boars dig up the garden, owls land on the deck and poisonous mamushi snakes lurk beneath the barbecue, Nic was “TheGuru”—and I would devour his Old Nic’s Notebook columns in
The Japan Times. Still, I never met him until . . .
Early in 2015 I was recruiting Japanese media and celebrity guests for an expedition voyage to the Canadian Arctic
and Greenland, so I dropped him a line: “I have no budget to
pay your usual fee, but I’ll ask anyway. We sail July 17 fromFCCJ

JUNE 2020

Adventurer
Opposite, CW Nicol in thearctic; left, talking about
the trip (with the author,left) at the Club

Kuujjuaq, Quebec on the itinerary below. Call me if you wantto come.” Thirty minutes later, the phone rang: “It’s Nic
Nicol. I don’t care about the money; I want to go. July 17 is
my 75th birthday and my adventures began at age 17 fromKuujjuaq, where I was sent as the ‘advance man’ for a bird
research expedition.”
That was the start of a remarkable friendship that continued after two weeks at sea with hour-long phone chinwags
every couple of weeks and the occasional whisky-fueled storytelling session. Our bond was a shared love of Canada’s Arctic and Japan’s forest.
IT HAS TO BE said. Nic was an unashamedly prodigious imbiber from 6pm on (or 5 if his agent wasn’t looking), happiest and most entertaining when under the influence. He’dshow up with a ¥50,000 bottle of 1997 single malt (madespecially for him by Nikka) and the tales would begin toflow with the booze.
Some say he never let the facts get in the way of a goodstory, but Nic stories grabbed from the get-go. In his Welshyouth: “As a teenage wrestler I was making more money than
my father, a Royal Navy officer.” In the Arctic: “When we overwintered in an igloo on Devon Island I was confronted by apolar bear. I had to shoot him, then stop my companions fromeating the liver—because y’know, polar bear liver is deadly
poison.” From his late-1960s days as warden of Ethiopia’s
Simien National Park: “I shot and killed seven men once:poachers. It had to be done.” And then: “Fought my last brawl
in Matsumoto when I was nearly 70. I was jumped by someyakuza whose illegal forest dumping I’d outed.”
He was an affable bear of a man, but you didn’t want tocross him. Of course, not all his stories were so pugnacious
but they always took you to magical places . . . until late in
the evening when the booze inevitably got the better of him.
I often had to help him to his bedroom door, most memorably at the end of a long, boozy wild-game barbecue on mydeck with our local hunters. Well-besotted ourselves, we hadto drag his vast carcass on a rug to the sofa. And yet, Lazaruslike he would rise in the morning fresh as a bloody daisy andoff he’d go to give a speech, meet the Emperor or work on yet
another book in Japanese. Few teetotallers could match that.
GUESS HOW HE CRANKED out all those Japanese books?
Although a very fluent speaker, being illiterate in Japanese
he wrote his manuscripts in long-hand romaji which helpers
then rendered into proper Japanese text. A bizarre method,15

A life remembered

Club NewsFCCJClub removes
controversial
Number 1 Shimbun
cover image from website

Nicol of the NorthCW Nicol on the Adventure
Canada trip (photographedby Yoichi Yabe)

but his narrative genius made it work.
Sadly, he began to suffer reverses in recent
years. After his youngest daughter—an adultliving far from home—was jailed on drug charges, his corporate sponsors dropped Nic like a hot potato. Such is themeasure of Japanese gratitude.
That left Nic in financial straits just as he was diagnosed with a virulent colon cancer. He fought it tenaciously
through multiple surgeries, chemotherapy and costly proton
beam treatments. He was cheerful, mostly sober and productive throughout, continuing a hectic pace of speeches.
But increasingly his energies were focused on a last mountain unclimbed.
Famed though he was in in Japan, Nic’s few English books
never got much notice in his native UK, or in Canada—where
he spent most of 20 years from 1958, becoming a citizen in
1967—or in that other large English-speaking country. So, inand out of hospital, he began scribbling furiously, recounting all his stories in an English manuscript he called “Roadto the Forest.”
He’d often phone to report his progress and (hugely honoring me) ask my advice on the Canadian stories he was mosteager to tell. When Nic reached the Arctic in the late ‘50s, theindigenous Inuit were only just abandoning their nomadic
ways in a painful transition to government-built settlements.
Working out on the land in wildlife research gave Nic a veryrare chance to share the last days of their traditional existence—an experience that affected him deeply. Knowing his
testimony was important, he was determined to record it.
16

In late March, he phoned from a Tokyo
hospital saying he had 80 chapters in thebag, maybe 200,000 to 400,000 words,
along with hand-drawn illustrations. “And I’ve got good
news: the infection’s receded so end of the month I’m goinghome to Kurohime!”
Out walking in the woods on April 6 I suddenly thought
to check on him and phoned—only to learn he’d died fourhours earlier. After a few good nights at home, the infection
brought on by his chemo came raging back and he was rushed
to hospital. Not 48 hours later Nic was gone.
What has he left behind? Apparently, he was near broke by
the end. But as that enormous manuscript was almost done,
we can at least look forward to a massive feast of Nic stories—in English. Here’s hoping it attracts a reputable publisher able to give it the edit it deserves.
And what of Nic’s forest legacy? Sadly, Japan’s contempt for
its forest wealth is so entrenched that optimism is a stretch.
We can only hope the seeds of awareness he scattered from
Hokkaido to Okinawa bear enough fruit to make a difference.
Absent that, the forests’ best hope may be the aging anddecline of the human population.
What Nic left me is the memory of how he used to sign off
every phone call. “John,” he’d say, “you’re a dear friend.” Likewise, Nic. God rest ye, the merriest of gentlemen. ❶John R. Harris is a Canadian speechwriter/journalist who lives in a forest
near the surf beaches on Chiba’s Boso Peninsula. Since age 18, work hasoften taken him to Canada’s Far North.
JUNE 2020

FCCJ

ON THURS., MAY 19,
FCCJ President
Khaldon Azhari
held an online
media briefing toannounce the boardof director’s decision
to remove the online
cover image on
the April issue of
Number 1 Shimbun atthe demand of theTokyo 2020 Olympic
organizing committee.
The image featured
the Tokyo 2020 logo
manipulated to look
like the coronavirus,
illustrating thedamaging effect the COVID-19 disease has had on the
Olympic games.
Azhari repeatedly stated that it was an issue of
copyright, not freedom of expression. “The board
consulted with our lawyers and specialized legal
experts on the copyright issue and we were advised
very clearly that our case in Japan was not strong,”
he said.
Following his statement that it was an issue of
copyright, he went on to apologize for any offense
caused by the image. “Clearly the cover offended somepeople in our host country Japan. [So] let me closeby saying that we would like to express our sincere
regrets to anyone who may have been offended on all
sides of this issue.”After Azhari’s remarks, some members of the Club
joined the briefing and expressed opposition to theboard’s decision, claiming the publishing of theimage should have been strongly supported under
freedom of expression rights. Pio d’Emilia asked
why the board had acted so quickly without taking
the opinion of other members into account. Azhari
defended the board’s actions, saying they felt the issue
should be immediately resolved. The same day, theTokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto welcomed the Club’sboard of directors’ decision, stating that organizers
had been offended by the logo parody after hearing
about it from someone in the media. He said thatthe organizers had not made any legal threats in therequest to remove the image.
The magazine’s editor and art director resigned inprotest after not being consulted at any time during
the board’s discussion on the issue.
FCCJ

JUNE 2020

NEW MEMBERS
REGULAR MEMBER

Shiho Takezawa is an automobile
reporter at Bloomberg. She joined
the beat after a year with a rotational
program, in which she covered
economy, bonds, companies, andbreaking news. Prior to Bloomberg,
Takezawa was a student intern at theTokyo offices of The New York Timesand Ernst & Young. She graduatedfrom International Christian University last year with abachelor’s in Liberal Arts. In her junior year at college, shestudied at UC Berkeley as an exchange student. She wasborn in Tsukuba and raised in Kyoto.
REINSTATEMENT (REGULAR)

Alexander N. Lenin is a staff
writer for the Russian national daily
newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta who
has been assigned as its full-time
Japan correspondent this year.
The paper has a daily circulation
exceeding 130,000 copies with 41
bureaus in Russia and abroad. Lenin
has been in professional journalism
since 2008. He is a member of the Union of Russian
Journalists and International Federation of Journalists aswell. He held a similar position in Tokyo from 2015 till 2018.

ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Manabu Araya, Asahi
Breweries, Ltd.
Kazunobu Imoto, Asahi
Breweries, Ltd.
Yukari Hayashi, Amber World
Associates Co., Ltd.
Seita Iida, Yokohama Photo
Hiroko Masuda,
M Company, Inc.
Joji Okada, Japan Audit &Supervisory Board Members
Association
Masako Suzuki,
Pasona Group Inc.
REINSTATEMENT(ASSOCIATE)
Kuniyuki Shudo, Sumitomo
Mitsui Trust Holdings, Inc.

NEW IN THE LIBRARY
Diva Nation: Female Icons from Japanese
Cultural History
Ed. by Laura Miller; Rebecca Copeland
University of California Press
Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from
Cholera to Ebola and Beyond
Sonia Shah
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
A History of Discriminated Buraku
Communities in Japan
Nobuaki Teraki; Midori Kurokawa; trans. by
Ian Neary
Renaissance Books

17

Photographer members

Lens craft
An employee of the Tokyo
Metropolitan Government
holds a sign calling forpeople to stay home during
the State of Emergency
around the Covid-19
pandemic, in Kichijoji, Tokyo,
May 3
by Rodrigo Reyes Marin

18

JUNE 2020

FCCJ

FCCJ

JUNE 202019

Where news is madeD