The Japan Society Review
Editor: Sean Curtin
Managing Editor: John Toppon........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Book, Stage, Movie, Arts and Events Review

Issue 31 Volume 6 Number 1 (February 2011)

called a kiondo. In our final review Adam House takes us through The
Moon over the Mountain and Other Stories which is the first collectionof stories by Atsushi Nakajima (中島 敦) to appear in English, translated
by Paul McCarthy and Nobuko Ochner. The stories were originallypublished in Japan in 1942-1943 and are mainly set in ancient China.

In our first issue of 2011 we focus on various aspects of Japanesemilitarism in the past century with some really stimulating articles.
Our first review, The Japanese in War and Peace 1942-48, provides
some fascinating insights into some of the most turbulent years in Sean Curtin
the country’s history. In his youth, Professor Ian Nish was a member of....................................................................................................
the British Occupation Force in Japan, part of the Allied Occupation
following the end of the war. In this book he describes his experiences Contentsfrom 1946–48, including his postings to Matsuyama and Uwajima, 1) The Japanese in War and Peace 1942-48, Selected Documents fromand his observations on the emerging new Japan. During this timea Translator’s In-tray
he collected a number of documents which form a focus of the 2) Burma to Japan with Azad Hind: A war memoir (1941-5)
study. They throw light on the attitudes of the Japanese people in3) War and Militarism in Modern Japan, Issues of History and Identity
the final two critical years of the war and the equally decisive firsttwo postwar years. We next look at Japanese militarism through the 4) Historical Dreadnoughts: Marder, Roskill and the Battles for Naval
Historyeyes of a young Indian man, Ramesh Benegal (1926 -2003), who wasseventeen when the Japanese captured British-occupied Burma. In 5) Norwegian Wood
Burma to Japan with Azad Hind: A war memoir (1941-5) he gives us 6) The Hare with Amber Eyes, A Hidden Inheritancea riveting first-person account, telling his extraordinary adventures in 7) Intellectual Property, Innovation and Management in Emerging
Burma and Japan. As a cadet with the Indian National Army he was
Economies
sent to Japan for military training. We follow his travels on land, sea 8) The Moon over the Mountain and Other Stories
and air from Burma to Thailand, Singapore and Japan, where his....................................................................................................
journey ends with Japan’s defeat. Our next book, War and Militarism in
New reviews
Modern Japan, Issues of History and Identity, comprises a collection of www.japansociety.org.uk/resources/the-japan-society-review
essays presented at a 2007 conference in tribute to Professor Ben-Ami
Shillony upon his retirement. It is in three parts, the first section looks Archiveat aspects of war and militarism in modern Japan while the second http://www.japansociety.org.uk/reviews_archive.html
focuses on identity inferred from war-related historical events and We are grateful to our regular reviewers:
phenomena. The last part critically explores “conscious and intentional Sir Hugh Cortazzi
Mikihiro Maeda
acts of identity formation” that were affected by war. Rounding off William Farr
Susan Meehan
this issue’s theme we look at competing interpretations of military Fumiko Halloran
Ian Nishhistory in Barry Gough’s Historical Dreadnoughts: Marder, Roskill and Adam House
Ben-Ami Shillony
the Battles for Naval History. Ian Nish examines this joint biography of ....................................................................................................
two of the most renowned naval historians of the Twentieth Century,
The Japanese in War and Peace
Arthur Marder, author of the acclaimed “The Anatomy of British Sea
Power” and Captain Stephen Roskill, a professional sailor and author
1942-48, Selected Documentsof the three-volume “The War at Sea, 1939-45.” Both writers analyzed
from a Translator’s In-tray
Britain’s problem in using its naval resources to defend its empire
against Japan, coming to different conclusions, and leading to a major
by Ian Nish
academic feud that the book explores. Moving away from war andGlobal Oriental, 2011, 454 pages
into the swinging sixties, Susan Meehan looks at the beautifully filmed
including index and appendices
Norwegian Wood directed by the Franco-Cambodian director Tran
Anh Hung and based on Haruki Murakami’s 1987 cult novel of the£68.00same name. It brilliantly captures the essence of the period from theISBN 978-1-905246-87-8
novel while adding some fantastic cinematography and a wonderful
soundtrack. Sir Hugh Cortazzi gives us his view of Edmund de Waal’s
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
The Hare with Amber Eyes, A Hidden Inheritance, a convoluted andgripping tale about 264 antique netsuke figures. The author recounts Ian Nish, Professor Emeritus in International History at LSE,
how the collection was originally purchased by one of his ancestors
spent two years with the British Commonwealth Occupationin Paris during the height of the late Nineteenth Century craze forForce in Japan from 1946-48. He arrived in Kure in Octoberthings Japanese, then transferred to Vienna, subsequently rescued
from the Nazis by Anna, his great grandmother’s maid, returned to 1946 as an interpreter-translator attached to the Combined
Japan with his great uncle and eventually made its way to his London Services Direct Interrogation Centre (CSDIC) with the rank
home. Professor Ruth Taplin’s Intellectual Property, Innovation and of 2nd Lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps. In this book
Management in Emerging Economies is a thought-provoking book Professor Nish briefly describes his experiences in Japan. This
which argues that the development of a robust intellectual property included a stint in Matsuyama and Uwajima in Shikoku where
rights (IPRs) framework is fundamental to long-term economic he was very much on his own.
success. Packed full of fascinating case studies, this absorbing bookgraphically illustrates how an underdeveloped IPR framework can be In the appendices he gives a selection of documents which
a significant economic disadvantage and demonstrates how Kenya came into his possession while he was working in Japan. He
lost out to Japan in an IP dispute over a traditional Kenyan basket also comments on aspects of the war with Japan and the.................................................................................................

...

occupation. There is much fascinating material in thisvolume and historians interested in this period will findhere many documents which shed light on Japanese wartime attitudes

This section includes photographs of British prisoners of
war who had been aboard the Lisbon-maru on its way toJapan when it had been sunk by an American submarineon 1 October 1942.

It is difficult for anyone who first experienced life in Japanafter the ‘economic miracle’ had got going and has seen
Japan in a frenzied building boom, to grasp what Japanwas like in the early years of the occupation. Japanese cities
had been devastated by aerial bombardment and Tokyo
seemed like a waste land. Food and other necessities were invery short supply. Means of transport were limited and jam
packed. Few roads were paved and such manufacturingindustry as had survived faced demands to give up suchmachinery as remained for reparations to Asian countries
which Japan had occupied. Former members of theImperial Forces were being gradually repatriated althoughmany faced long years of forced labour in Siberia where
many died.

Appendix 3 consists of a special number of the Nippon
Times Weekly dated 16 September 1943 covering ‘Scienceand Technique in Wartime Japan’. This demonstrates
not only that at that time Japan still had a significant
industrial base which had not yet suffered the devastation
which was to come in 1944/5. The machinery may lookantiquated today but it was state of the art in 1943. The
advertisements are also worth a glance. The English usedis perhaps inevitably stilted as it was not written by native
English speakers.

Initial fears of Japanese resistance to the occupation andof subversion were soon dissipated by the generallycooperative attitude of the Japanese people the majorityof whom seemed to welcome American style democracy.
The Americans who controlled military government weresoon fixated on the communist threat.
Ian Nish in his sojourn in post war Japan was able to observe
the development of the new Japan. He summarises briefly
the arguments which led Britain to participate in theoccupation of Japan although the British Commonwealthplayed no role in military government. As he explains forhim ‘it was a busy, and not an idle, time of doing duty in
an interesting environment…It laid the foundations formy later academic career and so I look back fondly on my‘occupation years’.
The author discusses the documents presented in the
appendices under various headings. Chapter 2 deals withJapanese civilian views of the conflict. Chapter 3 deals
mainly with the military view Chapter 4 is mainly concernedwith the last turbulent month of the war’. Chapters 5 and 6
cover some aspects of the occupation.
Appendix I consists of English
Language Teaching Materials The
School Weekly 1940-43, which belies
the accusation that Japan tried toban the use of English during thewar. There is one page about the first
American raid on Tokyo in 1942 whichshows how furious and shocked theauthorities were by the raid.
Appendix 2 consists of pages fromGreater East Asia War Graphic(Volume II) May to December 1942.
This consists largely of Japanese war
propaganda, but I was struck by thisphoto of the present Emperor as aboy on white horse.
2

The other appendices are much briefer. Appendix 4
provides the text of Prince Konoe’s peace memo of 14
February 1945 which began with the words: ‘Regrettably, I
think defeat is inevitable’. What a pity that other Japaneseleaders were not as percipient!
The final appendix 9 records the late Professor Beasley’s‘Personal Reminiscences of the Early Months of theoccupation: Yokosuka and Tokyo’. These were dictated by
Beasley to his wife in the last month of his life and are not
the same as the account which Beasley gave at a seminarin 1991 and which were included with other reminiscencesof the occupation in International Studies LSE (IS91/227
of 1991)
My own experiences of the occupation have been recorded
elsewhere (e,g, in my memoir Japan and Back and in the
STICERD Booklet referred to above.) and I will resist thetemptation to repeat some of this here. Suffice it to saythat I was in Japan from June 1946 to September 1947 andserved with the RAF police in the British Commonwealth
Air Forces stationed at Iwakuni and Yonago where I was
involved in both security and police work. I was there fora shorter time that Professor Nish and had more of an
administrative role than an intelligence one.

Burma to Japan with Azad Hind:
A war memoir (1941-5)
By (Air Commodore) Ramesh
Benegal,Lancer Publishing, New Delhi, 2009,165 pages including index,
ISBN: 10: 1-93551-11-9, £15.99
Review by Ian Nish
Ramesh Benegal (1926-2003) was born in Rangoon,
Burma, to an Indian family. When Rangoon was bombedby the Japanese, he was evacuated at the age of 15 withhis mother in the hope of reaching India by an overlandroute. This proving impossible, he returned to Rangoon.
Ramesh became infused with aspirations for Indian
independence and felt that the Japanese could help in
Issue 31 Volume 6 Number 1 (February 2011)

achieving this. He registered at a Japanese language schooland joined the Indian National Army (INA) [also known as
Azad Hind Fauj - Azad Hind means Free India]. Impressedby Japan’s airpower, he volunteered for training in her
airforce. He was invited to dinner by Subhas Chandra Bose
[popularly known as Netaji – respected leader], the headof the INA [and one of the most prominent leaders of the
Indian independence movement], at his official Rangoon
residence and was selected for training in Japan.
In his autobiography, Benegal gives a horrifying accountof the journey he had to make. Starting from Moulmein insouthern Burma, he travelled uncomfortably through thejungles of Burma and Thailand by the ‘Death Railway’ to
Bangkok. Revived by hospitable treatment there, his party
proceeded by train to Singapore where they were given
instruction for three months. While some deserted theprogramme at this stage, Ramesh pressed on, inspired by
the personality of Bose whom he met again in Singapore.
The dilapidated vessel on which he travelled, the Uralmaru, was torpedoed and sank in the South China Seas.
He was rescued and boarded an oil tanker. It was also
torpedoed and the small party of cadets landed in thePhilippines where they were left to their own devices so
far as food and lodgings were concerned. Enterprisingly,
they made their way to Manila where they were sustainedby members of the resident Indian community. After a stayat Clark airbase, they eventually flew to Japan and took up
their first assignment at the Koado Gakuin (or preparatory
school) in Tokyo. By a coincidence, Netaji Bose happened
to be visiting Japan in November 1944 for the anniversaryof the Great East Asian conference of 1943 and took time
to give the trainees an inspirational address.
In the following month the cadets moved on to theImperial Japanese Air Force Academy (空軍士官学校).
They were naturally vulnerable to the US intense bombing
campaigns on Tokyo which began when their course
had only lasted three months. When Japan surrenderedon 14 August, the Academy was closed and no provision
was made for the foreign cadets. Their dilemma wascompounded when their sponsor and protector, Subhas[Netaji] Bose, died from injuries sustained in an air crashin Taiwan on 18 August. In great distress, Benegal moved
to the house of A M Sahay, a prominent Indian resident inTokyo, to await his fate.
The American authorities at the outset of the occupation ofJapan did not know how to handle these Indian nationals
and treated them as part of the victorious Allies. It was
only when Colonel John Figges, the British representative,
took over that they were taken to a repatriation centre andsent out of the country on a US Air Force Skymaster. Aftersome harrowing misadventures, they were incarcerated in
Stanley Jail in Hong Kong. They joined a repatriation ship
which called at Shanghai, Manila and Singapore before
reaching Indian soil at Madras. With some difficulty Ramesh
was reunited with his family. In an attempt to forge a newlife, he took an engineering degree and joined Air India.
He enlisted in the Indian Air Force in 1950 and rose to theIssue 31 Volume 6 Number 1 (February 2011)

rank of air commodore, acquiring the decoration of Maha
Vir Chakra (MVC) in 1972.
The second world war gave rise to many accounts ofbizarre personal experiences. Benegal’s is the story of hisnightmarish sufferings as a teenager and his achievements
in later life. But the book illustrates also the national policies
of Japan, India and Britain. The Japanese were generous in
taking him on for training – a sort of ‘technological transfer’
before its time – but, because of wartime difficulties at
the front and in Japan, they were not able to treat him
with the care which one might have expected towards acitizen of the Co-prosperity Sphere. The Indian expatriate
communities throughout the east were divided in theirattitudes to the war, some wanting a quiet life and others
more inclined to take sides. They stood behind Ramesh
at critical points in his odyssey. The British only come into
his story after 1945: but the account given is an unhappyrecord of misunderstandings. Ramesh is very critical of theAllies generally and their use of the bombs at Hiroshima
and Nagasaki in particular.
This book along with my other review (Historical
Dreadnoughts: Marder, Roskill and the Battles for Naval
History) have a bearing on Anglo-Japanese relations ina time of crisis. They offer an unusual slant on the AsiaPacific War which throws new light on some aspects ofthe conventional accounts of that war.

War and Militarism in Modern
Japan, Issues of History and
Identityedited by Guy Podoler
Global Oriental, 2009, 242 pages
Hardback £55.00
ISBN978-1-905246-85-4
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
This collection of essays reproduces papers preparedfor “The International Conference on Japan in Honourof Professor Ben-Ami Shillony,” which took place at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel between 29 April
and 2 May 2007. It was intended as a tribute to Professor
Shillony’s significant contribution to Japanese studies andmarked his retirement as well as his seventieth birthday.
The book is in three parts. The first part looks at aspectsof war and militarism in modern Japan. The second partis “dedicated to research that sheds light on the featuresof identity by inferring from war-related historical eventsand phenomena;” and the last part critically explores“conscious and intentional acts of identity formation thatwere affected by the history under discussion.” I am notsure that I understand this statement by the editor in his
introduction, but there are a number of essays in this bookwhich eschew jargon and do throw interesting light on
aspects of Japanese modern history.
3

The first essay by Ian Nish entitled “Japan’s Tug-of-War
after the Russo-Japanese War” deals with the growing
power of the army in the years immediately following the
Russo-Japanese war of 1904/5. Professor Nish notes thatthe army “was split into groups advocating restraint andthose favouring expansion (page 19).” General Katsura (桂太郎) saw himself as a moderate figure.
General Yamagata (山縣 有朋) backed the expansion of
the army, Both “groups contrived to present a common
front against the politicians, the political parties and thebureaucrats who found it difficult to exert civilian control
over them (page 21).”
The second essay by Naoki Maruyama entitled “Facinga Dilemma: Japan’s Jewish Policy in the Late 1930s”
discusses the benign attitude of the Japanese authorities
towards the Far Eastern Jewish National Conference inHarbin in December 1937 despite Japan’s participationin the Anti-Comintern Pact with Nazi Germany. The
Japanese authorities in Manchuria thought that the Jewish
community could play a constructive role in the economic
development of Manchukuo and could help to bring in
American capital, but as Japan’s relations grew closer with
Nazi Germany, Japanese support dwindled. However
despite Nazi Germany’s persecution of the Jews, Jewish
refugees in the Far East “were not subject to forced labouror extermination (page 36).”
Jennifer Robertson’s essay “Ethnicity and Gender in
the Wartime Japanese Revue Theatre” shows how the
all female cast of Takarazuka opera was exploited tosupport Japanese war-time policies and propaganda.
Unfortunately her style is dense. Readers may well need toread twice sentences such as: “Although the relationshipbetween the Takarazuka Revue, a private corporation,and the imperial state was one of mutual opportunism
as opposed to seamless consensus, the ‘cross ethnicking’performed by the cross-dressed actors was homologous
to the official rhetoric of assimilation which equatedJapanese expansion with a mission to ‘civilize’ throughJapanization the peoples of Asia and the South Seas (page40).”
Another essay by Irmala Hijiya-Kirschnereit notes that
contrary to what one might have expected Yukio Mishima(三島 由紀夫) “in contrast to many post-war authors…
hardly ever deals with the subject of war in his narratives.”
Rotem Kowner‘s essay “Imperial Japan and Its POWs: theDilemma of Humaneness and National Identity” outlines
the deterioration in Japanese attitudes to prisoners of war
from the time of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894/5 to theSecond World War. We should note: “In March 1941 theJapanese army in China instructed soldiers that on being
taken prisoner their orders were to escape immediately orcommit suicide (page 89).”
The article by Mark Peattie entitled “Japan’s Defeat
in the Second World War: The Cultural Dimension” isan interesting discussion of some of the reasons why
Japan could not avoid defeat. He argues (page 112) that“deficiencies in Japanese institutions, weaponry, strategy
4and tactics all played a significant role,” but he regards thefundamental reason to have been “the narrowness of thevalue system of Japan’s military leadership.”Sigal Ben-Rafael Galanti’s article “The Memory of theSecond World War and the Essence of ‘New Japan’:
The Parliamentary Debate over Japan’s Democratic
Constitution” discusses the way in which any collective
responsibility is generally denied by Japanese today.
He notes for instance that even the famous Japaneseliberal politician Yukio Ozaki (尾崎 行雄), who had been
imprisoned in both World Wars, who was supportive ofJapan’s new constitution and well aware of Japan’s grave
problems in the past “…did not consider Japan responsible
for crimes against neighbouring peoples (page 137).” In his
conclusion he notes that all participants in the debate on
the new constitution “ascribed Japan’s involvement andfailure in the war to notions such as militarism, capitalism
or colonialism, and identified the guilty party in specificgroups or figures…none blamed the conduct of Japanas a society, or as a nation, towards other peoples (page139/140).”
In one of the final essays entitled “A Fragile Balance
between ‘Normalization’ and the Revival of Nationalistic
Sentiments” Mariko Tsuchiya worries about the possible
results from attempts by Japanese conservative politicians“to rationalize political goals with the use of nationalistic
sentiments.” She concludes her essay with these words:“When I see a kind of nostalgia towards traditional Japan,
and at the same time the on-going right-ward tendency, I
feel that it is more than essential to be aware of what might
happen when the delicate balance between demands
for change and the rising of nationalistic sentiments will
collapse (page 198).”
There is much of interest in this collection of essays and it
is a worthy tribute to the scholarship of Professor Ben-Ami
Shillony, but I do wish all scholars would try harder to write
simpler and more comprehensible English.

Historical Dreadnoughts:
Marder, Roskill and theBattles for Naval History
By Barry Gough, Seaforth
Barnsley, 2010, 366 pages
including index, £30.00
ISBN: 978 1 84832 0772
Review by Ian Nish
As the title suggests, this Professor Gough’s Historical
Dreadnoughts is biography rather than autobiography.
It is a joint biography of two historians of the Royal Navyin the twentieth century. While much of the book istaken up with disputes between these two historical
giants – historians have been known to disagree! –itcontains much of relevance to the story of the AsiaPacific war.
Issue 31 Volume 6 Number 1 February 2011)

First, the American historian, Arthur Marder, whopublished his first book entitled The Anatomy ofBritish Sea Power in 1939 to great acclaim. Forsaking
history, he decided in June 1942 to undertake a year ofintensive study of the Japanese language at Harvard.
He left having acquired “a swell foundation in Japaneseand a firmer grip on the Far East (p. 31),” thanks tocoaching from Edwin Reischauer. After failing to enlist
in the US navy, he applied for entry as an officer in theRoyal Navy but incredibly received the reply in 1943
that “no suitable vacancies have arisen in which yourqualifications could be utilized.” In due course he took
up teaching appointments in Hawaii and California,
becoming all the while renowned for a cluster of books
on recent British naval history. Admiral Lord Louis
Mountbatten suggested that he should explore theinteraction of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) with
the Royal Navy in peace and war. Marder was attracted
by the idea and travelled to Japan in 1961 but turned
aside from the project because of the paucity of naval
archives. He returned in 1975, undertook some archival
research and conducted interviews with former naval
officers. The fruits of his work came out in volume I of
Old Friends, New Enemies, 1936-41, published after
his death in 1980. Two of his former graduate students
completed his overall project by taking the story to 1945
in volume II. Marder’s conclusion was that the failure of
the Japanese navy in the war could not be attributed
to being overwhelmed by superior technology or thegreater ship-numbers on the Allied side; Japan’s naval
leaders relied too much on their moral and spiritual
convictions and suffered from over-confidence.
The second biographee, Captain Stephen Roskill,came from a different route in his approach to Japan.
A professional sailor, he rose through the ranks andserved in the Royal New Zealand Navy from 1941, acting
as executive officer of the cruiser, HMNZS Leander. In
this capacity he fought the IJN in one of the important
battles of the war in the south Pacific, Kolombangara in
the Solomons (July 1943). When he left the navy after
the war, he was appointed as the official historian of theRoyal Navy and among countless other works wrote
three volumes on The War at Sea, 1939-45 (HMSO, 195461), the last volume covering the Pacific naval war.
Both writers had to address Britain’s problem in using
her over-stretched naval resources to defend her
empire against Japan and to assess the decision tosend the Prince of Wales and Repulse to the east, theirsinking by Japanese aircraft and the fall of Singapore(1942). They were both critical of many aspects ofBritish decision-making. Roskill placed much of theblame on Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, the ailing First Sea
Lord, and his interventionist overlord, Prime Minister
Winston Churchill. Gough follows Marder in believingthat “Churchill’s obsession for offensive action onpolitical grounds might be countered by Pound’s
professional pragmatism (p. 250).” But Roskill felt that
Issue 31 Volume 6 Number 1 (February 2011)

Marder exaggerated Pound’s ability to stand up to
Churchill. Each view has its supporters even today. Suchare the lingering controversies over issues central to ourhistory! Though much in this book falls in the categoryof global history, Professor Gough has skilfully drawn ourattention to much in the writings of these gladiatorial
historians which has ongoing relevance.
This book along with my other related review (Burma
to Japan with Azad Hind: A war memoir) cover threecareers with links to Japan over the brief war years. Onea poignant personal narrative, the other a scholarly
retrospective assessment. Readers with an interest in
Anglo-Japanese relations will learn much from theunfamiliar stories and the strong characters involved.

Norwegian Wood
directed by Tran Anh Hung2010, 133 minutes
Review by Susan Meehan
The film Norwegian Wood,
directed by the Franco-Cambodian
director Tran Anh Hung (of The
Scent of Green Papaya fame),is based on Haruki Murakami’s
1987 novel of the same name. It wasn’t his first novel,
preceded as it was by Pinball, 1973; A Wild Sheep Chaseand Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the Worldbut it became his most famous – a cult book, catapulting
Murakami into the stratosphere and compelling him toremain abroad for a number of years, shying away fromthe frenzy his coming of age novel had caused.
Toru Watanabe is in love with Naoko, his late best friend’s
girlfriend. Naoko, played by Rinko Kikuchi [菊地 凛子](known for her role in Babel) is a fragile, troubled, taciturn
beauty coming to terms not only with the suicide of
Kizuki, her childhood boyfriend who took his life on his
seventeenth birthday, but that of her older sister as well.
A few years later, against the heady backdrop of the 1960s
student protests at the renewal of the US-Japan Security
Treaty Toru, now a university student in Tokyo, bumps
into Naoko and slowly gains her trust and affection
bonded as they are by adolescent memories.On her 20thbirthday, a nostalgic and melancholy Naoko sleeps with
Toru in what seems a breakthrough in their tentative
relationship. Naoko then disappears, devastating a
disconcerted Toru. Hearing that she is coping with her
depression in a sanatorium in the outskirts of Kyoto, Toru
begins corresponding with her and occasionally visiting
the convalescing Naoko.
Back in Tokyo, far away from Naoko, living with his
womanising friend Nagasawa and choosing not todisclose details of his love interest to anyone, Toru is left

5

increasingly lonely though resolutely faithful to Naoko.
An occasional diversion are his occasional encounterswith his classmate Megumi, a beautiful, smiley, sensual,teasing and optimistic woman who deals with her own
profound sadness by annihilating her sorrow throughsheer relentless positiveness. Megumi offers Toru theopportunity of forging ahead while Naoko, trapped byher anguish, cannot face the future.
Toru remains true to both women, never reneging on
any promises made … I won’t spoil it for those who
haven’t read the book or seen the film yet by revealing
how matters conclude.
Norwegian Wood is beautifully filmed; the setting andlighting are magnificent and the Jonny Greenhead(Radiohead) soundtrack a bonus. The lush Japanesecountryside is a wonderful contrast to cinegenic Tokyoand the close-ups of the young actors in 1960s-fashion
lure in the viewer. So hushed was the audience watching
the film that I hardly dared breathe let alone eat any
popcorn lest it break the trance.
The acting is superb and Kiko Mizuhara (水原 希子), theKorean-American model who played Megumi, a realrevelation. She is beautiful to watch and played Megumi’s
optimistic character like a ray of sunshine.

The Hare with Amber Eyes
A Hidden Inheritanceby Edmund de Waal
Chatto and Windus , 2010354 pages, £16.99
ISBN 9780701184179
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi

My attention was drawn to this book by a review in The
Economist of 22 May 2010. It ended with the unusually
enthusiastic recommendation: “Buy two copies of thisbook; keep one and give the other to your closest bookish
friend.” The review was accompanied by a photographof a number of Japanese netsuke (根付) with an ivory
hare in the foreground. [A netsuke is a form of miniature
sculpture developed in Japan from the 17th-century
onwards which served both practical and aesthetic
purposes.]
The author Edmund de Waal is a potter who has studiedin Japan on a Daiwa scholarship and is now professor of
ceramics at the University of Westminster. He inherited
264 antique netsuke, including the hare with the ambereyes. In this book he recounts how the collection waspurchased by one of his ancestors in Paris during theheight of the craze for things Japanese in the latenineteenth century, how they were transferred to Vienna,
how they were rescued from the Nazis by Anna, his great
6

grandmother’s maid, how they returned to Japan with hisgreat uncle and how they are now in his London home.
This is, however, much more than the story of a netsuke
collection. It is the moving story of his polyglot family,
their circles in Paris and Vienna, their successes and theirtragedies. The Ephrussi family began as wheat traders in
Odessa and became bankers in European capitals on thescale of the Rothschilds.
The collection of netsuke was bought by Charles Ephrussi,
a rich member of the family in Paris who had become anart collector and critic. It had been purchased by a dealer
called Sichel in Japan in the 1870s at a time when antiques
were being sold at very reasonable prices to the globetrotters who had just discovered Japan. Charles had
eclectic tastes and his interests were primarily in pictures.
He patronised painters such as Renoir and Manet. He
moved in the fashionable salons and became friendly
with Proust who may have based the character of Swannon Charles. Charles led the life of a rich dilettante but hewas seen as a member of the Jewish nouveau riche. This
was not a happy time for such people in France. AntiSemitism was rife and was exacerbated by the tragic
Dreyfus affair. De Waal draws a sensitive picture of Parisat this time.
Charles Ephrussi decided to give his netsuke collection
as a wedding present to Victor and Emmy Ephrussi of
the Austrian branch of the bank. De Waal evokes theatmosphere of Vienna before the First World War. He
describes the magnificent Ephrussi mansion on the
Ringstrasse in Vienna and the life led by this worldly
and wealthy Jewish family ennobled by the Hapsburg
emperor. Victor Ephrussi, Edmund de Waal’s greatgrandfather loyally supported the Austro-Hungarian
government in the war which left the Austrian republicthat emerged in 1918 feeble and unstable. The Ephrussi
were impoverished but not yet destitute. The worst was
still to come. The German Anschluss brought the Nazis topower in Austria. The property of the Ephrussi family wasconfiscated and it was only with great difficulty that Victor
and Emmy got away to Slovakia. There Emmy died orcommitted suicide. Victor eventually joined his daughter,
Edmund de Waal’s grandmother, in Tunbridge Wells. I
found this section of the book particularly moving.
The last part is primarily devoted to the life in Japan of
Edmund’s great-uncle Iggy (Ignace) Leo Ephrussi. The
netsuke collection had passed to him after it had been
handed to Edmund’s grandmother Elizabeth by Anna
who had hidden and preserved it throughout the war.
Iggy had left Austria before the Nazi take-over and had
become an American citizen. He was an American
intelligence officer in Europe in the Second World War.
He arrived in Japan during the occupation, found Japanmuch to his liking and soon met his boy friend and later
partner Jiro Sugiyama. Iggy became a successful banker
and later saying he did not like Nixon reverted to Austrian
nationality despite the shabby way in which the Austrian
government dealt with Jewish claims for compensation.
Issue 31 Volume 6 Number 1 (February 2011)

I hope that the publishers can be induced to reprint
this book with full colour illustrations not only of the
netsuke, but also of some of the pictures and buildings
which Edmund de Waal so graphically describes. Suchillustrations as there are in this book have been cheaply
scanned into the volume and do not do justice to
Edmund de Waal’s sensitive writing.
The Hare with The Amber Eyes is only partly to do withJapan but I have no hesitation in reiterating the warm
recommendation of The Economist and urge membersof the Japan Society to buy and read this moving book.

Intellectual Property,
Innovation andManagement in Emerging
Economies
Edited by Ruth Taplin andAlojzy Z. Nowak
Routledge, 2010, £85
ISBN10: 0-415-55960-X
Review by Sean CurtinThis thought-provoking book argues that a country’s
development of a robust intellectual property rights(IPRs) framework is fundamental to long-term economic
success in today’s globalized world. This is something
not just vital for high-tech states like Japan and the USA
but is also in fact absolutely crucial for newly emerging
economies. Many of these rising stars have substantive
reserves of natural resources and commodities alongwith a vast array of human knowledge which often
have inadequate or no IPR protection. In an increasingly
globalized economy this deficiency can impede growth
and result in valuable revenue losses.
Packed full of fascinating case studies, this absorbing
book graphically illustrates how an underdeveloped IPRframework can be a significant economic disadvantage.
To take just one example, Kenya lost out to Japan in
an IP dispute over a traditional Kenyan basket called akiondo. This is a local hand-woven craft which became
popular with foreign tourists in the 1980s. Whilst it
is undoubtedly an indigenous traditional handcraft,
Nairobi lost out to Tokyo in the intellectual property
ownership battle over the name kiondo because it
had already been registered as a trade mark in Japan.
Consequently, it is reported that Kenya’s kiondo makers
now have to pay Japan to use the name (page 51).
The clear message from this cutting-edge book is that it
is essential for developing nations to improve their IPR
frameworks, something every author in an emerging
economy highlighted in the book acknowledges (forexample see page 125 on Turkey). However, this is
no one-way street, major world economies are also
Issue 31 Volume 6 Number 1 (April 2011)

increasingly relying on the up-and-coming players
to improve their IPR game, in fact Japan and theUnited States are dependent on emerging economies
developing good IPR enforcement as without it theycannot protect their own intellectual property. For
Japan this is especially true as how IPR enforcement
develops in China and the region as a whole will havea significant impact on Tokyo’s own future economic
fortunes.
The book further argues that there is an important
symbiotic relationship between developed andemerging economies that can actually be measured interms of the levels of intellectual property (IP) activity
and economic development. Intellectual property rights(IPRs) are defined in this work as rights protected by therule of law under an independent, fair and transparent
judicial system. Such an IPR milieu creates the conditions
necessary for a vibrant, innovative sector within which
companies know their R&D investments are protected.
This type of environment leads to economic benefits forsociety as a whole and according to this work attaining
this level of IPR management is a key component insustaining the success of countries like Japan. Tokyo has
one of the world’s top rates for patent registration andJapan is singled out as offering a good IPR model for
emerging economies to emulate.
In the first chapter Professor Ruth Taplin provides anoverall theoretical framework along with models forunderstanding the featured case studies and changes
highlighted in each of the subsequent chapters. The
case studies in each chapter indicate that new emerging
economies are gradually realising the importance ofrobust IPR frameworks. To illustrate this point a plethora
of examples are provided from all over the world,
including Eastern Europe (see Chapter 5 “The Financial
Crisis, Intellectual Property and Prospects for Recovery:
the Case of Poland, Central and Eastern Europe” by
Alojzy Nowak), Africa (see Chapter 3 by Nthabisheng
Phaswana and Dario Tanziani) and there are several
examples from across Asia.
Asian countries are especially well represented in
the book with five excellent case studies focusing on
China (see Chapter 2 by Bernard Arogyaswamy andLisa Dolak), India (“Socio Economic changes Effected byIntellectual Property Rights – the Indian perspective by
Mohan Dewan” in Chapter 6), Taiwan (see Chapter 8
by Chyi Yih- Luan), Turkey (in Chapter 7 by Erhun Kulaand Selin Ozoguz) and Thailand (in Chapter 4 by Akio
Nishizawa). These case studies are analysed within thetheoretical context of cross-border IP which according
to this work is something that is gradually becoming a
global reality.
The editors, Professors Ruth Taplin and Alojzy Nowak,
must be commended for having gathered together an
impressive line-up of experts in the field and practising IP
lawyers. They methodically test the limits of the current
7and new IPR models being tried out in their respective
emerging economies. The book’s eight stimulating
chapters illuminate the global economic relationshipbetween intellectual property rights and economic
development. Each chapter also clearly demonstrates
through a variety of models how different emerging
economies are at various levels of improving andenhancing their IPR frameworks and what trajectories
they are likely to follow in order to advance forward.
This is a substantive work which furnishes us with amuch needed comprehensive assessment of the paths
emerging economies are taking to enforce, innovateand defend their IPR frameworks. It also analyzes thecurrent evolving IPR management dynamics in the
global context. This work is essential reading for anyone
wanting to properly understand the emerging global
and regional trends in intellectual property rights
management.

is also well known as The Tiger Poet (人虎) is one of
Nakajima’s most well known stories, it was studiedin Japanese schools. A tale of a frustrated poet, Li
Zheng (李徴), who gives up his post as a local official
to devote himself to poetry, although failing in his
attempt to fulfil his life’s desire of becoming a greatpoet he falls into madness and one night runs off into
the wilderness after hearing his name being called.
This violent emotional change within himself also
appears to provoke a physical transformation. The
narrative jumps forward slightly and takes up withYuan Can an old acquaintance of Li Zheng’s who istravelling into an area known for being a domain of
a wild tiger. After some time Yuan Can’s party hear
the roar of a great tiger coming from the bush, but asthey draw near Yuan can hear the sound of humansobs. Li Zheng begins to tell of his misfortune andlaments over his transformation and Yuan Can begins
to recognize that the voice he hears belongs to thatof his old friend Li Zheng

The Moon over the Mountain Transformation seems to thread in and out of thesestories, in Sangetsuki it is seen as a manifestation ofand Other Stories
by Atsushi Nakajima
Translated by Paul McCarthy andNobuko Ochner, Autumn Hill
Books, 2010, 182 pages
ISBN: 9780982746608
Review by Adam House

Atsushi Nakajima (中島 敦) was born in Tokyo in 1909,
his father came from a family of scholars specializingin the classics of ancient China, this would not only
influence his reading but would inform the majorityof his writing. The stories included in The Moon over
the Mountain (山月記) were originally published inJapan in 1942-1943 and are mainly situated in ancient
China, many in the ancient northern state of Qi (齊).
After leaving Tokyo University, Nakajima took up ateaching post whilst at the same time beginning towrite short stories and beginning the manuscript for
his novel Light, Wind and Dreams (光と風と夢), which
was translated by Akira Miwa (Hokuseido Press,
1962),a novella of the life of the Scottish writer RobertLouis Stevenson which was published in Japan in
1942,the same year as Nakajima’s premature death at
the age of 33. Nakajima who suffered from asthma
for most of his life died from pneumonia. Nakajima
seems to be strikingly at odds with other writers of his
generation for not writing about the war.

suffering and later in the story “On Admiration: Notesby the Monk Wu Jing” it appears as a well sought aftercraft and a sign of attainment in a story observing thenature of a fellow monk. Nakajima’s finely craftedstories blend existential inquiry with that of ancient
Chinese storytelling, where the human and animal
world often blend, in the story The Master, a young
archer who wants to master his skills, turns out tobe a danger to his tutor who refers his student to amountain hermit for further instruction. He teaches
him the art of to “shoot without shooting” in a story
that turns the notion of learning on its head. Manyof the stories are set in the Qi state and tell of courtly
intrigue and can be read as resembling morality tales,
where those who appear to be wronged sometimes
find their end after being the perpetrators of wrong
doing, the stories are predictable. As in the story
Forebodings which begins with arguing warriors andends with the states of Chu and Chen at war, at thecentre of this narrative is the beguiling beauty of Xiaja
whose beauty subtly wields a destructive power.
Nakajima’s stories often drop subtle clues andpointers which will often end up being the decisive
thread as in Waxing and Waning which again has
a courtly setting, an exiled Duke patiently waits forrevenge trying at the same time to contain familial
power games, the reader cannot afford to miss a line
in Nakajima’s finely written narratives.

The Moon over the Mountain is the first collection ofstories by Nakajima to appear in English, translated
by Paul McCarthy and Nobuko Ochner and publishedby the not for profit independent publisher Autumn
Hill Books. The first story Sangetsuki (山月記), which
8

Issue 31 Volume 6 Number 1 (February 2011)