The magazine of The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan

April 2016, Volume 48 No. 4, ¥400

Journalism and

.
.
.
R
E
T
T
I
W
T
. . . For betteror worse

Middle East to Far East:
the Washington Post’s
Anna Fifield profiled

Are journalists
losing their jobs
for not being
pro-government?

The Essential
Cinema Club: and you’realready a member

Vol. 48, Number 4

April 2016

contact the editors

no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Publisher FCCJ
Editor Gregory Starr
Art Director Andrew Pothecarywww.forbiddencolour.com
Editorial Assistants Naomichi Iwamura,Tyler Rothmar
Photo Coordinator Akiko Miyake
Publications committee members
Gavin Blair, Freelance (Chair); Geoffrey Tudor,
Orient Aviation; Monzurul Huq, Prothom Alo;
Julian Ryall, Daily Telegraph; Patrick Zoll, Neue
Zürcher Zeitung; Sonja Blaschke, Freelance;
John R. Harris, Freelance

Seeing theback ofHiroko Kuniya

In this issue
The Front Page
From the President by Suvendrini Kakuchi
Collections: Tourism by the numbers
From the archives by Charles Pomeroy

p8
4
4
5

Is Twitter for the birds?
by Richard Smart

6

Face-offby David McNeill

8

ProfileAnna Fifieldby Lucy Alexander

10

Rewind:Looking back with our favorite local cinema
by Karen Severns

12

Journalism in flux: the global viewby Justin McCurry

14

Exhibition
Color harmony: Kataezome art
by Fusa Sakamoto
Club News
Join the Film Committee . . . /Club Tour to the
Setouchi Triennale/New Members/New in the Library
FCCJ

APRIL 2016

16
17

FCCJ BOARD OF DIRECTORS
President Suvendrini Kakuchi,
University World News, UK
1st Vice President Peter Langan, Freelance
2nd Vice President Imad Ajami, IRIS Media
Secretary Mary Corbett, Cresner MediaTreasurer Robert Whiting, Freelance
Directors at Large
Masaaki Fukunaga, the Sanmarg
Milton Isa, Associate Member
Yuichi Otsuka, Associate Member
James Simms, Forbes Contributor, Freelance
Ex-officio Lucy Birmingham
Kanji William Sposato, Freelance
FCCJ COMMITTEE CHAIRSAssociate Members Liaison Milton Isa
Compliance Kunio Hamada
DeRoy Memorial Scholarship Masaaki Fukunaga
Entertainment Sandra Mori, Suvendrini Kakuchi
Exhibition Bruce Osborn
Film Karen Severns
Finance Robert Whiting
Food & Beverage Robert Whiting
Freedom of Press Pio d’Emilia, Khaldon AzhariHouse & Property Peter Langan
Human Resources Imad Ajami
Information Technology Roger Williams
Library, Archives & Workroom Koichi Ishiyama,
Suvendrini Kakuchi
Membership Peter O’Connor, Monzurul Huq
Membership Marketing Bill Shin, Rie Sakamoto
Professional Activities David McNeill,
Tetsuo Jimbo
Publications Gavin Blair
Special Projects Haruko Watanabe
Web Committee Gavin Blair
Foreign Press in Japan Justin McCurry

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan
Yurakucho Denki Building, North Tower 20F,
1-7-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0006.
Tel: (03) 3211-3161 Fax: (03) 3211-3168 fccj.or.jp
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:
fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun/
Cover design by Andrew Pothecary3

FRONT PAGE

Comparison of hotel
occupancy rates in
Osaka Prefecture and Tokyo

COLLECTIONS– Suvendrini Kakuchi
4

The number of international visitors
to Japan in 201519.73m47.3%

Estimated number of international
visitors to Japan in January 2016

1.85m

52%

Estimated number of Chinese
visitors to Japan in January 2016

475,000

Hotel Osaka

Hotel Tokyo

85.2%

82.3%

Figures for 2015

➔

110%

17.7

¥3,480,
000,
000,
000
¥32,100,
000,
000

The number of nights spent in Tokyoby foreign tourists

Sources: Nikkei Asian Review, Asahi Shimbun,
Japan Tourism Marketing Co., the Japan Times

66.37
505.45

Spending
by foreign
visitors toJapan in 2015➔

THE MONTH OF APRIL heralds spring and a new
fiscal year in Japan. The positive sentiment of thisseason represents the mood in the FCCJ following
the March General Membership Meeting, when
Members overwhelmingly voted to approve the Board’s
settlement ending the four-year-long lawsuit by union
staff members. In addition to this good news, the Board
also received GMM approval for the fiscal 2016 budget,the continued services from Meihio, a company thatwill direct our scheduled Club move to new premises in
2018, and a new set of regulations on accepting donations
under our koeki status that has paved the way for financial
contributions under tax-free conditions for the donor.
I would also like to take this opportunity to mention,with some pride, the unprecedented response of thealmost 200 votes and proxies from Members collected
at this GMM. Perhaps this was the result of my lastcolumn that whined about the lack of interest about
Club affairs among Regular Members or maybe it was
the hard work of our staff and Board Members who
resorted to calling to alert voting Members about their
participation. Regardless, the outcome was indeed very
impressive and, obviously, journalist Members do careabout the FCCJ.
I strongly believe this season also marks a decisiveturn towards a positive future. As this Board’s term
winds down over the next few months, I can say thisyear has been a roller coaster ride that we have facedwith gusto. During the last few months in office, aspresident, I would like to target a few other importantgoals, with my priority being to find realistic solutions.
Key committees led by the Board Members will continue
to devote much of their time in these directions: tackling
the organization’s shaky financial health by embarking
on finding solutions; participating in an ongoingmembership debate to protect our traditional journalist
character based on accountability and transparency;
and – high on our agenda – looking more closely at theconditions of the scheduled Club move.
I have made a special promise to meet more of the
Associate Members who play an important role in thisorganization. As their numbers increase, I would liketo ask these Members to make their voices heard.
Requests for change, especially on issues such asincreasing the amount of information in Japanese, forexample, would be most welcome for consideration by
the FCCJ management.
In closing, I would like to invite all our Members toattend some of the many international events at theClub – plans for the calendar now include library bookbreaks featuring foreign authors writing in Japanese. In
addition, in keeping with the spirit of bringing a more
Asian atmosphere to the FCCJ, please keep May 27 open
for an upcoming South Asia entertainment event. Later
this fall we will also hold a much-awaited Taiwan Night.
Enjoy the heady days of spring!

➔

From thePresident➔

TOURISM BY
THE NUMBERS

71%

Figures for 2015 in millions

The number of nights spent in Japanby foreign tourists
as a fraction of
the number of nights spent in hotels
and inns by all tourists

2014 duty-freerevenue of the
27 airports run
by the central
government

Figure for 2015 in millions

APRIL 2016

FCCJ

FCCJ

APRIL 2016

FROM THE ARCHIVES

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED“That's one small stepfor [a] man, one giant
leap for mankind,”were the unforgettablewords uttered by
Neil Armstrong as
he stepped onto the
moon’s surface on July21, 1969. He recounted
that moment at ourClub on Aug. 9, 1971,
and no doubt facedquestions about theinaudible article “a”
before “man,” which
NASA's transcript
continues to showin brackets. Then
president of the FCCJ,
Pierre Brisard (AFP) is
seated to his left; tohis right is Bill Shinn(Sisa News Agency),
who was a key
negotiator in our move to the Yurakucho Denki Building in 1976 andClub president in 1976-77.
Neil Armstrong was born in Ohio on Aug. 5, 1930. As a U.S. Navy pilot,
he flew 78 missions during the Korean War, and went on to become atest pilot, aerospace engineer and astronaut.
It was on Armstrong’s second and last space flight, as commander
of Apollo 11, the first manned mission to the moon in July 1969, that heand Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. They spent two-and-a-half hours
outside the spacecraft while colleague Michael Collins remained inlunar orbit. All three were highly honored with numerous awards after
their safe return to Earth.
Armstrong retired from NASA in 1971, after which he became an
educator and business spokesman. His visit to Japan and to the FCCJ
came a bit more than two years after his walk on the moon and soonafter his retirement.
Unlike several other former astronauts who went into politics, withJohn Glenn being the best known, Armstrong spurned overtures fromthe major political parties. However, he reportedly favored states’
rights and frowned upon the U.S. becoming the “world’s policeman.”
He died on Aug. 25, 2012 at the age of 82, as a result of complications
following coronary artery bypass surgery. A quote from his familysums up the man: “For those who may ask what they can do tohonor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service,accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside
on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil
Armstrong and give him a wink.”[On a personal note, an overseas trip prevented me from attending theprofessional luncheon for Armstrong, something I truly regret. I felt acertain kinship, since I had flown with pilots like him during my years
as an aircrew member in the U.S. Navy (1947-1956). My Korean War
experiences, although not comparable with Armstrong’s as a fighter pilot,
had us flying over much the same terrain during my 79 missions as aradioman, radar operator, and aerial gunner.]— Charles Pomeroy
5

FEATURE
SOCIAL MEDIA
leading up to graduation as she waits her turn. Refusing totame her lofty ambitions, she has worked hard, both in studies and physical exercises. As the flashback reaches its crescendo, we see her running through the countryside, a determined look on her face and – apparently more important tothe short film’s message – her prominent breasts bouncing as
she pushes forward.
Back in the hall, we learn the girl’s fate as she stands before
the teacher: Her dreams have been answered, he proudly
announces, and from now on those breasts will be producing milk for Blendy, a coffee produced by Ajinomoto General
Foods. Our heroine is over the moon. And somewhere, infront of their computers and TV screens, people are expected
to suddenly feel an urge to “Drink Blendy.”

Japan has a creepy new ad out. I don’t even…

TWEETS

79.3K

Tokyo
tokyorich.wordpress.com
Joined April 2009

As a tool for journalists,
tweeting has as many
good points as bad.
But it’s definitely not for
the faint of heart.

1,237

FOLLOWERS

4,665

LIKES

2,993

LISTS

6

Is Twitter for the Birds?
by RICHARD SMARTL

ove it or loathe it, using Twitter is a reality for many in modern journalism. Stay
off the social media for a few days and you are likely missing out on great conversations with readers – at the very least. Ignore it completely and you may be
missing the juicy morsel that was going to lead to that Pulitzer.
At least, that is how it seemed back in the late years of the last decade, when social
media was really taking off and idealism about the future of online journalism was at its
peak. Today, Twitter has lost a great deal of its luster. Trolls – those using it for the sole
purpose of attacking other users – have become an irritant; early ambitions to see a more
active role for citizen journalists, noble figures sharing information to help democracy
along, have been tempered. And the platform’s other roles, including its use as a distraction from work, have led to a more realistic idea of what Twitter can do and what it is for.
Still, Twitter remains essential for journalists. “It’s useful during breaking news stories
because it is faster than other news sources,” says David McNeill, a writer with the Economist
and Irish Times. “The most obvious example was following the earthquake. But I also used
it during the Japanese hostage drama last year, and it does put you at the heart of a story.”
The Washington Post’s Anna Fifield, one of the more prolific tweeters, says that she uses
it for following what other journalists are writing. “I focus on Japan and the Koreas, but
my territory extends to Southeast Asia and Australasia,” she says. “Twitter means I canmake good use of all the eyeballs that are watching the news in these various countries.”
FIFIELD IS ONE OF the many who also use the media as an output platform – both to distribute links to their own stories, and draw attention to stories, topics and events thatthey believe their followers are interested in. That’s where things can get complicated,as there’s the potential for things to end up unexpectedly and dramatically amplified.
One story that you’ve worked on for five weeks might disappear into Twitter oblivion
without even a puff of smoke. Something else that you’ve just tossed out there . . . well,let me tell you about it.
It all started with 10 words – “Japan has a creepy new ad out. I don’t even…” – that
I tweeted last October along with a link to a 10-minute YouTube clip of a commercial.
The video I linked to starts with the scene of a high school auditorium, where a teacher is delivering a speech congratulating the students on their hard work. It could be in
any local high school except that all the students are wearing large nose rings. One-byone, the youngsters walk to the stage to be given jobs.
They are sent to zoos, farms and slaughterhouses – and it soon dawns on us that theseschool kids are, in fact, meant to be cattle. One girl, the heroine, recalls the months

6

APRIL 2016

FCCJ

NEWS ORGANIZATIONS CAN BE as ambivalent about Twitteras the rest of the world. Jake Adelstein, who writes for the Daily Beast, LA Times and others, says editors today at many places assume their writers will nurture a Twitter presence. “Theywatch it to some degree,” he says. “Sometimes I will tweet a
few things that my editor notices” – and a story is born.
Other editors, however, are not as attentive. McNeill feels
no pressure to microblog from work. “I’m not a staffer at anyof the papers I write for,” he says. “[So] it’s important forfreelance journalists looking to build a name and presence.
I resisted it for a long time because I just saw it as adding to
my burdens but I’ve started tweeting in the last year or so forthat reason.”Fifield at the Washington Post also uses the account to help
build her brand. She gives “people a flavor of my reporting
adventures, especially through pictures. Recently I sent out abunch of photos and videos from the anti-base protest at Henoko to complement my traditional reporting, but I also tweeted a
photo of the view from my hotel room on a recent trip to Fukushima. It was a concrete wall. I like to have fun with Twitter.”But despite journalists’ wishes, controlling what goes viral
and what doesn’t may be impossible. The Blendy tweet, forexample, exploded for a reason,
though not one that I was expecting. Some people on Twitter canamplify messages simply becauseof their large number of followers. And certain issues will capture attention at certain times.
The Blendy ad was picked up by
the account of the Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy, SEALDs, just weeks after they helped organize one of
the biggest protests in Japanese history, against legislativereform on security. At the time, fretting about Japan was all
the rage among those supporting the protests.
This, says Hornyak, is helped in part because Twitter has “acocktail party atmosphere of interactions with like-mindedpeople.” SEALDs, a group of youths looking out for the futureof their country and with the best of intentions, are also hosting their own “party.” Get caught up in it and you could end
up in the weeklies.
Leaving the platform, however, does not feel like an option.
It remains one of the best online platforms for meeting
insightful, interesting and entertaining people. Sharp sees it
as a way “to engage and make contacts.”
Hornyak also sees it as essential. “I don’t see how any journalist can not be using it. I don’t tweet about political issues
much so I don’t get many negative comments. But if you don’t
like what’s in your Twitter stream, you can easily change that.
And you can follow, mute or block irrelevant, boring or rude
people – including trolls.” ❶It pointed to me as groundzero for the online storm,
and its conclusion was:
Beware of foreigners

ANDREW POTHECARY@tokyorich

FOLLOWING

FOR A FEW DAYS, simply by tweeting that fairly innocuous
phrase along with the link, I became the driver of what the
British website Guido Fawkes calls the Twitter Anger Bus.
Tens of thousands of Japanese Twitter users expressed theirreaction – generally outrage – after retweeting me or citing
my Twitter stream as the source for the video.
By the time the storm was over, more than 25,000 people
had clicked through to the video. It was retweeted 3,500
times; others linked to it with their own commentary: “Disgusting!” “I’ll never drink their coffee again,” “It’s a commentary on modern Japan.” And, “I think it’s great.” The tweets
kept coming and coming and coming. “Blendy CM,” according to Twitter data, was for a few hours among the top fivephrases tweeted in Japan.
An article about the viral activity was published in theweekly Spa!, and also appeared on the Yahoo News website. The headline screamed: “‘Why has this exploded now?’
A Blendy commercial from a year ago is currently a huge
conversation topic.” It pointed tome as ground zero for the online
storm, and its conclusion was:
Beware of foreigners.
But my contribution was nothing
more than that tweet. The commercial itself was produced andreleased by Dentsu in the autumn
of 2014, and then entered in a creative festival in Singapore a year
later. Around the same time, it was uploaded without authorization to YouTube. (Dentsu later removed the video, claiming
a copyright violation.)
The credit (or blame) for the commercial going viral has
to be shared with Shihoko Fujiwara, who first told me about
it and whose anti-trafficking organization Lighthouse helped
push the Twitter debate. “The reason it bothered me and all
my staff at Lighthouse is that it clearly sexualizes underage
girls,” Fujiwara said. “Only Japan makes these kind of ads.”

that looked like the entrails of a pig,” he says.
With the amplification of the random being among the idiosyncrasies of Twitter today, many are asking why bother withthe platform, and they are not just journalists. In February,stock in the company fell sharply after user growth for the
October-December quarter stalled at 320 million users. The
skeptical view this as evidence that the platform is suffering
myriad problems. Trolls are discouraging some from joining;navigating the platform is tricky for beginners; and attempts
to improve the user experience have not always worked.

THAT THIS BIT OF online anger stemmed from an advert forcoffee goes to the heart of the nature of Twitter. Says Tim
Hornyak, a freelance journalist: “My tweets with the mostlegs tend to be about some bizarre, funny or controversial
event such as the demolition of the Hotel Okura or a funeralfor Aibo robot dogs or the Fukushima nuclear disaster. These
are usually original or from news sources that haven’t been
seen much in the English-speaking world.”
Andy Sharp, who has covered such mainstream topics as
Abenomics and the second term of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
for Bloomberg, also sees weird tweets getting more traction.
“One tweet that went viral was a shot from TV that showed
Abe trying to explain the security legislation using a chart
FCCJ

APRIL 2016

Richard Smart covers Japanese business, science and the economy for
publications across the world.
7

FEATURE
PRESS FREEDOM
security legislation might lead to Japan becoming embroiled
in other countries’ wars. By the standards of the sometimes
spittle-flecked political clashes on British or American television the encounter was tame. But Suga’s handlers werereportedly furious.

The government is playing chicken with the media –and winning, say experts.

Face-off

Bowing out

by DAVID MCNEILLO

n Jan. 21 this year, Tsuneo Watanabe, editor-in-chiefof the Yomiuri Shimbun, hosted an evening dinner for
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and some of Japan’s top
media executives at the company’s headquarters in central
Tokyo. According to reports by people who attended, thecompanies represented included the Mainichi, Sankei, Asahi and Nikkei newspapers, along with the nation’s biggest
broadcaster, NHK.
Writing in the Asahi Shimbun a few days later, journalist
Akira Ikegami asked the obvious questions: Who pays when
the country’s leader eats with the head of its most-readnewspaper? “Does the Yomiuri owe Abe something? Enoughto invite him for a meal? Did Abe meet with Watanabe because
he wanted the Yomiuri to understand his viewpoints? Or did
Watanabe give advice to Abe?”
Nobody is telling, though we have been here before: Six
years ago, when Abe resigned from his first, unlamented term
as prime minister, Watanabe brokered the appointment of his
successor, Yasuo Fukuda. The Yomiuri kingpin then attempted to forge a coalition between ruling party and opposition.
His paper, of course, neglected to tell its millions of readers
about any of this.
Closed-door chats between media proprietors and politicians are nothing new. During the prime ministerial reignof Tony Blair, aging media tycoon Rupert Murdoch enteredand exited Downing Street through the back door. Among theissues discussed was Murdoch’s support for the unpopular
war in Iraq (all 175 of Murdoch’s newspaper editors backed
the U.S./UK decision to invade in 2003) and Blair’s promise tosoften his party’s commitment to media ownership laws that8

Hiroko Kuniya,
no longer
fronting NHK's
investigative“Close-up
Gendai”

threatened Murdoch’s empire.
So perhaps we should not be too hard on the Yomiuri, orfor that matter the Nikkei. Japan’s top business newspaper
failed to report that its chief editorial writer was also at the
Watanabe nosh-up, points out Ikegami. “Is that because the
Nikkei didn’t want its readers to know,” he wonders. “Or, did
the newspaper simply run out of space?”
ABE HAS BEEN AN unusually enthusiastic host. Last year, he
dined with Watanabe several times, along with Yoshio Okubo, the president of broadcaster NTV, and the bosses of theMainichi and Fuji TV. One meeting reportedly took place atthe vacation home of Japan Foundation chair Yohei Sasagawa. All told, the prime minister has met on dozens of occasions with the country’s top media executives.
These gatherings violate any sense of distance between politics and journalism, says Michael Cucek, a political scientist at
Temple University in Tokyo. “You cannot pretend that there isa media watchdog,” he says. “There is no concept of conflictof interest at all.” It seems only sensible to speculate, then, if
they are related to the disappearance from the airwaves thismonth (March) of Japan’s most outspoken liberal anchors: Ichiro Furutachi, the salty presenter of evening news show “Hodo
Station”, Shigetada Kishii, who had a regular slot on rival TBS,and Hiroko Kuniya, who helmed NHK’s flagship investigative
program “Close-up Gendai” for two decades.
The weekly press blamed Kuniya’s downfall on an interview last summer with Yoshihide Suga, the government’s top
spokesman and a close aide of Abe. Kuniya had the temerity
to ask an unscripted question on the possibility that the new
APRIL 2016FCCJ

KUNIYA HAS DECLINED TO discuss her removal – though she
did release an opaque comment on her resignation lamentingthat “expressing things has gradually become difficult.” Theshow had been due a refit for years, say insiders; the audience
was aging and the format stale. One of Abe’s first moves after
he returned to power in 2012, however, was to appoint conservative allies to NHK’s board. Katsuto Momii, the broadcaster’s
new president, subsequently raised eyebrows by questioning
its independence. This new environment has encouraged selfcensorship at the broadcaster and left little space for the kindof critical journalism Kuniya represented, says Yasuo Onuki,
a former senior reporter at NHK. “Of course, it is difficult toprove that she has been fired. The government is very good atconstant, behind-the-scenes pressure.”
Furutachi has also kept mum about his decision to quit.
Producers connected to the show and who have spoken
anonymously, however, relate months of pressure against
Furutachi’s on-air criticism of the Abe government. A climax of sorts came after Shigeaki Koga, a former industry
minister bureaucrat, famously held up a sign saying “I am
not Abe” to show his disagreement with the government’s
handling of a hostage crisis involving Japanese citizens.
A few months later, Koga provided
one of the year’s television highlights
when he claimed live on-air that
his contract was being terminatedbecause of pressure from the prime
minister’s office. His aim, he insists
today, was to rally the media against
government interference. Instead,the show’s producer, TV Asahi, apologized and promised tighter controls
over guests. “It shows that if you repeat a lie often enoughpeople will believe it,” he says.
Kishii used his nightly spot on News 23 to question legislation last year expanding the nation’s military role overseas.
His on-air fulminations prompted a group of conservatives totake out newspaper advertisements accusing him of violating
impartiality rules for broadcasters. In January, he announced
he was stepping down when his contact ended in March.
“Nobody said directly I was going because of my comments– that’s not how it works,” says Kishii. He blames a whispering campaign by Suga. “He gives off-the-record briefings tojournalists containing some criticisms of me,” he says. “These
comments are relayed back to the management and it goesfrom there. Nothing is left on the record.”government of trying to destroy the free media.
At the FCCJ on March 24, however, some were equally as
critical of broadcasters and newspapers for failing to standup to the government. “There has always been political pressure,” said Tahara, a veteran reporter with TV Asahi, responding to Torigoe’s criticism of government intimidation. “It’s
not so much about political pressure, it’s about deterioration in the media. To me, the most serious problem is selfrestraint by higher-ups at broadcast stations.”
Producers at TV Asahi and NHK say the impact of the meetings between Abe and their bosses has been to weaken theirorganizations’ taste for a political fight with the government.
The Asahi’s critical coverage of the Abe government arguably
climaxed, for example, on May 20, 2014, when it published astory based on the leaked testimony of Masao Yoshida, themanager of the Fukushima Daiichi plant during the 2011
meltdown. The scoop claimed that 650 panicked on-site
workers had disobeyed orders and fled during the crisis.
The Asahi’s claim, challenging the popular view of theworkers as heroes who risked their lives to save the plant,
was strongly contested by the industry, the government andAsahi rivals, particularly the right-leaning Sankei Shimbun,
which blamed the confusion at the plant on March 15-16,
2011 on miscommunication. Finally, on Sept. 11, 2014, Tadakazu Kimura, the Asahi’s president announced the retraction of the article, the dismissal of the paper’s executive
editor Nobuyuki Sugiura and punishments of several othereditors. The highly damaging announcement pleased Asahi
critics and stunned journalists at thenewspaper who say they were kept in
the dark beforehand.

“To me, the most serious
problem is self-restraint
by higher-ups at
broadcast stations.”

BACKROOM POLITICAL PRESSURE ON the media is as old as
printing presses. What is unprecedented, says Koga, is thegovernment’s increasingly public intimidation of journalists.
The latest salvo was the threat on Feb. 9 by Sanae Takaichi, thecommunications minister, to shut down TV companies thatflout rules on political impartiality. Takaichi was responding
to a question about the departure of the three anchors.
Those comments were merely “common sense,” said Suga.
But they were enough to trigger an angry public response
from Kishii, who came out fighting with some of the top liberal names in Japanese journalism. Soichiro Tahara, Osamu
Aoki, Akihiro Otani, Soichiro Tahara and Shuntaro Torigoe all
subsequently gave a press conference where they accused theFCCJAPRIL 2016

LAWYERS, JOURNALISTS AND ACADEMICS expressed puzzlement at
Kimura’s retraction. While the factual details of the Yoshida testimony
were open to interpretation, there
was little doubt that despairing onsite plant workers had abandoned their duties during theworst of the crisis. “The content of the article and the headline
were correct,” insisted Yuichi Kaido, a lawyer who blames theretraction on political pressure. An independent press monitor might have settled the controversy but the Asahi relied on
its in-house Press and Human Rights Committee to probe thestory and discipline those behind it.
The Asahi’s mea culpa followed another even more damaging retraction a month earlier, over a series of articles in the
1990s on “comfort women.” Seiji Yoshida, the source for someof these stories, had long been discredited and the Asahi’s
retraction was years overdue. Yet, the reaction on the political right was not only to question the newspaper’s entire
reporting but to blame it for damaging Japan’s reputation
abroad and poisoning ties with its neighbors.
It was notable that throughout the Asahi’s difficulties, Abesided with its critics and declined to defend the principle ofa broad, pluralist media – including those that don’t always
agree with the government line. That’s because the government has little tolerance for criticism, says Makoto Sataka, apolitical commentator and colleague of Kishii’s. “They view it
as a nuisance,” he says. “They have a goal and they’re going to
get there, and the media is in the way.”
Koga puts it more bluntly. The government is playing
chicken with the media, he says, and winning. ❶David McNeill writes for the Independent, the Economist and otherpublications. He has been based in Tokyo since 2000.

9

SERIESPROFILE

Anna Fifield
by LUCY ALEXANDERA

nna Fifield, the Washington Post’s woman in Japan, specializes in reporting from fringe societies, sequesteredcommunities that are cut off from the mainstream. In
her distinguished career as a foreign correspondent, Fifield
has tried to reveal the inner workings of the two Koreas, Iran,
Washington, D.C. and, now, Japan. The focus is a natural fit for
the New Zealander, born and brought
up in an isolated town “at the bottomof the world.”
Fifield, the first in her family to go
to university, covered her bedroom
walls with posters from travel agencies instead of pop stars. “I always had an interest in the outside world and wanted to get out,” she said.
After a period working for wire agencies and her local
paper, the Rotorua Daily Post, Fifield headed to London in
2001, aged 24. She got work experience at the Financial Timesand then a job uploading articles onto the website. “I worked
hard and volunteered for all the unpopular jobs on bank holiday weekends.”
A theme that stands out in Fifield’s early career is her formidable work ethic. After a year, she applied for the position of Belgrade correspondent, knowing she “didn’t standa chance,” but with her eye on aninterview with the foreign editor. “I
read the Economist Intelligence Unit’s
reports on Kosovo and I studied really hard and got an interview.” Whenthe job of Australasia correspondent
came up shortly afterwards, she got
the nod. Typically, she “worked reallyhard and wrote as much as I could,”
and was rewarded with a staff positionin Seoul.
“This was August 2004 and I couldn’t
even say hello in Korean, I had nevereaten kimchi, I had never been to Asia.
It was scary and exciting, and very
hard, but I really loved it.” Fifield spent
three years covering everything from
Samsung to K-pop to human rights,
and made several investigative trips toNorth Korea.

Blacklisted by Tehran (“I guess I failed the self-censorship
test”), Fifield found herself “living on the Med, visiting wineries and writing the occasional story about Hezbollah,”thanks to an unusual period of stability in the Middle East.
Lebanon had a stable government, “which it almost neverdoes, Syria was coming in from the cold, everyone had Iraq
fatigue, and I couldn’t get into Iran.”After a year, the FT took notice, anddispatched her to Washington to cover
the White House.
Fifield missed the Arab Spring by a
few months. “I would have felt pretty
sore about that,” she said, “except that I had this little person
who was exponentially more fun.” That was her son, born in
2010, and soon a veteran of political campaigns.

ANDREW POTHECARY“I guess I failed theself-censorship test”

10

APRIL 2016

FCCJ

U.S. POLITICAL REPORTING, HOWEVER, did not appeal. “I enjoy
getting out and talking to real people – dust on boots reporting,” she said. “There are no real people and no dust in Washington.” After four years, fed up with a regime of several daily
deadlines to cover all the FT’s global editions, Fifield won a
year-long Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, studying how change
happens in closed societies, a topic inspired by her experiences in North Korea and Tehran.
“But over the course of that year I
realized that I really did love being aforeign correspondent and I needed
to get back out in the world,” she said.
In 2014, she was back in Asia, thistime as Tokyo bureau chief for the
Washington Post.
She is supported by translators inTokyo and Seoul, and her mother,
who moved from New Zealand tohelp Fifield take care of her son. “Sheenables me to travel at the drop of ahat – I feel very lucky.”
Being a mother has helped Fifield
explore a part of Japanese society thatwould otherwise have been inaccessible. “I am part of a working mum’s
group at the school,” she said. “I get
to talk to women working in Japanesecompanies, and hear how difficult it isfor them. The kind of changes PM Abe
HER NEXT POSTING WAS Tehran. She
is trying to make doesn’t really address
found it impossible to get a resident’s
the problem – which is how Japanese men work. How can avisa under the Ahmadinejad regime, which was notoriously
mother do a full-time job if her husband is out 17 hours a day?
hostile to foreign journalists, so found herself commuting
You can open all the day care centers you like but you needbetween Seoul and Tehran. “It was their way to keep me on ato deal with the structural changes, and that is really hard.”
short leash, to make me censor myself so that I would always
The challenge of change is a perennial theme in Japan,
be conscious of the need to get the next visa.”
which, while no longer a closed society in the sense of North
After a year of the punishing schedule, Fifield moved to
Korea or Iran, still has strong tendencies towards insularity
Beirut as Middle East correspondent, responsible for Lebaand isolationism. This is exacerbated, says Fifield, by the shiftnon, Syria, Iran and Iraq. If that beat sounds a little punchy
in focus towards China, which has left Japan “undercovered.”
today, back in 2008 it was an easy posting. As soon as she
She intends to fill that gap, with “stoarrived, Lehman Bros collapsed, “soLucy Alexander is a freelance journalist andries about Japanese people, culture
it was very hard to get anything noncorrespondent for the Times.
and life – not just politics.” ❶financial crisis-related into the FT.”FCCJAPRIL 201611

FEATURE
FILM COMMITTEE

Rewind:Looking back with our favorite local cinema

Love-in

Kabukicho Love Hotel (above) attracted
a big audience for the screening,
and a big media interest for the first
appearance of its star post-marriage toOscar-nominated actress Rinko Kikuchi.

2015 was a stellar year for the FCCJ Film Committee, with an impressive
lineup, provocative Q&A sessions and appreciative audiences.

T

he Film Committee (FC) hosted 18 sneak preview
screenings last year — 12 narrative films and six documentaries, each followed by a Q&A session with thefilmmaking team — attracting an audience of over 1,500. The
extensive coverage of our Q&As helped raised the profile ofseveral independent features, and many of the titles became
box office draws in Japan. Many also went on to receive international attention, appear on Top Ten lists and reap awards.
Some even prompted valuable public dialogue.
The big story in 2015 was the 70th anniversary of the end ofWorld War II, and the FC lineup included five directly related
works. We also highlighted films about such torn-from-theheadlines issues as nuclear energy (Masako Sakata’s Journey
Without End) and globalization’s impact on rural populations(Pio d’Emilia’s Nu Guo: In the Name of the Mother).
But sometimes external forces, and not necessarily thefilm itself, drew the press to an FC event. Such was the casewith our first screening of the year, Ryuichi Hiroki’s Kabukicho Love Hotel (Sayonara Kabukicho), when dozens of Japanese journalists crammed into the packed screening room for
the Q&A. Surprisingly, they weren’t there for former AKB48
queen Atsuko Maeda; this was about the film’s other star,
Shota Sometani, making his first public appearance since
marrying Oscar-nominated actress Rinko Kikuchi. “We don’t
have any children yet,” the actor said, “but we hope to in the
future, and I’ll work hard at being the patriarch.”
In April, we screened Walking with My Mother (Houyou), a
corrosive portrait of aging, loss and unexpected recovery,
echoing many of the healthcare challenges facing Japan. Katsumi Sakaguchi filmed his own ailing mother for four years
to create the film. “I saw [her] reflection in my camera lens,and she looked so fragile, sitting by the window,” he recalled.
“I had mixed feelings, because I loved her, but [having to takecare of her] was stripping away my freedom… The distance of
having to focus saved me.” The documentary went on to open
Germany’s Nippon Connection festival, to play in theaters
12

across Japan for half a year, and to win the prestigious BunkaCho Award for Best Documentary.
Oscar-nominated documentarian John Junkerman headlined our June screening of Okinawa: The Afterburn (Okinawa: Urizun no Ame), his groundbreaking illumination of theisland’s continued occupation, violations of human and civilrights, and resistance efforts. The director lived on Okinawa
in the mid-1970s, and was struck by “the pervasive and abiding rejection of war among the Okinawa people, and by how
incongruous and violent the American military presence on
the island was… I felt a responsibility to make a film thatwould penetrate, if only in a small way, [America’s] shroud of
apathy.” The documentary provides essential historical context for the ongoing U.S.-Japan flashpoint, and later earned
Junkerman the two most important recognitions in Japan fora nonfiction work: Best Documentary awards from Kinema
Junpo and the Mainichi Film Awards.

On screen

Joshua Oppenheimer joins us via Skype for a discussion after thescreening of the Oscar-nominated The Look of Silence.

Another Oscar nominee, Joshua Oppenheimer, Skyped into
our Q&A session after The Look of Silence screening in July.
This follow-up to his 2013 juggernaut The Act of Killing views
the Indonesian genocide of the 1960s from the victims’, rather than the perpetrators’, standpoint. “The first film made it
impossible for people to continue not talking about the regimeof corruption, fear and thuggery that the perpetrators hadbuilt,” Oppenheimer said. “The second film makes it impossible
to continue to ignore the abyss [that] divides people… You can’t
solve a problem that you can’t even talk about.” Oppenheimer
APRIL 2016

FCCJ

PHOTOS: KOICHI MORI

by KAREN SEVERNS

also stressed the importance of viewing the twofilms not as doors to some distant culture, but as
mirrors for our own. The Look of Silence followedin the path of its companion work, winning close
to 50 major Best Documentary awards and an
Academy Award nomination.
The FC screened two very different perspectivesof Japan in late summer. Fires on the Plain, Shinya
Tsukamoto’s gripping adaptation of the 1951 antiwar masterpiece Nobi, is more savagely brutal thanthe earlier version, but a fitting reinterpretationfor our time. It is an intensely visceral reminder ofthe utter obscenity of war: kill or be killed, eat or beeaten. “In the original book, the author deals withcannibalism as a central issue,” said the director
during the Q&A in July, “but the choice, the moral
dilemma of whether or not to eat human flesh, is
not a focus of this film… I realized [the soldiers in
the Philippines] didn’t have any capacity to think
about their actions. They were so pressed, so desperate, that they were unable to address this moral
dilemma…. We have to do whatever we can to stop
Japan’s slide toward militarization.” Tsukamoto’s
film lit up the foreign and Japanese box offices,and he eventually received Mainichi Film Awards both for Best
Director and Best Actor.
Masato Harada’s The Emperor in August (Nihon no Ichiban
Nagai Hi) dramatizes the same source novel as the 1967 film
Japan’s Longest Day, enhanced by new research and a laxer
attitude toward depicting Emperor Hirohito. During the Q&A
in early August, Harada noted, “At the time of the war, theemperor was considered the head of the house, the head of thefamily, and I feel this type of thinking was able to save Japanand end the war.” The film’s star, Koji Yakusho, added, “This isa film about how Japan ended the war. But it has a simple message that we can all understand: It is easy to start a war, but it isvery, very difficult to end one.” Emperor was later nominated formore awards than any other Japanese film of 2015, including 11
Japan Academy Prizes. It won the Blue Ribbon Award for Best
Film, and Masahiro Motoki, playing Emperor Hirohito, took
FCCJ

APRIL 2016

Faces of film

Atsuko Ochiai, producer/editor of Walking
with My Mother; John Junkerman, director of
Okinawa: The Afterburn; Shinya Tsukamoto,director of Fires on the Plain; actor Koji
Yakusho, star of The Emperor in August.

home the Academy’s Best Supporting Actor trophy.
The FCCJ hosted the de facto Japan premiere of
Masao Adachi’s new film, Artist of Fasting (Danjiki
Geinin), in September. Only his second work since
being deported from Lebanon in 2000 following
imprisonment for his Japanese Red Army activities, it proves that Adachi’s youthful instincts
for provocation and transgression — honed withcohorts Nagisa Oshima and Koji Wakamatsu —have not dimmed. The director sets his story
around a faster’s “performance” on a street corner, and punctuates it with avant-garde interludes of torture as well as archival footage ofvictims of aggression. Asked how he sees the position of the artist-activist today, Adachi answered,“People say that history always repeats, but myfeeling is that it will never be as bad as in the past.
I believe that revolution and cinema are one andthe same … and we still have a lot to do.”Japan-born Cellin Gluck returned to the FCCJ
in December with the first-ever biopic of the“Japanese Schindler,” Persona Non Grata (Sugihara
Chiune). Sugihara was a diplomat who defied foreign ministry orders during the Holocaust andsaved some 6,000 Jewish lives. The Q&A focused primarilyon the timing of the film’s release vis-à-vis the refugee crisis in Europe. Asked how it might help pressure Japan into
accepting more refugees, Gluck said, “I’m not in any position to lecture the Japanese government. But it’s not only thegovernment… If this film will inspire [Japanese] to accept theopportunities [to embrace diversity], then I’ve accomplishedwhat I would like to accomplish.” Gluck’s film was a year-end
hit and is just beginning its international rollout.
With our 2016 film series well under way, the FC will continue
curating a selection of titles that are timely, compelling, entertaining, eye-opening and even, on occasion, transformative. ❶Karen Severns is a writer, educator and filmmaker who chairs the FC.
See her blog for more on the FC screenings: www.fccj.or.jp/eventscalendar/film-screenings/movie-committee-blog.html
13

ROUND TABLE
Four veteran reporters who returned to their old stomping
ground in Tokyo agreed on one thing: these are both thebest and worst of times for foreign correspondents.

Journalism in flux:
the global view
by JUSTIN MCCURRYDIGITAL MEDIA HAVE GIVEN reporters
the technological wherewithal toreport the news faster than ever; it
has also spawned a new communityof citizen journalists, whose reportingfrom war zones and trouble spots
has, in some cases, rivaled that of
the “traditional” media. From the
Snowden revelations to accounts ofthe misery being visited on the peopleof Syria, journalists of all backgrounds
continue to demonstrate why ours is a
profession worth defending.
Yet journalism is also under attack.
The number of reporters killed in thefield rises by the year; intimidation
and acts of violence directed atmembers of the media are spreading.
Journalists in democracies such as
South Korea and, yes, Japan, findthemselves up against increasingly
illiberal governments.
Last month, the FCCJ was fortunate
to host former Tokyo correspondents
with years of experience from bothends of the digital age and in postings
all over the world. They can recall atime when they had to file to a daily
deadline, but would probably neversee their work in print until thearrival, weeks later, of an envelope of
cuttings kindly collated by a newsroom
colleague; and when disgruntled
readers had to put pen to paper in a
letter to the editor.
But they are familiar, too, with theever-changing work environment thathas forced “print journalists” to become
multitaskers – reporters, bloggers,
videographers and photographers– all the time under pressure from a
growing number of new players andshrinking editorial budgets.
BILL EMMOT, THE ECONOMIST’S Tokyo
correspondent from 1983-6, said theglobalization of information had,perhaps counter-intuitively, madethe role of the foreign correspondent
more important than ever. “Theworld is more transparent, we face
14

more competition in the provision of
information, it is harder for politiciansand other power holders to say
different things to different audiences
at home and abroad – as was common
in the 1980s – but some things havestayed the same or gone backwards,”
said Emmott, who in his book, The Sun
Also Sets, predicted the bursting of theJapanese stock-market bubble.
Emmott cited the Eurozone
economic crisis, migration andrefugees, Russia and Ukraine as stories
that demand cross-border coverage,
only for much of the media to havebeen found wanting. “In Europe inthat time, our media has, if anything,
become more nationalistic, morenation-centered.
Far too little
cross-border andcross-cultural
reporting andanalysis has
happened,” said
Emmott, who as
editor-in-chiefof the Economist
oversaw its
emergence as
the world’s mostwidely readinternational
news magazine.
Emmottblamed the 2008
financial crisis
for placing themedia undermuch morepressure than
could have been expected from thedawn of the digital media alone. Thevery existence of the open society was
under threat, he added, from risingxenophobia and nationalism, evident inprevailing attitudes towards migration,
trade and security, and embodied by
the growing clout of politicians such as
Marine Le Pen in France, Nigel Farage
in Britain and Donald Trump in the U.S.

“The open society is something that
we foreign correspondents epitomize,and this threat to openness is whatmakes foreign correspondents more
important than ever,” Emmott said.
“The point of foreign correspondents
has always been that to better
understand foreign countries is tobetter understand our own. This craft
is under attack and we must defend it.”
Defending press freedom can comeat a cost, however. William Horsley, theBBC’s bureau chief in Tokyo from 198390, said defensiveness and secrecy
were common to all governments,
but added that more journalists were
working in an atmosphere of fear andintimidation.
“The new normal in journalism is tobe watched and to be under attack fromyou-know-not-where,” said Horsley, whosince retiring from the BBC in 2007 has
become an advocate for journalists
working in dangerous places.
HORSLEY, THE AUTHOR OF the
Organization for Security andCo-operation in Europe’s 2014 Safetyof Journalists Guidebook, said about
150 journalists were killed around theworld last year. “But more sinister thanthat is why journalists are being killed
and attacked,” he said. “It’s not only

country, he knows the situation,” said
Mezzetti, who left Japan to cover thecollapse of the Soviet Union as thepaper’s Moscow correspondent.
He agreed that in highly dangerous
trouble spots, notably Syria, citizen
journalists were often the only available
source of information, even though attimes the accuracy of their work shouldbe treated with skepticism. “My view isthat no citizen journalist can replace
the professional journalist, who hasdone the job of verifying the reality on
the ground,” Mezzetti said. And while heacknowledged the current trend towards
downsizing, he said, “I don’t agree thatjournalism is doomed to disappear.”
Commenting on the financialpressures facing media organizations,
Philippe Ries, Agence France-Presse
Tokyo senior correspondent (198589) and bureau chief (1998-2003),
attempted to lift the gloom by drawing
on his involvement in MediaPart, a
successful French online investigativeand opinion journal.
THE SUBSCRIPTION-ONLY SITE,
launched in 2008, has almost 120,000
subscribers and racked up sales worth
10 million Euros last year, said Ries,
who co-authored Shift: Inside Nissan's
Historic Revival with Renault-Nissan“It’s absolutely clear that the futureof journalism is the subscription
model. This is very good news forjournalists, because the only thingthat will persuade people to subscribe
to something is the journalism,”
Emmott said. “This should be thefuture for journalism, but of course
it’s a hard transition. Old journalism
was advertising, and subscription was
cream on the cake; now it’s the otherway around. And we have to persuade
readers that they should subscribe.”
Discussion inevitably turned toJapan, and concern that the media
are being targeted by an increasingly
intolerant prime minister and his
supporters. Only last month, theinternal affairs minister, Sanae
Takaichi, warned that broadcasters
that repeatedly failed to show
“fairness” in their political coverage,
despite official warnings, could betaken off the air. That came weeks
after news that three respectedbroadcasters with a reputation for
asking tough questions would leave
their jobs from April.
FROM COVERAGE OF EVERYTHING
from elections to Japan’s diplomatic
spats with China and South Korea
and the question of Japan’s wartime

Left to right:
Bill Emmott,William Horsley,
Fernando Mezzetti,
Philippe Ries

journalists in war zones, but also those
who report on crime, corruption andmajor human rights abuses.”
Despite the myriad challenges, reportsof the death of journalism are premature,according to Fernando Mezzetti, Tokyo
correspondent for Italian newspaper
La Stampa from 1987-90. “In my viewthe foreign correspondent is more
important than ever. He knows his
APRIL 2016

FCCJ

chief executive Carlos Ghosn. MediaPart
now employs 39 full-time journalists
and a number of freelancers all over
the world. “The idea was that we shouldbe able to spend money on long-term
costly investigations,” Ries said.
While newspaper editors wrestle
with the question of how to monetize
content, Emmott agreed with Ries
that survival lies behind a paywall.
FCCJ

APRIL 2016

conduct, official pressure on thedomestic media is stronger than many
reporters here can recall. “One of the
key problems is self-censorship mixed
with complacency,” said Emmott,although his criticism was not directed
at Japan alone. “Sometimes it is overt
conformism and self-censorship, which
certainly happens in this country, but
in other countries as well.

“I’m shocked,” he said, “by how little
fuss there is in the British media about
the kidnapping of the booksellers
in Hong Kong and what’s been donewith them by the Chinese authorities.
It’s almost as if Hong Kong had neverbeen a British colony. I’d say it’s been
played down and almost completely
overlooked by parts of the British
media. It’s important that other media
with the capability and resilience to
speak out, do speak out.”
Fears that Japan’s governmentis resisting international scrutiny
arose last December when it abruptly
cancelled a visit by David Kaye, theUN special rapporteur for freedom of
expression, saying it had been unable toarrange meetings with officials. Kaye is
now scheduled to visit Japan in April.
“It’s very distressing to see that there
was an obstacle to David Kaye’s visit
last December,” said Horsley. “Watching
Japanese TV, it’s hard to imagine
anything more like baby powder thantheir coverage of news. If you don’t
see politicians squirming, if theyrefuse to answer questions – such as ishappening in Turkey and is apparently
happening in Japan – you know thatpress freedom is not happening.”
Without proper funding, journalists
struggle to resist the tide of official
pressure, with their role as publicwatchdog suffering as a result, Ries
said. “When resources are scarce, there
are fewer journalists in the newsrooms
and you cannot investigate properly.
That’s where the freedom of the press
is under threat,” he said.
Journalism’s future landscape will be
an unforgiving place unless it continues
to attract talented young reporters andeditors. Fittingly, the session ended
with a question about how best to carveout a career in a profession under siege.
Horsley noted that the modern reporter
must now “do absolutely everything
yourself,” but pointed to the rise of
BuzzFeed and Vice News as examplesof organizations that have broken themold created by the traditional Big
Media. Ultimately, though, the same
personal qualities that guided him andhis colleagues throughout their careers
are just as relevant today. “You haveto be immensely agile, capable andambitious,” he said, “and go out there
and create your own specialty.” ❶Justin McCurry is Japan and Korea
correspondent for the Guardian and theObserver. He contributes to the Christian
Science Monitor and the Lancet medical
journal, and reports on Japan and Korea forFrance 24 TV.
15

FCCJ EXHIBITION

CLUB NEWSJOIN THE FILM COMMITTEE . . .
. . . on April 11 at 6:45pm for I Am a Hero, Japan’s first major movie about an
outbreak of the undead. Based on the blockbuster manga series of the same
name, the film version is that rare big-budget commodity that manages to begruesomely frightening, darkly funny and hair-raisingly realistic. It’s anchoredby an astoundingly committed star turn from Yo Oizumi, whose everyman
character winds up saving the day . . . maybe. Oizumi will join director Shinsuke
Sato and manga originator Kengo Hanazawa for the Q&A session. The film has
swept awards at major fantastic
film festivals around the world,
proving that zombie-film fatigue
doesn’t apply when the work is
as clever and entertaining as this.
Also starring Kasumi Arimura,
Masami Nagasawa and an
unforgettable high-jumper, thefilm recasts Mt. Fuji as the last
refuge for the living.
(Japan, 2016; 127 minutes;
Japanese with English subtitles.)CLUB TOUR TO THE SETOUCHI TRIENNALE
Fusa Sakamoto is an
artist, illustrator andeditor. Born in Tokyo,
she was an editor at
Frobel-kan Publishing
before leaving to become
freelance. Her work has
been inspired by themore than 30 countries
she has visited since1982. Every year she
has held solo exhibitions
on these subjects. She
has exhibited in the
Ukraine, Austria, theCzech Republic andSlovakia. Her publications
include The Four
Seasons of Switzerland incollaboration with Tokyo
Shoseki, and Kataezome
Art and Kataezome Book,
as well as many bookcover designs.

By commuter ferry and high-speed launches, a group of FCCJ journalists went island
hopping in March to observe the exhibits of the 2016 Setouchi Triennale in a tour
organized by Kagawa Prefecture.
Launched in 2010, the Setouchi Triennale – also known as the Setouchi International
Art Festival – is a contemporary art festival held every three years on a dozen islands in
the Seto Inland Sea.
The exhibition is held over three sessions during the year. The spring session runs
from Mar. 20 to Apr. 17; the summer session from July 18 until Sept. 4 and the autumn
session from Oct. 8 through Nov. 6.
Clockwise fromleft: “Oiwa Island2” a 360 degree
panoramic picture
inside an air-dome;“Dream of Olive”– 5,000 locallygathered bamboo
sticks by artist
Wang Wen Chih;
FCCJ members
in front of “RedPumpkins,” by
Yayoi Kusama
2006.

Color Harmony
Kataezome Art by Fusa Sakamoto
KATAEZOME ART IS A traditional kimono-dying technique used on
special Japanese paper, which has the feature of allowing the colors togrow deeper and warmer over time: as the years pass, the strong Japanese
paper absorbs sunlight and the colors grow clearer and softer, adding
to the charm of the works. It’s an effect unique to this Japanese craft.
My work is based an adding color to black-line drawings, creating
feelings of depth. The tones and dynamic forms are a characteristic ofthese modern images.
The subjects of my work are old cities, drawn freely fromimagination, in simplified aerial views. And using traditional
techniques, modern images featuring motifs such as plants, animals
and festivals are also constructed. ❶
16

FCCJ

APRIL 201617

CLUB NEWS

New
Members

Discount LexisNexis
Subscriptions
for FCCJ Members

REINSTATEMENT (LIFE)
Mikiko Eguchi

The FCCJ is pleased to offer
members a substantial discount on
subscriptions to LexisNexis’ news
database service, Nexis.com

ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Patricia Ockwell, Embassy of Canada
Yoko Miyazawa, Okasan Securities Firm
Ryu Maeda, Occidental Undrewriters
International
Kohei Edamura, Inaba Denki
Sangyo Co., Ltd.
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Sangyo Co., Ltd.

The Members-only deal
allows for flat-rate access at¥7,900 per month – offering
big savings on a service that
normally costs ¥126,000 per month

The service will be billed by theClub. The FCCJ benefits from all
subscriptions sold under thisarrangement.
Nexis provides access to news andinformation from more than 34,000
sources, including Kyodo News, Jiji,
Yonhap, Xinhua, AP, Reuters, AFP,
all major world newspapers andspecialist news sources. Also
included is a database of U.S. andinternational company information,
biographical databases, country
profiles and a U.S. legal database.

For those already in on the secret,the application form is available
on the FCCJ website or from the
19F Club office.

REINSTATEMENT (REGULAR)

LEO LEWIS joined the Financial Times as Tokyo Correspondent in
May 2015 after more than a decade reporting in the region for
the Times (of London). Most recently, he was the Bureau Chief in
Beijing, covering China in the rancorous, scandal-riven years that
saw the downfall of Bo Xilai, the rise of Xi Jinping and the spectacleof 20,000 dead pigs floating down the Huang Pu river. Born in theUK, the digital twinkle of video games drew Lewis to Japan from anearly age. He later channeled that passion into a degree in Oriental
Studies, and first came to Japan as a student in 1994. He has tried
his hand at potato, avocado and ginger farming, but has yet to growanything edible.

New in the
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nowa dareka: Ruzuberuto
no zaijo, Fuba daitoryo
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Bensei Shuppan
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Fumio Muramatsu, Muramatsu
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Global LLC
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REINSTATEMENT (ASSOCIATE)
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Kodansha
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