The Magazine of The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan

September 2020 · Volume 52 · No. 9

THE

WOMEN
IN THE ROOMThe Magazine of The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan

September 2020 · Volume 52 · No. 9

03 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

In This Issue

September 2020 · Volume 52 · No. 9This issue is all about women in our Club, and in
the media and other workplaces in Japan.
So, a serious issue, but one that we have all done
our best to make readable.

Contact the Editors
no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Publisher FCCJ
Editor Peter O’Connor
Designer Julio Kohji Shiiki, tokyographics.com
Editorial Assistant Naomichi Iwamura
Photo Coordinator Michiyo Kobayashi
Publications CommitteePeter O’Connor (Chair), Suvendrini Kakuchi,
Monzurul Huq, Robert Whiting, David McNeill
FC C J B OA R D O F D I R EC TO R S
President Isabel Reynolds, Bloomberg L.P.
1st Vice President Andy Sharp, Nikkei Asian Review
2nd Vice President Walter Sim, Straits Times
Treasurer Mehdi Bassiri, O.B.M. Co., Ltd
Secretary Ilgin Yorulmaz, Freelance/BBC World
Service Turkish
Directors-at-LargePeter O’Connor, Freelance
Simon Farrell, Custom Media K.K.
Mary Corbett, Cresner Media
Daniel J. Sloan, Freelance/Nissan Motor
Kanji Gregory Clark, Freelance
Associate Kanji Vicki L. Beyer, Freelance
Ex-officio Khaldon Azhari, PanOrient News
Regular Reserve Director: Pio d'Emilia, SKY TG 24
FC C J C O M M I T T E E C H A I R SDiversity Ilgin Yorulmaz, Walter Sim
Compliance Kunio Hamada
DeRoy Memorial Scholarship Abby Leonard
Entertainment Sandra Mori
Exhibitions Bruce Osborn
Film Karen Severns
Finance Mehdi Bassiri
Freedom of Press Justin McCurry, Simon Denyer
House & Property Isabel Reynolds
Human Resources Walter Sim
Marketing Membership
Simon Farrell, Daniel J. Sloan
Election Reed Stevenson
Law Koichi Ishiyama, Suvendrini Kakuchi
Library, Archives & Workroom
Koichi Ishiyama, Suvendrini Kakuchi
Membership Andrew Horvat
Professional Activities
Tetsuo Jimbo, David McNeill
Publications & Web Peter O’Connor, Simon Farrell
Special Projects Haruko Watanabe
Foreign Press in Japan Robin Harding

THE FRONT PAGE
04

From our new President
Isabel Reynolds

F E AT URES
05

Miles to go and promises unkept

09

Mood swings

10

The parent trap

11

Making great waves off Marunouchi

14

In the footsteps of legends

17

An early adopter in women’s media

19

Profile: Keiko Packard

21

No turning back24

Japan’s far more female future

Vicki L. Beyer

Andy Sharp

David McNeill

Ilgin Yorulmaz

Mary Corbett

Haruko Watanabe

Suvendrini Kakuchi

Chie Matsumoto and David McNeill

Vicki L. Beyer

CLUB NEWSThe Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan
Marunouchi Nijubashi Building 5F
Marunouchi 3-2-3 Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 100-0005
Tel: (03) 3211-3161 Fax: (03) 3211-3168 fccj.or.jp
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
position of Number 1 Shimbun, the editor or theForeign Correspondent’ Club of Japan.
Please pitch and send articles and photographs, oraddress comments to no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Read the Number 1 Shimbun online:
www.fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun

27

New members
New in the library
Exhibitions
Regular by eggs

28

Photography, Osamu Nagahama

Cover photo: from top left: Hiroko Moriwaki, Librarian; Vicki Beyer, Kanji; Abby Leonard and Nathanial,
2019 Board; Sandra Mori, Entertainment Committee; Kyoko Adachi, Main Bar; Mary Corbett, Director
From bottom left: Ilgin Yorulmaz, Director; Haruko Watanabe, Special Projects, Life Member;
Isabel Reynolds, President; Suvendrini Kakuchi, Library (President 2015). Photo by Julio Kohji Shiiki.

INDEX04 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

THE FRONT PAGE

From our new President

Dear members,A

JULIO SHIIKI

s Japan’s longest-serving Prime
Minister prepares to ride off into
the sunset, the Liberal Democratic
Party is agog over who will be thenext Prime Minister and which senior lawmakers will finally get that sought-after postin the cabinet after years of waiting. Hardly
less momentous than the successor to Shinzo
Abe is the appointment of committee chairs towork on all aspects of FCCJ activities.
Since my own appointment as President, it’s
been a race against the clock to fit the piecesof the puzzle together, and I’m not sure I’ll get
the full picture in time for the publication ofthis issue of Number 1 Shimbun. But it’s been
wonderful to find out just how many of our talented members are willing to contribute theirtime and skills to all the projects we organize,
finding ways to work around the Covid-19 risk
as they do so. I’m truly grateful to everyone
who volunteers for the Club.
The theme of this month’s Number 1 Shimbun
is women. As the Abe administration draws to aclose, one of the goals it’s plainly failed to reachis that of having 30% of management posts
in all fields occupied by women. That’s one
reason we wanted to highlight the vital roles
played by women who work at the Club as wellas its members in the current issue. But we cando more. I’m hoping that having a bigger proportion of women on our Board will encourage
women in journalism and all walks of life to join
the FCCJ, attend events and organize them too.
Our Diversity Committee is already beginningto take shape.
Meanwhile, I was delighted to see that ourProfessional Activities Committee hosted
a timely online session with Kyoto-based
Thai dissident Pavin Chachavalpongpun, as
anti-monarchy demonstrations continue in
Bangkok. Do take a look on our website, if you
haven’t yet watched the interview: I learned a

lot about the complex relations between social
media giants and protest groups, among otherthings. I’m sure we’ll also see press conferences devoted to the upheavals in Japanesepolitics in the very near future. It already feels
the end of an era for Japan, and yet we’re still
only two-thirds of our way through a year thatnever ceases to surprise.
We can also expect an interesting programme of films and photo exhibitions for theremainder of the year. Do bear in mind thatsocial distancing efforts will limit numbers forthe film showings. Incidentally, I should remind
everyone that the Board last month approved amotion that everyone entering the Club should
be wearing a mask, as we endeavour to keep
Members and visitors as safe as we can fromthe coronavirus. Please, mask up and stay safe!
● Isabel Reynolds has been reporting for
Bloomberg in Tokyo since 2012. She has lived inJapan for more than 20 years and been a Regular
Member of the FCCJ for most of that time.

INDEX05 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in JapanMILES TO GO AND
PROMISES UNKEPTWOMEN’S RIGHTS IN POST-WAR JAPANVICKI L. BEYER

W

Peak representation
Sadly, the 1946 return remains the highest
proportion of women ever to be elected to
the Diet. By the next house election, in 1947,
women representatives dwindled dramaticallyto one or two percent and stayed there for the

WIKIMEDIA

hen Douglas MacArthur arrived
in Japan in August 1945 to head
the Occupation as Supreme
Commander for the AlliedPowers, he brought a mandate to “demilitarize,
democratize and eliminate the basis for economic aggression”.
MacArthur moved swiftly on the first two,even conflating them when he called on theDiet later in 1945 to revise the Election Law
to give women the vote. Apparently when his
staffers warned him that Japanese men would
not favour female enfranchisement he replied
to the effect, “I don’t care. I want to discredit
the Japanese military. Women don’t like war.”
MacArthur got his way. The revised Election Law, giving the vote to “all men andwomen aged 20 and over”, was promulgatedon December 17, 1945, and Japanese womenvoted for the first time on April 10, 1946.
A key figure in helping Japanese women
understand their new right of suffrage andencouraging them to use it was Lieutenant
Ethel Weed (1906-1975), an American Women’s Information Officer, who hosted a weekly“Women’s Hour” radio program that often
addressed political issues. Weed also toured
Japan prior to the 1946 election urging women
to vote; 13.4 million women obliged, and there
was a surge of women candidates. As a result,the expanded electorate of 1946 sent 39
women to the House of Representatives, 8.4%of the body.

next 50 years. This in spite of the promulgation
on May 3, 1947 of the “Peace Constitution”, inwhich Article 14 states: “All of the people are
equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status
or family origin.”

What happened?
There are various theories about why women
haven’t taken a more prominent role. Many ofBeate Sirota Gordon following a
2011 screening of “The Sirota Family
and the 20th Century” (シロタ家の20世紀 / Shirota-ke no nijyu seiki /Dir. Tomoko Fujiwara / 2008) at theJapan Society in Manhattan, NewYork City.

INDEX06 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in JapanMILES TO GO AND PROMISES UNKEPT
them focus on the deeply entrenched paternalism of Japan and the “men’s world-women’sworld” bifurcation that was popularized during
the post-war high-growth period. There is eventhe linguistic subordination of women. The theories, in a sense, represent a vindication of theview of a 22-year-old “slip of a girl” 1 working for
GHQ during the Occupation who found herself
involved in drafting a new constitution for Japanin early 1946.
Beate Sirota (later Gordon) was the first
non-Japanese civilian woman to enter Japanafter the end of the war, arriving on Christmas Eve 1945 to work for the Occupation. The
Austrian-born Sirota had grown up in Japanand been stranded in the U.S., where she wasattending university, when Japan attacked
Hawaii in 1941. Fluent in six languages, including Japanese, after the war she readily got a
job with the Occupation that enabled her to bereunited with her parents in Japan.
Less than six weeks after her return to Japan,
Gordon was assigned to work on drafting civilrights provisions for Japan’s new constitution.
Her teammates on the project suggested thatsince she was a woman, she should draft the
women’s rights section.
Speaking at the FCCJ in 1995, Gordon
described her work on that project in earlyFebruary 1946. To aid her efforts, she borrowed around 10 national constitutions fromseveral local libraries still standing in bombedout Tokyo and found six, mostly written in theearly 20th century, that included provisions
relating to women’s rights.
Having grown up in Japan, Gordon understood well the pre-war position of Japanesewomen. The pre-war Japanese Civil Codestipulated that “women are to be regarded asincompetent”. They could not sue, they could
not seek divorce (although their husbands
could divorce them), they could not own property. Pre-war Japanese women were powerless, in law and in effect. They were no morethan chattels, belonging first to their fathers
and later to their husbands.

A description of Gordon given by Col. Charles Kades(1906-1996), chief of GHQ’s Government Section, in aninterview for the 1992 Pacific Century documentary series.

1

Beate Sirota’s 1946 draft civil rights
provisions for the Japanese constitution
III. Specific Rights and Opportunities
18. The family is the basis of human society and its traditions for good or evil
permeate the nation. Hence marriage and the family are protected by law, and
it is hereby ordained that they shall rest upon the undisputed legal and social
equality of both sexes, upon mutual consent instead of parental coercion, andupon cooperation instead of male domination. Laws contrary to these principles shall be abolished, and replaced by others viewing choice of spouse,property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matterspertaining to marriage and the family from the standpoint of individual dignity
and the essential equality of the sexes.
19. Expectant and nursing mothers shall have the protection of the States, andsuch public assistance as they may need, whether married or not. Illegitimate
children shall not suffer legal prejudice but shall be granted the same rights
and opportunities for their physical, intellectual and social development as
legitimate children.
20. No child shall be adopted into any family without the explicit consent ofboth husband and wife if both are alive, nor shall any adopted child receive
preferred treatment to the disadvantage of other members of the family. The
rights of primogeniture are hereby abolished.
21. Every child shall be given equal opportunity for individual development,
regardless of the conditions of its birth. To that end free, universal and compulsory education shall be provided through public elementary schools, lasting eight years. Secondary and higher education shall be provided free for all
qualified students who desire it. School supplies shall be free. State aid may be
given to deserving students who need it.
22. Private educational institutions may operate insofar as their standards for
curricula, equipment, and the scientific training of their teachers do not fall
below those of public institutions as determined by the State.
23. All schools, public or private, shall consistently stress the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, justice and social obligation; they shall emphasize the paramount importance of peaceful progress, and always insist upon the observanceof truth and scientific knowledge and research in the content of their teaching.
24. The children of the nation, whether in public or private schools shall be
granted free medical, dental and optical aid. They shall be given proper rest
and recreation, and physical exercise suitable to their development.
25. There shall be no full-time employment of children and young people of school
age for wage-earning purposes, and they shall be protected from exploitationin any form. The standards set by the International Labor Office and the United
Nations Organization shall be observed as minimum requirements in Japan.

INDEX07 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in JapanMILES TO GO AND PROMISES UNKEPTfrom the outset. She admits that she even cried, but the men
were unmoved. In the end, the main rights she advocated were
included, in an abbreviated form, but the binding details Gordon
had wanted were omitted:

Beate Sirota
Gordon’s memoir,
University of
Chicago Press,
US (2014).

In her 1997 memoir, The Only Woman in the Room, Gordon
wrote, “I tried to imagine the kinds of changes that would mostbenefit Japanese women.” She determined that the essentials
were “equality in regard to property rights, inheritance, education and employment; suffrage; public assistance for expectant
and nursing mothers as needed...; free hospital care; and marriage with a man of her choice.”
Gordon understood Japanese society and traditional male
attitudes well enough to know that slipping broad aspirational
provisions into the Constitution would not in itself be sufficient
to drive the cause of equality for women. She saw that the only
way to achieve equal rights for women was to include very specific and insurmountable provisions in the Constitution. In her
research, she found similar provisions in the 1918 Soviet Constitution and, in particular, the 1919 Weimar Constitution, which
she drew on heavily for her draft entries.
In the end, Gordon wrote eight very specific civil rights provisions for inclusion in the new constitution (see inset). But when
her draft came before the Steering Committee, made up largelyof American military men, it met with considerable opposition.
The Steering Committee objected on the grounds that Gordon’s
provisions were too specific and constituted revisions far inexcess of the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. As Gordon
noted in her speech at the FCCJ, this was not difficult, for “theAmerican Constitution doesn’t even contain the word ‘woman’.”
The Steering Committee maintained that such specificity
should be left for inclusion in other laws, like the Civil Code.
Gordon tried to push back, explaining to the Committee that,given entrenched male attitudes, the provisions would nevermake it into law if they weren’t included in the new Constitution

Article 24. Marriage shall be based only on the mutual
consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained throughmutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband
and wife as a basis.
With regard to choice of spouse, property rights,
inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall beenacted from the standpoint of individual dignity andthe essential equality of the sexes.
Article 25. All people shall have the right to maintain theminimum standards of wholesome and cultured living.
In all spheres of life, the State shall use its endeavors forthe promotion and extension of social welfare and security, and of public health.
Article 26. All people shall have the right to receive an
equal education correspondent to their ability, as provided by law.
All people shall be obligated to have all boys and girls
under their protection receive ordinary education asprovided for by law. Such compulsory education shallbe free.
If American men on the Steering Committee found Gordon’sideas hard to accept, the reactions of their Japanese counterparts at a meeting held a month later were off the scale.
Gordon was only attending the meeting to act as interpreter.
By her own account, the Japanese liked Gordon as a fast andaccurate interpreter, though they had no idea she had been
involved in drafting the document under discussion. After several hours of debates over the draft, the group finally reacheddraft Article 24. The Japanese delegates were vehement in theirrejection. For the American Committee, Colonel Charles Kades
said, “Gentlemen, Miss Sirota has her heart set on these provisions. Why don’t we pass them?” Stunned by this interjection,
the Japanese acquiesced.
In the fullness of time, it is plain to see that the watered-down
version of Gordon’s draft has not had the effect she had hopedfor. Gordon’s specific, but rejected provisions, which her American colleagues had assured her would enter Japan’s Civil Code,never quite made it.
In her memoir, Gordon wrote: “To this day, I believe that theAmericans responsible for the final version of the draft of the
new constitution inflicted a great loss on Japanese women.”

Worldly effects
On paper, women were accorded basic rights in the 1947
Constitution. In practice, not much changed outside of voter

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INDEXF E A T U R E ›› Women in JapanMILES TO GO AND PROMISES UNKEPT

Beate Sirota Gordon (centre, facing) with SCAP staffers and others ca.1946

Beate Sirota Gordon, interviewed in later life

participation, which pre-dated the new Constitution and over contained no sanctions for breaches. Equal employment oppor73 years has remained 60-70%. The Japanese patriarchy con- tunity has slowly gained traction but even today gender-biased
tinued to resist equality for women as effectively as it had been hiring and promotion continues unchecked.
doing since the late 19th century, when Japanese women themMore recently, the Abe administration has claimed to advoselves first began agitating for social reforms. This validates the cate for increased female participation in both business andcharacterization of the Constitution as an heirloom sword in the political leadership, but even this government intervention
tokonoma, a treasure on display for all to see but not to be used has yet to produce significant change. True, women are
except in the most dire of emergencies.
increasingly achieving leadership roles
During the 1950s and 60s, as Japan’s econin business, but numbers are still low
Speaking in 1995,
omy recovered and expanded and Japaneseand the rate of change is far slower than
Gordon told the FCCJ:
society increasingly urbanized, the preferredin most industrialized nations. Participamythology of Japanese society was a kind oftion rates in national politics remain at“Although the basis“separate but equal” situation for men andan abysmal level.
of women’s rights is
women. There was the so-called “ideology
In her 1995 speech at the FCCJ, Gorof the male breadwinner” that, these days,
don’s
final advice to Japanese women
there, they have not yet
contributes to Japan’s reduced marriage
was to join support organizations, bandachieved its realization. together, and keep making a noise
rates and the notion that women should stayIt’s still going to take a
at home, manage the household, and makedemanding equality. Twenty-five years
babies. Both of these have been highly influon from this advice, movements andlot of time.” Time has
ential over the past seven decades, although
campaigns for reform are gaining tracproven Gordon correct. tion as Japanese women learn to speak
attitudes are gradually changing.
Speaking in 1995, Gordon told the FCCJ:
out. This is not a uniformly progressive“Although the basis of women’s rights is there, they have not yet development; it’s still two steps forward and one step back asachieved its realization. It’s still going to take a lot of time.” Time outspoken women all too frequently find themselves badgered
has proven Gordon correct.
and bullied. But it’s undeniable that the pace of change has
It wasn’t until 1985 that Japan adopted the Equal Employment accelerated and points forward. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even
Opportunity Law and it did so only to comply with its internation- see a female prime minister by the centenary of women’s sufal obligations under the U.N. Convention for the Elimination of frage in Japan.
Discrimination Against Women. The new law was as vehemently
opposed by the Japanese business community as the women’s ● Vicki L. Beyer is a travel writer, a kanji on the 2020 FCCJ Board, andrights provisions in the constitution had been by Japanese poli- a professor in the Hitotsubashi University Graduate School of Law
ticians back in 1946, with the result that in its first decade the law Business Law Department.

INDEX09 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Fathers at Work

MOOD SWINGSA FATHER LEARNS TO BALANCE HOME AND WORK COMMITMENTS

ANDY SHARPOn the evening of February 28,
Shinzo Abe delivered the news
that most working parents inJapan had been dreading.
I was heading to my karate dojo in Shibuya
when an NHK alert informed me the prime
minister had asked all schools in the country
to close their doors. I greeted my sensei (alsoa father of young children) and the resigned
look in his eyes revealed he'd also heard theannouncement.
Many of the fathers practicing that night
were not as focused as usual during sparring.
I went home to a scene that aptly describes theswings in emotions over the next six months.

Domestic dilemma
My wife was despondent. "What are we going todo?" she asked. But our three boys (aged three,seven and nine) were jumping for joy on themarital bed.
I had no answers. As a commissioning editor
at the Nikkei Asian Review dealing with reporters stretched across a vast region, I was busier
than ever handling copy on the rapidly changing social, political and economic situations ina host of countries. My employer, thankfully,
encouraged staff to work from home.

“Like most working
mothers, for whom
I have very quickly
gained a deeper
respect, I also had to beconstantly switchinghats. One moment,
I would be discussing apitch with a reporter,
the next changing adiaper. A quick switch
back to polish a story,
before attacking theinevitable pile ofdishes.”Like most working mothers, for whom I havevery quickly gained a deeper respect, I also
had to be constantly switching hats. One
moment, I would be discussing a pitch with areporter, the next changing a diaper. A quick
switch back to polish a story, before attacking
the inevitable pile of dishes.
My kids star in online morning conference
calls about the day ahead. I sneak out after the
meetings to don a mask to kick a ball about
with soccer-mad Leo. The demands for myphone so the kids can play Fortnite online
with their friends are relentless. I've probably
missed a bunch of important calls. But mycolleagues and bosses make sure I don't missanything, meaning I have to contend with endless Slack messages.
The kids started to return to school in baby
steps in May, but classes only went into fullswing in June, barely a month before the summer holidays.
The time together with my wife and children
has been both a blessing and a curse. At times,
the temperature at home is as hot as this summer's blistering sun, or as frigid as the air conditioning we are blasting 24/7. And while thehome environment has stretched my working
day from dawn 'till long after dusk, it's given us
time for family meals filled with random conversations and many moments of mirth.

Easing the rules
When my employer started relaxing the rules on
attending the office, I was torn. I'd grown used to
the five-second commute from bed to desk andsmall joys such as making the lunchtime soup
between assignments. But like many journalists,
I craved cynical conversations about the news
with colleagues.
I still have the option to work at home or in
the office, and intend to take advantage of themore relaxed working arrangement. But asI finish this piece, my three-year-old just cameinto my room for tickles. It's going to be hardto give that up.
● Andy Sharp is Deputy Politics and Economics
Editor at the Nikkei Asian Review

INDEX10 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Fathers at WorkTHE PARENT TRAP
HOW DO JOURNALISTS KEEP THEIR SANITY WHILE WORKING AT HOME?
Pig. At some point, I abandoned it and bought another, which
he tipped beer over, euthanizing it with a soft pftt. By the time
our two younger kids Una and Noah came along I had swapped
daily journalism for a weekly, which at least eased the stress ofevening deadlines.

Once there was an office

DAVID MCNEILL

Some journalists have offices, of course. But long before thepandemic made collective workplaces dangerous, the global
cull of foreign bureaus had forced many to report from home.
Covid-19 temporarily shut the FCCJ, taking away a potential
alternative, and public schools, leaving thousands of working
parents to make abrupt childcare adjustments. Even the coffee
shops closed, so for a month or so there was nowhere to escape.
Post-lockdown, my wife was ordered to teach remotely by herkindergarten school. At one point the two of us were on shifts,
taking kids out to the park while the other worked. Covid-19 tookout our childminder of last resort – baba. We were desperateenough to seek out some of the plethora of self-help sites thatsprang up but the advice dispensed seemed pedantic and condescending: “It’s not about thriving - it’s about surviving,” said
one. No shit.

One evening last summer I found myself under a Preoccupied parents
blanket with my iPhone, reporting for live radio More helpful to me, at last, were the insights of another writeron the Tokyo heatwave that had sent thousands and parent. I’d been commissioned to interview Meiko Kawakaof people to the hospital. My wife and three young mi before lockdown and began reading her books. Children
kids were corralled into another corner of thein Kawakami’s fiction are often the victims ofapartment. Our middle child Una (3) broke
self-centered parents - not bad, just preoccupied“Some journalists
loose and began filling the air with her caterand struggling in a way most of us can underhave offices, of course.
wauling. Sweat trickled down my nose. The RTE
stand. Many forget that kids are dealing with the
But long before thepresenter sensed my discomfort (and heard
fear and resignation of being abruptly thrownpandemic madethe wails) and cut the interview short.
into life. “Coming to the realisation you’re alive iscollective workplaces
Robert Kelly’s young daughter Marion madesuch a shock,” said Kawakami.
screenbombing famous when she sauntered into
I find myself recalling this when I’m about todangerous, the global
view as her dad discussed Korean politics on the
wig out over the latest domestic squall (as I wascull of foreign bureaus
BBC in March 2017, but we’ve all been there. Kids
writing this Una spilt sugar all over the aparthad forced many to
could care less about your deadlines or your live
ment while making ‘honey’ for her doll). My kids
report from home.”
spots and will gleefully upend both, exploiting any
didn’t ask to come into the world. It’s not their
weakness: Kelly had simply forgotten to lock thefault I need quiet to work. So, I suck it up, wipe
door of his study. We have sliding doors in our cramped Meguro up the sugar, plug in my Mozart again and resume tapping. And
flat and, at 60 square meters, there’s nowhere to hide.
that’s when Noah comes to tell me he has peed in his pants.

Priority Pocoyo
My orderly world changed in 2011 with the birth of our firstson, Luka. His teething was the first thing to drive me out of thehome with my laptop, to the local café. A year later he begancommandeering my computer to watch Pocoyo and Peppa● David McNeill is co-chair of the FCCJ’s Professional Activities
Committee and a professor at the Department of English Language,
Communication and Cultures at Sacred Heart University in Tokyo.
He was previously a correspondent for The Independent and The
Economist newspapers and for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

INDEX11 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in Japan

MAKING GREAT WAVES
OFF MARUNOUCHIDOING BETTER FOR THE FCCJILGIN YORULMAZ

In 1995, as a female graduate fresh out of international
university, I was working at a Tokyo advertising company
when a female friend quit her well-paid job at a publishingcompany, just as her career was taking off. The reason? To
get married.
Back then marriage was more or less the universal choice.
By the time they reached 50, just 5% of Japanese women andabout 10% of men were still single, according to the National
Institute of Population and Social Security Research.
There have been major changes since then. Both sexes are
postponing marriage and women are less likely to abandon
careers to tend to a man. Yet, despite the fanfare surrounding“womenomics”, the term popularized by Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe as part of his plan to feminize the workforce, systemic rigidities and hierarchies hold back women in Japan.

Are we any better?
The FCCJ has little to boast about. While we have had a femalepresident (Lucy Birmingham), and previous female Presidents in
Mary Ann Maskery (1984) and several prominent female members, only 251 of our 1,643 members are women. That’s just 15% –worse than the 20% makeup of women in the Japanese media.  
That’s notwithstanding high-profile cases like Chrystel
Takigawa, the French-Japanese news presenter. She recently
married Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, who, after
being appointed to the post as the youngest member of the
Cabinet last year, did the unthinkable by taking parental leave.

Demographic deficit
The fact is, news in the media industry is still overwhelmingly
edited and disseminated by middle-aged or older men. This
reflects Japan’s ageing demography: people aged 35-65 years
now make up the bulk of the population pyramid, meaning
it looks like a vase with a “fat belly” in the middle. Japan inINDEX12 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in Japan
MAKING GREAT WAVES OFF MARUNOUCHI

Abigail Leonard
Freelance Journalist
JULIO K. SHIIKI

2020 is a middle-aged society run by men despite
more women now going on to four-year universities as
opposed to two-year vocational colleges, and gearing
up for leadership roles.
Part of the problem, points out Izumi Nakamitsu,
the highest-ranking Japanese at the United Nations,is that the Japanese media reinforces traditional roles
for women, such as the subservient housewife/motherdevoted to her family, who somehow cannot afford todivorce her husband.
In an interview with Kyodo News in March, Nakamitsu,
the UN’s female under-secretary-general and high representative for disarmament affairs, said: “On (Japanese)
TV debate programs, men discuss difficult subjects
while female announcers are set on the set like ornaments. On TV dramas, too, you might see men holding abusiness meeting and women serving them tea.”Media and the working mother

The Ito Shiori case
A far more painful example is the rape case broughtby journalist Shiori Ito against Noriyuki Yamaguchi,
the Washington bureau chief of Tokyo Broadcasting
Services. Japanese media gave the story little coverage until foreign media, the BBC in particular, covered
it extensively. Ito’s landmark case ended with victoryfor her in a civil court case and a much-needed publicdebate on archaic rape laws.
The Asahi Shimbun’s Gender Equality Declaration,
announced this year, offers more than a glimmer of

Sayuri Daimon
ex-Japan Times Executive Operating
Officer and Senior Editor
ANDREW POTHECARY

Toko Shirakawa, a journalist who serves on a cabinet
panel on work-life reforms, also partly blames Japan’s
media industry. In an opinion piece she wrote for Japan
Times in January, she criticizes Japanese media’s“male-centric homogeneity” and gives the example ofthe shortage of daycare services for the gap betweensocial change and the media’s perception of issues. For along time, says Shirakawa, major Japanese media organizations gave scant coverage to the issue despite theinsistence of their own working mothers.
“Their proposals to take up the issue have often been
rejected by their senior male editors...who think they can
dedicate 24 hours of their time to their job while leaving
their wives to care for their children. [They] must havefound it unusual for mothers to work by leaving theirchildren in day care services,” she adds.
That attitude changed when an anonymous blogger’scomment went viral. ‘My child was turned down by anursery school. Japan must die!’ the angry blogger
wrote. But by then a precious opportunity to move forward had been lost.

“I do think the club could be more welcoming to women and people of all stripes. I can’t
count the number of times I’ve heard women– and men – say the club just doesn’t feellike a place they think they’d belong. HereI can instance the male Club member who
congratulated a fellow member on “always
having meals with the new female members”. Then there are theongoing discussions about whether to bring out “The Marilyn”: theposter-sized photo of a scantily clad Marilyn Monroe that used tohang in the main bar.
Women journalists do battle with such idiocy daily, but we also
face harassment by employers and sources; maternity leave and thework-life balance; safety in the field and access issues. We need the
support of a strong network of female journalists. As a Club, we could
all do ourselves a real service by being more forward-thinking andproactive in promoting the club to women. This Number 1 Shimbun
issue is a positive step in that direction.”“It is disappointing that a Cabinet Officepanel recently decided to give up on thegovernment’s long-held target of having
30% of leadership positions held by womenby 2020. The government is now saying that
it will try to achieve the target at an earliest
possible time in the 2020s.
However, I refuse to be pessimistic about the future of women in
Japan. Many women have entered the workforce and many companies are finally realizing that they need to include more women in thehigher rankings of their companies.
Although there are more female journalists now at major media
organizations in Japan, there are only a few women in top posts. The
selection of news is too often dominated by men. What women can
do is keep covering the issues that we feel are important, and support
each other.”INDEX13 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in Japan
MAKING GREAT WAVES OFF MARUNOUCHI
hope. The declaration aims both to empower women inreporting and business operations and to achieve gender equality within the Asahi ranks.

Isabel Reynolds
Bloomberg Tokyo Correspondent,
FCCJ President 2020

A rundown of the FCCJ’s 20 committees also shows thatall but six (Associate Members Liaison, Entertainment,
Film, Freedom of Press, Library, and Special Projects),
are chaired by men. By contrast, nearly half of 17 governors and committee members in The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong are women.
I ran on a platform of women and diversity in the 2020
FCCJ election and am one of four women board members. I have now made it my priority to attract at least 82
new women members to our Club to make up for the 5%
we need to hit the 20% women membership target. Not
an easy job, you may think. But I am immensely encouraged by recent developments.
First, Isabel Reynolds of Bloomberg has just been elected as new President of our Club. With 4 out of 9 Board
positions now filled by women, we have securely inducted ourselves to the Thirty Percent Club formed by Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) executives committed tobringing a minimum 30% women executives onto theirboard, in line with Abe’s womenomics principle.
In this article, some of our members have shared theirexperiences in the media and with the FCCJ. They madeit clear that they want a more diverse and open Club thatfeels welcoming to women.
Our doyenne is Haruko Watanabe, who brings her
experience as a UNESCO consultant for Women andMedia Development in training women in Asia and Africa, mentioned concrete examples such as FCCJ-sponsored workshops to help integrate Japanese women
into global media. Others, like the New York Times Tokyo
bureau chief Motoko Rich, said she wanted to see more
events with female speakers and moderators.
For this reason, I am proposing the formation of
a Diversity Committee, open to all sexes but with adedicated desk specifically for women. I hope that as
you start to see more women engaging with our Club,change will come organically.
We don’t need “womenomics” to save Japan. Japan
will save itself when it can establish “humanomics”,
to borrow from former Economist editor, Bill Emmott,author of the recently published The Far More Female
Future of Japan, reviewed here by Vicki Beyer, and only
if Japan sees no difference between a man and a woman
when it comes to getting the job done.
● Ilgin Yorulmaz is Japan correspondent for BBC World Turkish.

JULIO K. SHIIKI

Diversity Committee“I would first of all like to see the Club becomea more welcoming place for a diverse range
of journalists, including women, who havebeen under-represented in our membershipso far. I’d like to see an outreach to these people to encourage them to become part of theClub and to play an active role in everything
we do. I'm convinced that would help bolster our ranks, modernize
our image and ultimately ensure our survival in these difficult times.  
As part of that, and based on the Japanese anti-harassment law thatcame into effect recently, we should establish a clear-cut channel todeal with harassment. This could be part of the remit of the proposed
Diversity Committee.
Finally, we should work hard to ensure diverse representation in
our professional and other events. This can present difficulties inJapan, but the FCCJ can help by nudging Japanese media and society
as a whole to take diversity seriously.”

Lucy Birmingham
FCCJ President 2013-2015
During my presidency I learned that one
woman in a large crowd of men can makea difference, even in Japan! One thing I’m
proud of during my presidency is the numberof programs I initiated, including the Women’s Forum, with many high-profile speakers
such as Naomi Koshi, politician, lawyer, andadvocate for gender equality. In 2012 Koshi-san became Mayor of Otsu,
Shiga Prefecture, the youngest elected woman mayor in Japan.
More than anything, I remain deeply grateful to those members who
supported me throughout my two rollercoaster years, defying plots tooust me and outright misogynistic commentary. Women bring styleand a different type of leadership to any table. Electing more womenand hearing more women’s voices will make a positive difference tothe FCCJ. So it’s great to learn that the Club will enjoy that positive difference with President Isabel Reynolds. I offer my congratulations, anda dash of humble advice: she who laughs, lasts.

INDEX14 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in JapanIN THE FOOTSTEPSOF LEGENDS
THE FCCJ’S MAGGIE HIGGINS WOULD HAVE BEEN ‘MIGHTY’ IMPRESSEDMARY CORBETTThe FCCJ election in this, our 75th
anniversary year, saw candidates
come out in record numbers vying
for positions on the Board. Threerounds of voting stretched over a month of trying to meet the majority vote threshold, challenges to the results. Many recounts later, wehave a historic new Board with three women
directors, one of them since elected our president, along with the Club’s second female auditor. The very fact that this change has not felt
as glass-ceiling-shattering as ABC News’ MaryAnn Maskery’s 1984 election to the Club’s very
first woman Presidency in 1984 shows just how
very far we have come.

Maggie Higgins
Maggie Higgins herself never spent enoughtime on the ground to sit on our Board, but
Higgins already stood out in a club brimmingwith seasoned war correspondents some 70
years ago.
Some of you may recognize her from theiconic photo which graces the cover of Foreign Correspondents in Japan, the history
commemorating the Club’s 50th anniversary,edited by Charles Pomeroy. This highly-recommended read of our evolution from gritty
origins amidst the ruins of war-ravaged Tokyo
shows how our transformation paralleled
Japan’s own race back to the world stage.
Higgins arrived in Tokyo as the New York
Herald Tribune bureau chief in 1950 having
reported on the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp in April 1945, covered theNuremberg war trials and the Soviet blockadeof Berlin.
War broke out in Korea barely weeks into
Higgins’ new Japan posting, and she became
one of the first reporters on the new frontin East Asia, witnessing the Hangang Bridgebombing and barely escaping by raft to reach
US military headquarters the next day.

MacArthur intervenes
Higgins found herself having to appeal to General Douglas MacArthur upon being ordered toleave Korea by General Walton Walker, of Walker
Hill, Seoul, fame, who was intent on allowing no
women on the war front.

Marguerite Higgins, her face andhands covered with Korean mud,at work on the manuscript for her
book “War in Korea: The Report of
A Woman Combat Correspondent”.
Photo by Carl Mydans.

INDEX15 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in JapanIN THE FOOTSTEPS OF LEGENDS
MacArthur immediately wrote to the Herald
Tribune to confirm his lifting of the ban on
women correspondents, pointing out that,‘Marguerite Higgins is held in highest professional esteem by everyone’.
But not everyone shared MacArthur’s opinion. Higgins went on to be the only woman
recipient of the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for herreporting on the Korean War. Her senior colleague and fellow member of the FCCJ, Homer
Bigart, was another Pulitzer winner. The twowere well known for their rivalry, and at times
clashed publicly. Bigart was known for his
resentment of Higgins’s ‘foolish bravery’, making him feel obliged to ‘go out and get shot at
occasionally’ himself. Maggie Higgins probably
took that as a compliment.

Haru Matsukata Reischauer
Around the same time, in the far more peacefulsetting of Maggie’s press club in Tokyo, another female FCCJ pioneer was grappling with anentirely different set of metrics. Bilingual, andcomfortable in multi-cultural environments,
Haru Matsukata was in growing demandamidst the internationalization of a new postwar Japan. Matsukata was already forging
an impressive career as a correspondent for
the Saturday Evening Post and the Christian
Science Monitor, and was the first Japanese
woman on the FCCJ board.
Granddaughter of the Meiji era Prime Minister and genro Masayoshi Matsukata, and hermother born to a wealthy Japanese merchant
in New York, Haru attended the American
School in Japan at her mother’s insistence, andwent on to continue her education at a Christian college in the US. With unparalleled family
connections and an exceptionally privilegedinternational education, the postwar world
should have been her oyster, yet she felt astranger everywhere and wondered where life
would take her.
The FCCJ helped unleash the Matsukata’s potential to influence US–Japan relations beyond even her capacity as a muchsought-after correspondent. The FCCJ had by
the 1950s grown into one of the international
set’s favorite watering holes, crowded withnot only journalists, but celebrities from allwalks of life, businessmen, ambassadors, andexotic spies.

Haru with American occupation
officers, Tokyo, 1947.
Top and left photos taken from
“Samurai and Silk: A Japaneseand American Heritage” by Haru
Matsukata Reischauer

Haru and Ed Reischauer in San Francisco, 1969

On one occasion Matsukata was having
lunch with her good friend James Michener,
fresh off his Pulitzer prize for Tales From theSouth Pacific, a blockbuster on Broadway, andheaded for Hollywood fame. Michener thenspotted his friend, the recently widowed Edwin
Reischauer, walking into the dining room andintroduced him to Matsukata. Within months,
Haru was starting her married life at Harvard
where Reischauer was teaching, returning toJapan in 1961 when her husband was appointed ambassador by John F. Kennedy.
Reischauer, who had grown up in Japan, is
still remembered by the Japanese as one of thebest ambassadors in the history of US-JapanINDEX16 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in JapanIN THE FOOTSTEPS OF LEGENDS
relations, and his wife Haru, Matsukata Reischauer, as First Lady of the US Embassy. At
a time of considerable tension, it was theReischauers who convinced JFK to send his
brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, toJapan, and then coached the younger Kennedy
on how to win over the public, a charm offensive that took the Japanese by surprise. The
Reischauer’s place in Club lore as our premier
power couple still looks unchallengeable.

Clare Hollingsworth
A respected trailblazer known to both Haru andMaggie in those days was that regular visitor to
the Club and ‘undisputed doyenne of war correspondents’, Clare Hollingworth, who would
often come through Tokyo between her globetrotting assignments.
Clare would enthrall her many friends at FCCJ
with a cornucopia of headline adventures. She
made history within a week of starting workfor London’s Daily Telegraph when she wasposted to Poland in August 1939. Hollingsworth
borrowed the British Consul-General’s car fora reconnaissance along the German border,
immediately detecting a massive build-up ofGerman troops and tanks facing Poland behindcamouflage screens.
This scoop was promptly reported on her
paper’s front page the next day. A few days
later, Hollingsworth achieved her greatest
scoop as the first to report the outbreak of
WWII. Her eyewitness report to the British
Embassy in Warsaw of the invasion, for which
she had to put her phone outside her window
so that the sound of tanks invading Poland
could be heard by disbelieving diplomats, wasthe first news of the invasion received by the
British Foreign Office. She was also the firstto report the defection of Kim Philby to theSoviet Union.

Hong Kong days
In later life, Clare settled in Hong Kong, where
she became a beloved fixture at the Foreign Correspondents Club, alongside Richard Hughes,
whom she first came to know during his legendary years as a member of the FCCJ in Tokyo.
What a magnificent court they presided
over. Hughes as chairman of Alcoholics Synonymous, Clare as the ‘Empress’, as somecame to describe her in later years. She neverofficially retired. Approaching her eighth
decade, the 4th June 1989 saw her scrambling
for a bird’s eye view of the crackdown on
Tiananmen Square. She lived to witness Hong
Kong’s handover to China and many of thesigns of its still-unfolding aftermath.
Clare continued to mentor and inspire manya young journalist, and never really stopped
reporting until her death at the age of 105
in 2017. Though her days chasing wars andbreaking news were long behind her when
she passed away, close friends report that she
never lost the habit of keeping her passport
and work shoes by her bed ‘just in case.’● Mary Corbett is a writer and documentary
producer based in Tokyo and is a member of the
FCCJ’s Board of Directors.

Just back from Vietnam, 1966.
Photo taken from “Front Line”
by Clare HollingworthINDEX17 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in JapanAN EARLY ADOPTERIN WOMEN’S MEDIAHARUKO WATANABE LOOKS BACKFair and Equal

Video – in at the creation

Born as the fifth among six siblings in an old family of Kyoto,
I have been very conscious about fairness and equality. I havealways honored free speech though not many people thenthought women should enjoy such a privilege.
During the 1960 Japan-US Security Treaty political fights era inJapan, Japan’s seven major newspapers, which had seemed tohave encouraged demonstrators, suddenly changed their attitude and started preaching, “Stop demonstrating and welcome
President Dwight Eisenhower”, with no accountable explanation.
I thought, “Not again,” as I had a similar experience of respectable leaders betraying the trust of people.
Right after the Japan’s defeat in
World War II, I was frustrated by ateacher at the elementary school who
instructed us to ink out lines from the
textbooks. “Why? You taught us tocarry these textbooks to air raid shelters when bombing started as thesewere holy gifts from the divine Emperor. Now you instruct us to disgrace
them?” She began to weep but gave
no explanation for her behaviour.

In the 1970s I realised that video was the way to go. In 1973
I founded HKW Video Workshop in New York, Japan’s first andonly non-profit organization for educational video and television production. Later HKW rose to the challenge of women
who gathered in Mexico for the first World Conference ofWomen in 1975.
Among their demands were for more women media gatekeepers (then mostly male) to present a more dynamic imageof women making more “her-story” and less “his-story.” At theConference, women led a strong agenda for representation in
the media. Around 200 Japanese women attended.

Aftermath in Mexico

I did not attend the Mexico conference, but I did attend the government meeting in Tokyo thefollowing July. There I was shocked
to hear conference delegate Taki
Fujita report that the government
would not allow her to speak freely
on women’s issues.
Because we could not attend the
Mexico Conference, Yoko Nuita, theMissouri beckons
first woman commentator at NHK
and I decided to produce a video
I also found New York Times reports
interview with Fusae Ichikawa and toon conflict between student demonbroadcast her message to the world
strators and the police around theon video. Yoko and I established the
National Diet in 1960 unsatisfactory.
YH (Yoko-Haruko) Kasei Fund togethMichiko Kamba, Tokyo University
At the Missouri Freedom of Information Center, 1963
er and started video interviews with
co-ed lost her life.
Amherst College, Doshisha’s founder Joe Niijima’s alma women pioneers in journalism.
Our project ran from 1975 to 1976, recording 10 womenmater, maintained the Amherst House in Doshisha University.
Otis Carey advised me, “Go to Missouri University, the world’s pioneers who shared their professional life stories. These 10
Japanese women helped me open doors for UNESCO for other
oldest school of journalism.”
women in media. When the U. N. and UNESCO organized the first“Why not?” I thought. And so I applied.
Dr. Earl English, Dean of the School of Journalism, wrote “Women and Media” Conference in 1980 in New York, I was invitback, “We have just established the Freedom of Information ed to present the first and only videos for women produced andCenter to commemorate our 50th anniversary. You may work directed by women.

JULIO SHIIKI

W

ith four women elected to the board, here’s around-up on my own career as a woman in journalism, a professional choice that has taken mearound the world.

as a staffer and study at our
graduate school.”
Such was my start in journalism. I owe my professional
training to the University ofMissouri and the taxpayers of
the State of Missouri.

INDEX18 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in JapanLOOKING BACK, AN EARLY ADOPTER IN WOMEN’S MEDIAThe East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, offered me the use of
an office as the hub for research activities.
Beyond UNESCO, HKW produced video-TV documentaries
on the U.N. Women’s Decade meeting in Denmark in 1980 and
Nairobi in 1985 and ran the HKW Women & Media Center at the
Beijing World Conference of Women in 1995.

Free phones in Beijing
It was at this event in Beijing that we staged something of acoup by getting free use of 250 cell-phones for journalists, NGO
women and even Japanese government officials.
UNESCO Consultant
Behind this was my previous experience when I organized aseminar for Chinese women journalists some
After reviewing these videos, UNESCO
years before and discovered that many public
commissioned me as a Women and Media
telephones were out of order, apparently to
Development Consultant covering video-TV
hamper information flows.
production training and the organization of
The official conference venue in Beijing
seminars and research.
and the NGO forum in the suburbs of HuaiOur video-TV training courses for women
rou were over an hour apart and the sitebroadcasters in Asia and Africa were espeof NGO meeting was huge. Without proper
cially important. Muslim and Hindu religious
communication tools, participants simply got
edicts forbade male camera crew entry to
lost. Fortunately NEC donated 250 top-notch
maternity wards, kitchens and other womhandsets made in China. The phone numbers
en-only area, but not us. As long as we could
for local and international calls were provided
carry our own video equipment, health andby the Beijing Telecommunication Bureau
nutrition programs vitally needed for thewith a promise that we return all phones after
developing countries could be produced
the event.
and broadcast.
Far left: Supervising TV-Video
When HKW supplied the handy phones to
As a consultant, I conducted a UNESCO
documentary by African women, 1985
Japanese journalists, I specifically asked them
Study on “Women in the Pacific Media: Evaluation of the Needs/Requirements in Recruitment, Training, to attend NGO meetings and write their stories in their own voice.
Fusako Fujiwara, pioneer newswoman at the Nikkei Shimbun,
Advancement and Working Conditions for Professional Media
once called HKW’s work a “media venture activity.” That may
Women throughout the Pacific Region.”
This vast area covered Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, the well be true. I have a wealth of friends, but I am hardly swimming
Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Western Samoa. in material wealth.
Left to right: Olara Otsununu (UN), the author, Barbara Crossette (UN bureau
chief, New York Times)

SUGGESTIONS FOR MEN & WOMEN JOURNALISTS
Giving advice to younger people in journalism can seemarrogant, these what follows are a few suggestions.
● Journalism protects the people’s right to know
● Keep your distance from PR and advertising● Keep your own counsel and keep your word
● Keep and be good company● Cultivate your garden, but save seed money for new projects● Try following the above and you’ll be on your way to
becoming a good journalist.

● Haruko Watanabe is President of HKW, a former Tokyo Bureau
Chief of the Press Foundation of Asia, and chairs the FCCJ Special
TV-Video journalist course for women’s development, Malaysia, 1981

Projects Committee.

INDEX19 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

PROFILEKEIKO PACKARD
ONE WOMAN’S ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE IN THE JAPANESE WORKPLACE

SUVENDRINI KAKUCHI

N

ot so long ago it was normal for male bosses to make insensitive
comments to female employees. Keiko Packard has heard her share.
Recently, Packard, an active Associate Member of the FCCJ and thefounder and president of KIP, a non-profit organization promoting
global education, recalled these experiences in the early days of her career.
After working a decade in various roles at a prestigious jewellery company,
Ms. Packard was headhunted as chief sales promoter for a company which was
about to start a new business. When she told her men friends about this opportunity, their comments were less than welcoming.
“You’ll never do it. After all, you’re a woman, so the stakes are too high.” Or“Become a consultant? Is that real work?” And sometimes, “Start an independentcompany?! Think carefully.”INDEX20 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

P R O F I L E ›› Keiko Packard
ONE WOMAN’S ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE IN THE JAPANESE WORKPLACE
Turning the tide
Packard explains how she drew on her reserves of grit and intelligence to turn this frustrating environment in her favour.
“After a while, I figured it all out,” she recalled. “The most
momentous time of my career was when I became sure of myexpertise and effort. Once I realized I mattered to the company,
I could stand up for myself and survive the male-dominatedcorporate culture.”
This hard-earned lesson was also linked to her awareness ofthe mindset of the older male managers around her. For example, at one point Packard was a member of a team handlinga project to develop a line of products foryounger customers.
“This new jewellery was affordable andtrendy and aimed to capture the growing
market of working women that emerged in
the early eighties. Our plan signalled a major
revolution for the company traditionally associated with high-end, exclusive products,”
she explained.
The new line brought young people into thestores and exposed them to fashion-jewellery
accessories.

working as the onsite director for a science and engineeringsummer program funded by the US government.
As well as offering cultural guiding services for academic
and business leaders from overseas, Ms Packard is currently
devoting her time to KIP, a group that focuses on discussion
and education aimed at helping college age and young professionals to understand global civic issues and to integrate moredeeply with their global peers at universities in the UnitedStates, Asia and Australia.

Selective lensThese goals are important because, Keiko
Packard believes, information in Japan isabsorbed through a selective prism. She
hopes that the KIP program, which she has
run for nearly 13 years, will contribute to a
new generation of Japanese who do not relyon learning through manuals, but rather bydevelop their own, individualized strategies.
Gender is still an issue, even at KIP, but
Ms. Packard is increasingly seeing college
women express themselves and push themselves forward. Ms. Packard tells these young
women not to forget who they are. As she“My talent wasUnderstanding from above
puts it, “It’s fine to pour tea for colleagues, aslong as there are equal opportunities for bothThat experience gave Packard new confirecognized bygenders to advance.”
dence, helped by the support and understandmymalesenior.
Our discussion of gender issues took an
ing of a sympathetic and reliable male boss.
interestingturn as we discussed the social“My talent was recognized by my male
Encouraged bypatterns deep-rooted in paternalistic Asiansenior. Encouraged by him, I travelled to interhim, I travelledsociety. Packard emphasized the importancenational conferences and represented theof strengthening one’s own determination.
company in the global marketplace.”
to international“I never wanted to be seen as a victim,”
conferences andGoing solo
explained Ms Packard. “I tended to responddirectly when asked for my opinions, an
When Packard set up her own consultancy, she
represented
attitude that sometimes resulted in embarrecalls, “I was strongly attracted to making mythe company
rassing moments. But I would sleep on suchown career on my own terms in Japan’s conincidents and return to work the next day –servative business world, even though most of
in the global
where I would still stick to my point.”
my male colleagues reacted as if I was crazy.”marketplace.”
Maintaining that spirit helped Packard
Later on, Packard’s marriage to an Americanacquire a sense of freedom from genderbanker led to a long stay in Hong Kong, wherepressures at work. As she sees it now, “Onceshe learned the importance of not only listenI had learned to cope and survive as an individual, I learned to
ing to different opinions but also voicing her own.
“Gender equality follows a similar pattern. We need to rec- become a leader.”We ended our conversation with her wise words: “I will beognize the difference between men and women and at thesame time realise the importance of respecting each other,” happy when the gender equality debate is based not on the divisions between women and men but rather seen from the broad
she said.
perspective of human beings, for that is who we are.”Coming home

Soon after returning to Japan with her family, Ms. Packard
continued her activities in cultural instruction and guiding,co-teaching a course on Japanese culture, and for eight years● Suvendrini Kakuchi is Tokyo Correspondent for University WorldNews in the UK.

INDEX21 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in JapanNO TURNING BACKWOMEN ARE SLOWLY TESTING
THEIR POWER IN JAPAN’S
MEDIA INDUSTRY

CLARISSE MEYER ON UNSPLASHCHIE MATSUMOTO AND DAVID MCNEILLL

ast April a reporter filed a lawsuit against Nagasaki city,
claiming she was raped by a senior city official. The
official, who worked for the city department that handles claims of radiation exposure from the 1945 atomic bomb, took his own life in November after reports emerged
linking him to the rape. It had taken 13 years before the woman
recovered and plucked up the courage to fight – but what madeher do so now?
One reason is changing attitudes toward harassment and sexual violence inside Japan’s media industry. A sign of this shift
was the decision in 2018 by a female reporter with TV Asahi topublicize harassment claims against then Vice Finance Minister
Junichi Fukuda, the nation’s most senior finance bureaucrat.
The broadcaster initially threatening to reprimand the reporterfor going public without consent from her source before apologizing. Fukuda subsequently resigned.

Landmark
Last December, journalist Shiori Ito won a landmark civil suitagainst Noriyuki Yamaguchi, a former Washington bureau chief
for TBS who she says raped her in a Tokyo hotel in 2015. Tokyo
district court ordered him to pay ¥3.3 million in damages. That
stunning denouement once looked very unlikely. Ito says she
was crushed by the reaction to her first press conference inJune 2017 when she aired her story to reporters. The response
was media indifference and a flood of hate mail.
Those cases have prompted others to come forward withtales of sexual harassment. Yuki Katayama, a veteran journalist
and reporter for the regional Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper,
recalls being propositioned for sex in the back of a car by asenior police officer. She was visibly pregnant at the time. Kaori

Hayashi, a journalist-turned-academic who now teaches at the
University of Tokyo, says she left the industry in the 1990s partly
because such experiences made it toxic. “I was groped, touched,or else discounted because I was a young woman,” she says.

Standard issue
The encounters are so routine, says Katayama, that female
reporters must learn to either laugh them off or quit. “If weraise a fuss about sexual harassment our sources will dry up,”
she wrote in the Hokkaido Shimbun. After the Fukuda scandal
broke, however, she began to rethink a professional lifetime ofsilence: “I was mentoring a junior reporter who confided in me.
She said she felt ill because every time she goes for drinks with
an important source, he touches her and uses obscenities. She
said, her voice shaking, ‘I can’t work as a reporter any more.’
I thought: ‘I have a responsibility to her.’”

Workforce numbers
Japan’s workforce is unusually lopsided: Women make up morethan half of all employees but they have barely dented senior
management. In journalism, the percentage of women reporters has doubled to 21.5% since 2001 when the Japan Newspaper
Publishers and Editors Association began counting. But women
occupy just 8.5% of managerial posts in newspapers and wire
services. (They fare better in broadcasting: 15%.)
https://bit.ly/2EPNbGv
Among the handful of powerful women in the industry are
Keiko Chino, an editorial board member of The Sankei newspaper, and Kazue Yonamine, chief editor of The Okinawa Times(by contrast, the top editors of The Economist, The Guardian,both major UK publications, are women). It’s hardly all goodnews outside Japan: while the latest diversity survey by theINDEX22 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in JapanNO TURNING BACKMay 2018: Chie Matsumoto (left) at the Women in Media Network Japan (WiMN) launch

American Society of News Editors finds women comprise over
40% of newsroom workforces, “men still dominate in every partof news, entertainment and digital media.”
https://bit.ly/3lvOvze
Harassment is common: 30% of Japanese women report unwanted sexual attention at work, according to Japan’s labor ministry. A
2018 survey of 428 men and women by a group of media unions
found an alarming 74% had been sexually harassed – everythingfrom unwanted touching to stalking and being forced to have sex.

Women in media
Women in the media are particularly at risk. Reporting in Japan
involves long hours spent socializing with mostly male sources.
Junior reporters are typically dispatched to regional bureaus
where they are assigned to press clubs attached to government
offices and police stations. Beating rivals to the punch in a system built on access involves cultivating sources, who may not
be above using information as bait for sexual favors. A 2018
survey found that a third of the perpetrators of sexual harassment against female reporters are police officers, politicians, orgovernment officials.
https://bit.ly/3hIujIb
Many women find themselves isolated. In June this year, a former Asahi Shimbun journalist blogged about her experience
reporting one of Japan's most popular summertime events, theAll Japan High School Baseball Tournament. She said a highschool athlete had come to her hotel room and masturbated in
front of her. She says she was also assaulted by a police officer(who later resigned). She left the Asahi last year, complainingthat the firm failed to take her claims seriously.
https://bit.ly/2YN2qY9

Omerta and its accomplices
The code of silence starts even before women land a position:
New recruits are asked during interviews whether they can handle sexual harassment because it is considered part of the job,says Kumiko Nakatsuka, former president of the Asahi Shimbun
Workers’ Union Osaka branch. Women build the all-importantquality of gaman (endurance) into their mental job spec. “Thisis how they are made to believe they are wrong and to think ofharassment as acceptable,” says Nakatsuka.
Victims who speak out may get little sympathy. Though
she won, Ito had to endure a flood of hate mail branded her a“prostitute” who had brought the assault on herself. With the
exception of the tabloid weeklies, the domestic media initiallymade little of her story. She has since filed deformation lawsuits
against several individuals, including right-wing LDP politician
Mio Sugita, who suggested Ito had brought the rape on herself
by dining alone with an older man.
Fukuda’s boss, Finance Minister Taro Aso, dismissed thebureaucrat’s misdeeds, saying the two had “talked” and he saw
no need to take the matter further. He later hinted that Fukuda

INDEX23 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in JapanNO TURNING BACK
had been victim of a honey trap and said that sexual harassment
was not, in any case, illegal in Japan. The way to stop harassmentof women reporters, he said, was to replace them with men.
Instead of launching a third-party investigation into theclaims, Finance Ministry bureaucrats posted Fukuda’s denials
on its website and called for his victims to come forward forinterview—with its own team of hired lawyers. Japan’s newspaper unions reacted furiously, calling the tactic “intimidation” ofwomen and the media.
“This involved a corporate journalist,” Nakatsuka says, a reference to the bifurcated world of full-time media workers andthe vast pool of part-timers and contract workers that prop up
the industry. Many full-time female employees began to worry
whether their employers would protect them if they faced thesame problem, she says. “It felt too close to home.”

chief had threatened to bar her from press conferences after
she refused his advances. Another described an attempted rapeby a senior colleague, who later pushed to transfer her. Many
recalled uncomfortable, sometimes frightening encounterswith bureaucrats, cops, and lawmakers. “In 20 years as a reporter I encountered countless cases of harassment and have neverspoken to anyone,” said one.

Room for improvement

Media companies have since introduced anti-harassment training. Many have passed resolutions promising to monitor whether reporters face intimidation during interviews. Bureaucrats
from the Finance Ministry were ordered to take a training course
on sexual harassment. A priceless picture was later released,showing a room full of stone-faced, mostly male bureaucrats
being lectured on inappropriate conduct toward women by a
Women in Media Network Japanwoman lawyer. Aso did not attend.
There is a long way to go. Depriving female reporters of equal
In 2019, a group of 86 journalists formed the Women in Media
Network Japan (WiMN), partly to generate solidarity for victims access to information and failing to protect them as whistleblowers is a threat to press freedom, says Mami
like Ito and to “expose harassment and abuse,”
Nakano, a Tokyo lawyer. “Rather than trying tosaid one of its members, Yoshiko Hayashi.
The importance
protect herself, the TV Asahi reporter was serv(full disclosure: Chie Matsumoto is part of theof the WiMN
ing the public’s right to know.” The importancecampaign). While the #MeToo moment flaredof the WiMN movement is that it expresses rare
briefly in Japan, the Japanese hashtag quickly
movement is thatcross-industry support for fellow journalists,
morphed into #WithYou — an acknowledgment
it expresses rare
and for women.
that victims in Japan might not want to admit
The Nagasaki reporter came forward
it has happened to them, even now. #WithYoucross-industry
because she knew her colleagues and theexpresses solidarity with women like Ito while
support for fellow industry had her back. Among her supporters
demanding an end to harassment. Women
was the Japan Federation of Bar Associations,
reporters were taken aback by the way TV
journalists, andwhich recommended that the city apologize
Asahi handled the case, says Nakatsuka. (Theforwomen.
and install measures to prevent more assaults.
reporter remains anonymous.)
Nagasaki has declined because the accused is
A dossier of stories compiled by WiMN in
May revealed two decades of harassment. All were anonymous, deceased. “I became a victim of sexual assault in my twenties
suggesting they feared that breaking the code of silence would and thought I'd die a victim,” says the woman. “I never thoughtharm their careers. In some cases their harassers have risen I'd live to see the day I became middle-aged. Now I am 41. I can
to positions of considerable authority. The stories formed the finally think about how I should live my life the way I want."
This is an updated version of an article that ran in the Columbia
basis of The State of Sexual Harassment in the Media, (マスコミ・
Journalism Review on August 7th, 2018.
セクハラ白書), published earlier this year.
https://bit.ly/3lnKflk

Cases closed

This is not an easy read. For example, Junko Hirano (not her
real name), writes that a male colleague invited her for a drinkwith a police officer because he thought she would have a better chance of getting a critical lead to an important story. She
ended up being treated like a “party companion”. The cop insisted in taking her to the front door of her apartment where hethrew his arms around her. “I was so afraid,” she recalled. “Even
if I reported it, who would have believed me?”Ao Ideta, then a rookie Tokyo Shimbun newspaper reporter,
recalls a police chief jumping her and forcibly kissing her after
an interview. Another print reporter in her forties said a police● Chie Matsumoto is a journalist, interpreter and translator. She
reports for magazines and online sites both in Japanese and English,
and lectures at Hosei University in Tokyo. She also acts as a research
assistant in information studies at the University of Tokyo.
● David McNeill is co-chair of the FCCJ’s Professional Activities
Committee and a professor at the Department of English Language,
Communication and Cultures at Sacred Heart University in Tokyo.
He was previously a correspondent for The Independent and The
Economist newspapers and for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

INDEX24 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in Japan

JAPAN’S FAR MOREFEMALE FUTURE
BILL EMMOTTANALYSES WOMEN IN
THE WORKPLACE
VICKI L. BEYER

I

n the late 1980s, after his three years as
bureau chief for the Economist in Tokyo,
Bill Emmott wrote The Sun Also Sets: The
Limits to Japan’s Economic Power, thinking it would be his swansong vis-à-vis Japan.
Little did he realize then what many of us
who’ve made our careers in Japan know well,that Japan can be like some viruses: once it’s inyour blood, you’ve got it for life.
The Sun Also Sets went on to become a bestseller and Japan became an important part ofEmmott’s work. Of his 14 books to date, including six published only in Japanese, ten havebeen about Japan.
Emmott’s latest book has taken for its topic
a phenomenon related to Japan’s 21st century
demographics: the rise of women in leadership
positions in the Japanese workplace. Publication of Japan’s Far More Female Future:
Increasing Gender Equality and Reducing
Workplace Insecurity Will Make Japan Stronger is scheduled for publication on 25 September 2020, but here’s a preview.

Why women?
PHOTO BY JOHN-CAIRNS

While this may seem an odd choice for a malewriter whose work generally analyses political-economic trends, it is precisely Emmott’s
analytical skill that makes the topic of womenin the Japanese workforce well worth his close
attention. As Emmott puts it, “the real art forjournalists and academics alike is not chiefly
one of interpreting events but rather that ofdetecting and analysing the changes that takeplace more gradually, below the surface, out ofsight of the TV cameras.” This is what he doesin Japan’s Far More Female Future: identify thefactors most likely to drive change to “women’s role in society, the economy, and politics”
going forward.

Emmott has always maintained that it is his
job as a journalist and author to be proactive, inparticular analyzing data to uncover patterns
and trends that might slip past reactive writers
who focus on reflecting conventional wisdom.
Emmott insists this approach doesn’t make him
a contrarian; instead he characterizes himself
as “instinctively suspicious of well-establishedBill Emmott, looking longer,
thinking deeperINDEX25 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in Japan
JAPAN’S FAR MORE FEMALE FUTURE
views”. He made that very clear in The Sun Also Sets.
Although Emmott has published frequently on Japan andother economic and political topics across the three decades
between The Sun Also Sets and Japan’s Far More Female Future,
the latter begins like a sequel. Kicking off in 1989, Part One ofJapan’s Far More Female Future provides a detailed examination of the Heisei years, marked by Japan’s rapid economic
decline and the demographic shift that Emmott had forecast in
his earlier book.

Mismanaging realities
It is, of course, no coincidence that Japan’s economic downturnin early Heisei came just as Japanese demographics shiftedfrom the “dividend” (large working-age population) to the “burden” stage (large non-working age population; in particular anageing population). Demographic experts have long held that
employment practices in those two stages must, of necessity,
be different, with broader, more accommodating employment
practices in the burden stage when workers are necessarily
drawn from more diverse elements of a nation’s population.
Successful transition from one stage to the other requires rapid
response, which is where Japan has failed up to now.
Why were Japanese business practices so slow to adapt tothe post-bubble situation? Emmott’s explanation is that after the
bubble burst, policy makers and many private companies clungto tried and true practices, believing – or as Emmott suggests,
wishfully thinking – the downturn to be a temporary blip. Of
course, that assumption failed to recognize not only economic
realities but also an irreversible demographic dilemma. Oncea country has moved from dividend to burden stage, it nevergoes back.
At the same time, such a powerful economy as Japan’s at theend of the 1980s could coast for a very long time. In a sense
this has been Japan’s saving grace, but it has also allowed
Japan to make only incremental changes to its legal, economicand employment landscape that, in the end, may cause more
harm than good.

The gig economy
One “incremental” change with seismic consequences for Japanese society has already arrived in Japanese employment practices. While so-called lifetime employment remains the gold
standard for employment in the eyes of most Japanese, fewer
and fewer lifetime opportunities are available. Instead, mostlarge employers have come to rely on a substantial number ofworkers engaged on fixed-term contracts or unstable part-timearrangements. Such workers get little or no ongoing training
and have little prospect of career advancement.
They are also overwhelmingly female, supplemented in thiscontingent sector by a growing cohort of entry-level and retiring workers. Emmott accurately characterizes this situation as“the under-use and long-term erosion of the country’s humancapital”, a shocking turn of events for a country whose greatest
natural resource is its people. All this in an economy facing asevere labour shortages.

Reasons to be cheerful
At the same time, Emmott, with his sharp eye on gradual,
deep-level changes, sees increased labour participation by
women with optimism. Noting how, particularly after Japan’s
Equal Employment Opportunity Act took effect in 1986, thenumber of women choosing four year universities over two year
junior colleges increased substantially and continues to do so,
Emmott also demonstrates how this trend is finally beginningto place women in senior leadership positions and postulates
that the prospects for increased equality for working women
can only increase from here.
Emmott concludes Part One with the observation that asignificant problem for many women as they seek to establish
or build their careers is the lack of role models. He then uses
Part Two to introduce readers to 21 female role models acrossa diverse sampling of careers and work styles, a surprising andINDEX26 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

F E A T U R E ›› Women in Japan
JAPAN’S FAR MORE FEMALE FUTURE
welcome shift from Emmott’s partiality for crunching people’s
data rather than actually talking to people.
What he finds is that women aren’t subject to the same stigma
as men if they choose to leave a job because they don’t see any
future in it. Consequently, women are far more likely than men
to vote with their feet when employers don’t grant them career
opportunities at the same pace as they do men, or overlook
them in the promotion season: for good reason, it is often suggested that men are promoted based on potential while women
get promoted based on achievement. Without tangible opportunities on their horizon, Emmott’s examples show women on aspectrum from simply finding other jobs to going on to further
education, often overseas, and/or becoming entrepreneurs.

Japan’s women entrepreneurs
Most of the businesswomen in Emmott’s profiles found successoutside Japan’s mainstream business world. While Japan is notorious for quashing ventures that don’t originate in the mainstream,
there tends to be more tolerance of female entrepreneurs. For aworking woman, does this tolerance stem from not being taken
seriously until her business model is so well-established that it
cannot be ignored, or is something else going on?
Or perhaps it is something else, that the business ideas offemale entrepreneurs come from diverse viewpoints and are
driven by practicality. It is interesting to note how many of therole models Emmott presents have come up with creative,
entrepreneurial business models that not only provide functioning livelihoods but have also enhanced society and even theeconomy of Japan. Whether it’s starting a business to recycle
used school uniforms, developing a cleaner waste-management system or building a chain of childcare services, Emmott’s
subjects have succeeded partly because they saw a need thatno one else saw until they stepped in.

The cost of the climb
Nearly all of Emmott’s subjects have had non-standard or
non-mainstream careers, although there are notable examples
of a diplomat and an executive in a large electronics company.
Exceptions that prove the rule?
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and founder of LeanIn.org,
would be pleased to see that the role models who are married
with families have husbands who are true life partners, helping
at home and with raising the children. At the same time, many of
the role models Emmott spoke to are single or childless women.
As Masako Kamiya of Gakushuin University noted even before
the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, women in Japan could
be just as successful as men as long as they were willing to workon the same terms, the same hours, single-mindedly devoting
themselves to their employer’s demands and jettisoning the distractions and obligations of family life, which for most of themmeant remaining single. Decades later, Kamiya’s observations
are as valid as ever.

Bill at the FCCJ

Exceptions or mould-breakers?
One could be forgiven for concluding that the role models
Emmott offers are not really representative of Japan’s female
workforce. As Emmott himself notes, those who rise to thehighest echelons are, perforce, exceptional, irrespective ofgender. Yet the accomplishments of these women cannot
diminish their value as exemplars. The very diversity of
Emmott’s subjects tells this reader that there is something in
there for everyone.
In the final part of Japan’s Far More Female Future, Emmottissues a call to action, detailing a dozen public and private practices that must change if the Japanese economy is to fulfil its
potential despite its 21st century demographic dilemma. His
proposals and conclusions are based on sound political andeconomic reasoning and echo others’ ideas, most notably thoseof strategy maven Kathy Matsui, originator of the term “Womenomics”. Such proposals all bear repeating. Emmott’s fundamental conclusion is that the Japanese male establishment
cannot afford to ignore the necessity for change.
As a political economist, Emmott avoids getting tangled
in cultural arguments relating to the trends he has analysed,
perhaps wisely so. It is undeniable that Japan’s aversion tochange is a powerful brake on women’s advancement towards
workplace equality. But if Japan continues to walk while othercountries run, it will inevitably fall behind. For Japan to delay
qualitative diversification of its workplace, the way it delayed
recognizing and responding to the reality of Japan’s economic downturn in the early 1990s, is not just courting economic
failure, it is a shame.
● Vicki L. Beyer is a travel writer, a kanji on the 2020 FCCJ Board, anda professor in the Hitotsubashi University Graduate School of Law
Business Law Department.

INDEX27 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

CLUB NEWSNew in the library

New members
PROFESSIONAL/JOURNALIST ASSOCIATE MEMBERSTOYOAKI TAKADA: Head Executive Officer, Ise Shimbun in Mie
Prefecture
MARI YAMAUCHI: Independent Scholar/Writer
REINSTATEMENT (PROFESSIONAL/JOURNALIST ASSOCIATE)
CHIYOKA TORII, Author and part-time instructor of Nihon University
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
YOSHIKI KITAMURA: Director, Paw in Hand
YUKIKO SAKO: Director, Paw in Hand
MASAHIRO MAKIGUCHI: President & CEO, Dentsu Public Relations Inc.
SHINJI TAKEI: CEO, BH Auction Co., Ltd.
SHOHICHI WATANABE: President, Citius Communications Japan K.K.
YOICHIRO YAMAZAKI: President, Yamakin (Japan) Co., Ltd.

1
Sharing a House with the Never-Ending
Man: 15 Years at Studio Ghibli
Steve Alpert
Stone Bridge Press

2
Routledge Handbook of Memory
and Reconciliation in East Asia
Edited by Mikyoung Kim
Routledge

3
Breasts and Eggs
Mieko Kawakami
Europa Editions

Exhibitions
09/05 - 10/02

Osamu Nagahama: Cotton Fields

10/03 - 11/06

Photo Correspondent
Stanley Troutman:
From Hollywood to
the Pacific War
Atsugi airfield, Japan, August. 30, 1945: Defeated Japanese forces march past US Army Air Forceplanes. Later that day, General Douglas MacArthur arrived to take control of the base, then oversightof Japan as Supreme Leader of Allied Forces Pacific (SCAP) from 1945-1951.
PHOTO STANLEY TROUTMAN ESTATE.

4
Travels with a Writing Brush: ClassicalJapanese Travel Writing from the
Manyoshu to Basho
Selected and translated by Meredith
McKinney
Penguin Books

5
Mass Media, Consumerism and National
Identity in Postwar Japan (SOAS Studies inModern and Contemporary Japan)
Martyn David Smith
Bloomsbury Academic

28 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

PHOTOGRAPHYO S A M U
NAGAHAMAI

n the 1960s, just on the right side of 50, during the trip. However, going through their
Osamu Nagahama took a break from com- countryside gave me an opportunity to capture
mercial photography tothe landscapes which saw thetravel to the US Cotton
birth of the blues.
Belt to photograph bluesA few days into my second
men, their families, and tell us
trip, I asked a young gas staabout their lives. Nagahama
tion attendant in the Missisheaded for the South, moving
sippi Delta if there were any
and shooting, ten journeys
blues artists around?
from Japan to the USA and“Oh yes,” he said “there’s
back over five years.
an old drunk who plays a
In that time, Nagahama
mean guitar. I’ll introduce
shot film photographs for a
him to you.”documentary featuring over
And that was how I got toseventy blues musicians, takknow James San Thomas,
ing around 42,000 photos.
the first of many musicians
His photographs are warm
I photographed.
Osamu
Nagahama
blows
a
mean
and close, honest and modI never expected to meetsaxophone
est as the music that inspireda child of the father of thethem. Here’s how he remembers some of his Delta Blues, the legendary Charley Patton.
travels into the Cotton Belt.
Seventy-six year-old Rosetta Patton was living
right by the Dockery Farm in Mississippi, once
Osamu Nagahama
the location of the cotton plantation where“On the first of many journeys I made for this her father was raised and started to play the
documentary, I drove from Atlanta to Chicago, blues. There was no doubt about her being his
expecting to meet many bluesmen along the daughter. She looked exactly like him. Rosetta
way. I was taken back that the music and the insisted on showing me proof and broughtmusicians were not as popular as I had imag- out her birth certificate with Rosetta Patton
ined. There were only a few chance encounters written on it.”

INDEX

29 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

PHOTOGRAPHYOSAMU NAGAHAMAJack Owens 1904-1997“Whenever on tour, we always have guns
holstered on our waists. That was our outfit”
Photo by Osamu Nagahama.

INDEX

30 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

PHOTOGRAPHYOSAMU NAGAHAMAJames San Thomas 1926-1993
Recognized as an artist that is
carrying on the blues tradition, he
was invited to play at Black Culture
Heritage Dinner hosted by President
Reagan. Photo by Osamu Nagahama.

INDEX

31 | FCCJ | SEPTEMBER 2020

PHOTOGRAPHYOSAMU NAGAHAMA

I was especially thrilled when meeting with a daughter of Charley Patton, oneof the most outstanding players of Delta Blues. She was living in a ghetto of
the Dockery Farm in Mississippi. Rosetta Patton, she was already 76 year-old
at that time. Photo by Osamu Nagahama.

INDEX

p
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