The Japan Society Year in Review 2012
Heidi Potter
Where 2011 was dominated by the Great East Japan Earthquake and its
aftermath, 2012 was a year of celebration, with the Queen’s Diamond
Jubilee and the London Olympics. During a visit by their Majesties,
the Emperor and Empress of Japan, to the UK to attend the Jubilee
celebrations, they met with members of the British and Japanesecommunities, including the Japan Society, to thank them for their support
following the Earthquake. During the Olympic period, the Japan Society
joined with the Japan Association, Japanese Chamber of Commerceand Industry and Nippon Club, to watch live footage and cheer on theJapanese team at 2012 Japan House.
At the Annual General Meeting in June, Christopher Purvis stood
down as chairman of the Society at the end of his six year term. During
this time, the Society made significant changes both in its activities andfinancial structure.
The Society is a charity with an educational mission. In 2012, thatmission is being accomplished both though activities attended bymembers and through engagement with a broader audience, particularly
school children. Under Christopher’s leadership the Society remainedtrue to its roots as an organization promoting the academic study ofJapan, providing a platform for learned discussion and debate throughlectures and other events, with a fine library and occasional publications.
At the same time, an increasing number of events are now open to thewider public and much effort and expenditure is devoted to the schools
education programme. The importance of inspiring young people to lookbeyond their own borders to understand another culture, particularly
one as rich and important as that of Japan, cannot be underestimated.
This shift in activity has been reflected in a change in financial
model. The majority of the Society’s expenditure is now funded bygenerous donors, individuals and companies, who share this vision
for the UK-Japan relationship and who have enabled the Society todouble its annual turnover during these six years. The Society is gratefulto all those who have given such support and has much for which toJapan Society Proceedings

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thank Christopher. It was fitting that Christopher was decorated by theGovernment of Japan, receiving The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold andSilver Rays, from His Majesty the Emperor in November 2012.
Sir David Warren KCMG, whose tour of duty as Ambassador in Japan
did not finish until November, was elected chairman with effect from 1January 2013.
Events in 2012
The objectives of the Japan Society stress its educational mission: thecentral aim of its activity is to enhance understanding of Japanese lifeand culture and to promote links between Japan and the UK. This informs
all areas of its programme: direct school-focused education initiatives;
lectures and seminars for the general public and business leaders; events
introducing aspects of the culture of both countries; opportunities forpeople to meet in more informal
settings; small grants made insupport of Japan-related projects
organized by others. Financial
support from donors enables theSociety to include a significant
number of low cost or free eventsin its programme, to offer themajority of its schools education
services free of charge, and to set
aside up to £30,000 to support
events organized by others andwhich are in furtherance of theSociety’s objectives.
In 2012, the Society
organized over eighty different
events spanning a wide range ofsubject and format. The general
events programme included:
the annual dinner and Christmas Magician Katsu performing at the Japan Societyparty; twelve business related
Annual Dinner 20128

Japan Society Year in Review

events; thirteen conversation group events; twenty events aimed atyounger members or families; four chairman’s lunches; sixteen lecturesand eleven art and culture events. The programme also included several
events which focused on the recovery in Tohoku and assessment ofcurrent needs and activity in the region.
The business programme
As usual, a series of events relating to business issues provided
opportunities to share ideas and information relating to topical issues. In
developing this programme, the Society is pleased to work in partnershipwith others including JETRO, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce andIndustry in the UK (JCCI), and several member companies.
The series of joint lunches with the JCCI were again held at theNational Liberal Club; each featured a special guest who spoke briefly
after the meal, before taking questions off the record. Philip Stephens ofthe Financial Times, who under the heading Prospects for the Coalition
gave his observations on the Government and the challenges it would
face in the coming year particularly in relation to the UK’s role within
Europe, was the guest in February. The subject for Robin Niblett, Directorof Chatham House, was From West to East: Testing the Re-balance inwhich he discussed shifts of power and influence across the globe andhow Japan, the UK and other countries in the Western world should
adjust in the face of the impressive economic growth of the BRICs. Also
during the year, Glen Fukushima, former President & CEO of Airbus Japan,
looked at Developments in Corporate Japan, the Japanese Ambassador
reviewed his time in office and assessed the state of UK Japan relations,and Lord Janvrin spoke on The Monarchy and its relevance in modern
day Britain.
Running in parallel with these lunches, a series of lunchtime seminars
allowed members to hear from experts and discuss topical issues ingreater depth. The Society is again grateful to the director-general andstaff of JETRO, who hosted these events, which included a panel on
Climate Change and Japan’s Perspective on the 17th Conference of theParties at the start of the year and culminated in a discussion of Global
Warming and Energy Challenges for Japan and the UK in September.
Japan Society Proceedings

9Other sessions included an update on tourism recovery by Ryoichi
Matsuyama, President of JNTO and a briefing on UK-Japan Trade by Sue
Kinoshita, Director of Trade and Investment at the British Embassy inTokyo.
Two particularly popular lectures were held in February. The
annual lecture by the British Ambassador, Sir David Warren, was broadin scope as he reviewed the events of the past year. He spoke about
the Embassy’s response to the earthquake and the nuclear disaster atthe Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor as well as reporting on economicand political developments. (The transcript of this lecture was printed inProceedings 148). Later in the month, fashion designer Paul Smith joined
Andrew Fraser, chairman of the Society’s business group in conversation,
providing insights into his business practices and obvious love of Japan,
which gave the audience a clear indication of why he had met with suchsuccess in the Japanese market.
In addition to the general business programme, the chairman helda series of small lunches in which key figures based in both the UK and

Sir David Warren, the new chairman of the Japan Society from 1 January 2013

10Japan Society Year in Review

Japan were invited to meet senior members of the Society. Guests in2012 were Miranda Curtis, who discussed business practice and herexperience over two decades on the board of a Japanese company,Lord Hall who addressed the subject of Business, Government and theArts, Roger Gifford who highlighted the topics that would feature on
his agenda as the incoming Lord Mayor of London, and George Olcott,currently on the board of several Japanese companies, who assessed theprospects for globalization of business in Japan. Thanks to the member
companies who hosted these events: PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG,
HSBC and BlackRock respectively.
A broad appealThe Society continued to offer a broad general programme of formal andinformal events to appeal to people with a wide range of interests andages. 2012 was a good year for Japanese theatre in London with group
visits arranged to three very different productions: The Bee directed byHideki Noda, Coriolanus performed by the Chiten Theatre Company
from Kyoto and Yukio Ninagawa’s Cymbeline. Though both adaptationsof Shakespeare, Chiten’s minimalist Coriolanus was as different fromNinagawa’s sumptuous Cymbeline as it was from Noda’s unsettlingcontemporary play about a family taken hostage.
Members also had the opportunity to attend private views of theKitsch Kogei exhibition at the ICN Gallery, the Yayoi Kusama retrospectiveat Tate Modern and Mariko Mori’s Rebirth at The Royal Academy. A visit
to the archive at Kew Gardens revealed exquisite botanical paintings onwood, while a workshop by Yoko Takenami encompassed different styles
of calligraphy from block kanji to cursive kana. Other events included
food and drink tastings, golf tournaments, social events, provision offamily workshops at HyperJapan and support of the Japanese Olympic
team through attendance at special screenings at 2012 Japan Houseduring the period of the Games.
The monthly book club continued to grow in strength with a goodmix of regular and occasional participants. Books chosen were usuallyavailable in translation in both Japanese and English and in 2012 allwere by Japanese authors or set in Japan, including literary classics
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11and contemporary fiction. A highlight was a talk by author Lian Hearn,
perhaps best known for her Otori trilogy, who spoke about her latest
work Blossoms and Shadows, an historical novel set amidst the confusionof the bakumatsu period.
In its fourth year, Japan Matsuri moved to Trafalgar Square foranother successful event on 6 October. The Japan Society has a formalrole as corporate director of the Japan Matsuri company, with Sean
Curtin as its nominated representative on the board. Staging Matsuri
in Trafalgar Square required the engagement of a specialist team. This
increased the cost of the event, but reduced the administrative burden
on the four partner organizations: the Japanese Chamber of Commerceand Industry in the UK, the Japan Association, the Nippon Club and theJapan Society. Volunteers from each organization took responsibility
for managing different elements of the event. Approximately 70,000
people visited Japan Matsuri on a sunny autumn day, which featured
food provided by many of London’s Japanese restaurants, activities forchildren and a packed programme on both the main stage and martial
arts area. A first for 2012 was participation by a team of NHK Radio Taiso

The martial arts stage at Japan Matsuri 2012 (Image © British Naginata Association)

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Japan Society Year in Review

presenters, who put visitors to Matsuri through their paces.
The conversation group continued to meet once a month in acentral London pub in which it creates a space where only Japaneseis spoken. It allows Japanese and non-Japanese, members and nonmembers, to talk in a friendly and informal setting, to maintain anddevelop their language skills. Special events during the year, such as thehanami picnic in April, are always popular. The Society again ran three
10-week courses in pre-intermediate Japanese, kindly hosted by TorayEurope.
London Lectures
The lectures programme as usual covered a wide range of subject matter.
The monthly academic lecture, held every third Monday, formed the coreof this aspect of our public programming. In addition to those featured
in this volume, lectures in 2012 included Nicole Rousmaniere’s expert
survey Collecting Japanese Ceramics for the British Museum in the later
19th century; Aaron Moore’s study of the war diaries of Japanese soldiersfrom 1937-1940 The Crucible of Self; new insights into The Tale of Genji inRajayshree Pandy’s Gender, Power and the Erotic Body; Photography andthe 1960 Anpo Crisis by Julia Adeney Thomas; Helen Woolley’s report ona research trip to post-earthquake Tohoku Children’s Lost Landscapes; asearch for Tengu and the Warrior Traditions by Roald Knutsen and HughCortazzi’s introduction to his latest book, Images of Japan 1885-1912:
Scenes, Tales and Flowers.
The Society took opportunities to work in partnership with otherorganizations, including SOAS, Chelsea College of Art and Design, theDaiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation and Japan Room to open these,and other, lectures to a wide audience of members, students and thegeneral public. The 2012 Carmen Blacker Lecture, in partnership with
the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, wasgiven by Professor Ben-Ami Shillony and is reprinted in this volume.
Japan Society Small Grants
An annual sum of up to £30,000 is set aside for grants in support ofJapan Society Proceedings

13small-scale projects and events related to Japan. These grants provide
opportunities for people throughout the British Isles to participate ineducation and exchange relating to Japan. Applications are encouraged
from those organizing grassroots projects and from schools and othereducational establishments. Attention is focused on projects wherea relatively small injection of funds can make a real difference andwhich increase awareness and understanding of Japan and its culture.
In 2012, 40 grants were made averaging approximately £600 each. Of
these some 24 were organized in schools or provided opportunities forschool students to participate in Japan-related activities. These ranged
from Japan Days to complement ongoing study of Japan or Japanese
language, to funding for workshops using role plays on emergency
response after Tohoku to develop geography skills, and student research
activities on contemporary literature. Young people were involved inresearch, display and conservation work on items in the collection at
Sheffield Museums and a community radio project is enabling 15-18
year olds in Leeds to work with counterparts in Tokyo and Tohoku. Other
small grants were given for the creation of educational resources andprogrammes to accompany the Threads of Silk and Gold exhibition at theAshmolean Museum, Oxford; the provision of workshops by Marewrew,
an Ainu Upopo group, at the WOMAD festival, and the developmentof butoh workshops in London. Support was also given to community
Japan Days in Basildon, Glasgow, Liverpool, London and Sheffield.
Schools Education
Within the constraints of the National Curriculum, it is neverthelesspossible to use Japanese themes to enhance teaching and learning inmany subjects besides geography. The Society provides opportunities
to make cross-curricular connections and equips teachers with theresources to teach about Japan within their subject areas.
As well as working in partnership with local authorities, it provides
materials directly to schools throughout the country, including loan
resources supplied to approximately 70 schools each year. In 2012, theSociety supported the 12th JAL World Children’s Haiku Contest, which
was entered by students from 37 schools from Shetland to the South14

Japan Society Year in Review

West of England and Northern Ireland.
Discover Japan teacher in-service training courses were held in
Loughborough and Edinburgh with a focus on ideas for primary school
teachers and art teachers, who explored ways to bring Japan alive
through, for example, soroban, kamishibai story telling activities, haiku,
woodblock printing and manga. The Society also provided a special
talk about the situation in Japan, since the earthquake and nuclear
emergency, at the 2012 Geographical Association Conference, which
was given by Dr Peter Matanle from Sheffield University.
During the year visits were made by volunteers in Greater London,
Brighton, Derby, Manchester and South Wales to some eighty schools.
For most students a Japan in Your Classroom visit is their first opportunity
to meet a Japanese person and to hear about Japan first-hand; the visits
have a lasting impact. Special visits to schools were arranged with haiku
poet, Sho Otaka, and by Radio Taiso presenters. These complemented
other work the schools were doing on Japan and broadened pupils’
experience and understanding of the country.
The Society’s activity is not limited to primary schools and 180
sixth form students of Japanese and their teachers attended a oneday conference on 9 November which gave them insights into life inJapan, less familiar aspects of Japanese culture, and information on
opportunities to continue the study of Japan and Japanese beyond
school at university, either in the UK or Japan.
Support for school links has continued to be an important elementof the Society’s work. Approximately fifteen new links were established,with some sixty school partnerships now using Japan UK LIVE! and related
services to develop their links. In thus removing the language barrier, theJapan Society enables teachers and students to concentrate on what
information they would like to share with their partners. The experienceof communicating with and learning from peers on the other side of
the world inspires students to look beyond their local community andbecome more aware of the world around them. A school linking seminar
was held in Osaka in July, which provided the opportunity for Japaneseteachers to share experience and learn from each other about working
effectively with their British partner schools.

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