japanamerica

Virgin territory: why the Japanese are turning their backs on sex The Guardian Young people in Japan – particularly men – are shunning physical love, and they’re not the only ones The grounds of Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park have been colonised by beautiful youth: women and men beneath the cherry blossoms surrounded by bottles of wine, sake and shochu, cases of beer and plastic bags stuffed with finger foods – drinking, playing games and sharing smartphone screens as the buds bloom and fall. Hanami (flower-viewing) parties are a centuries-old rite of spring, a national symbol of life’s beauty and brevity. But as I walk by them this month, I can’t help but wonder if any of the pink-faced revellers are hooking up, or even care enough to try. “Sexless Japan” is now a reliable media meme. Bolstered by a plummeting birth rate and an ageing population (leading to dire predictions of a future Japan devoid of Japanese), this portrait of the nation’s celibate society has been further enhanc...

Japan’s pop culture and literature drive soft power Anime, manga and Haruki Murakami may form an unlikely trinity, but outside of Japan they’re responsible for filling Japanese Studies departments and sprawling convention halls with generations of the devoted. They’re at the core of Japan’s global allure, the center of its soft power, and last month I was immersed in all three in the span of two weeks in two countries: the United Kingdom and the United States. In Japan they’ve been around for decades, yet they continue to draw younger audiences abroad. It was 40 years ago that Murakami decided he could write a novel after watching an American baseball player hit a double for the Yakult Swallows, his favorite Japanese team. That novel, 1979’s “Hear the Wind Sing,” won Japan’s Gunzo Prize for New Writers and launched the literary career of a rarity: a bona-fide international best-selling writer who is now short-listed annually for the Nobel Prize in literature. Twenty years...

Honored to be joining friends and colleagues in Newcastle, UK for "Eyes on Murakami," a symposium on the 40th anniversary of Haruki Murakami's life in fiction.

Back on the road.