Welcome
Are you interested in Japan? Its people? Its culture? Its language?
If so, come and join us!
Japan Society North West holds regular Japan-related events in the Manchester / Liverpool / Cheshire / Lancashire region. For full details see events.
Breaking News . . . read about Japan Day in the Liverpool Echo
News
On Monday 11th February, Manchester celebrated its important links with Japan with a reception to mark the appointment last month of a Japanese Honorary Consul in Manchester. The Consul, Mr. Peter Heginbotham is the current Chair of Manchester Enterprises and senior partner in one of the city's well-known law practices.
It was the second occasion for the Japanese Ambassador, His Excellency Yoshiji Nogami to visit the Town Hall. The first time was when he honoured our JSNW Open Day in October 2006. He referred to the Society and to that occasion when he made his speech during the evening. The Lord Mayor was also present at the event as well as representatives of the many UK and Japanese Companies in the North West.
The reception included the ceremony of Kagami-Biraki, where the lid of a sake barrel is drummed and broken open with wooden mallets, and everyone shares the rice-wine.
Angela Davies (Chairman JSNW) and Alice Hynes (Vice-Chairman JSNW) attended the event as representatives of the JSNW.
Next JSNW Event
John Milne: Volcanoes and Earthquakes of Meiji Japan
Saturday, 31 May 2008
Paul Kabrna of the Craven and Pendle Geological Society will give a talk entitled "John Milne: Volcanoes and Earthquakes of Meiji Japan". In Japan Milne worked on Japan’s Volcanoes, their formation and geological distribution. Milne founded the Seismological Society of Japan. The Mino-Owari earthquake of 28th October, 1891, with its spectacular faulting, helped convince Milne that faulting caused earthquakes by the release of strain energy which had been stored in rock through the slow deformation of the Earth's crust. On leaving Japan in 1895 with his wife Tone, Milne was presented with the Order of the Rising Sun from the Meiji Emperor - an honour rarely accorded to any foreigner.
After the talk there will be time for questions and then some tea, coffee and chocolate cake.
Followed by the Society's Annual General Meeting.
Venue: Padgate Community Centre, Station Road, Padgate, Warrington WA2 0QS
What's On
Diabolic Kyogen
Wednesday 14th to Saturday 17th May 2008
A comedy double bill directed by Jonathan Man.
Weighed Down By Love, translated by JSNW member Judy Kendall with Iris Elgrichi. A unique chance to see a knockabout Japanese kyogen comedy. Two sparring servants scheme to undermine their dominant master with disastrous results.
The Diabolic Banquet, a new play by Rob Hayes with dramaturgy by Noel Grieg. With a corpse in their living room and a street full of nosy neighbours, two reclusive housemates decide that there's only one way out: Murder, and lots of it!
Details Box Office: 0161 274 0600 Venue: Contact, Oxford Road, Manchester, M15 6JA
Art of Japan
28 April - 30 May 2008
An exhibition of prints and paintings from the Peter Scott Gallery Trust Collection at Lancaster University and on loan from Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery. Lancaster's international art collection features work by Japanese artists dating from the 17th Century to the 1960s, including Buddhist woodcut prints, surimono prints, scroll paintings and careful studies of the natural world.
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery holds one of the most comprehensive collections of Japanese prints outside of London. The collection includes landscapes, pictures of famous courtesans, portraits of actors and scenes of everyday life, by masters of the Ukiyo-e school such as Hokusai, Hiroshige and Utamaro.
Venue: Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YW
Japanese Culture
Tuesday 15th, Wednesday 16th and Thursday 17th July at 1.45 pm.
A screening of short films on Japanese Culture.
The film titles are:
The Best Selection of Kabuki i Kanjincho (43 mins)
Sushi basic- How to make Sushi (20 mins)
Kazari: Decoration & Display in Japan 15th-19th Century (16 mins)
Kenrouken: A Chronicle of the Renowned Garden (16 mins)
Venue: Treasure House Theatre, World Museum Liverpool, William Brown Street, Liverpool L3 8EN
Study Tours to Japan
30th March – 11th April 2008
20th April – 4th May 2008
Akemi Solloway is leading two study tours to Japan in the spring of 2008, staying in the homes of local Japanese families and experiencing at first hand the arts, culture and lifestyle of Japanese people. Details Visit Akemi's web site for more information.
Japanese Food in Lymm
Japanese Food Specialists TK Trading set up shop in Lymm High School every other Saturday - see their web site for the schedule.
Venue: Lymm High School, Oughtrington Lane, Lymm, Cheshire WA13 0RB
Amazing Anime Association
The Amazing Anime Association meets on the 3rd Friday of each month at 7 pm to watch and talk about anime. For more information contact Angela Robinson.
Venue: Blackburn Central Library
Japan07
Expore Japan07, our exclusive high resolution tour of Japan.
Books
The Japanese Way – Garden Designs by Maureen Busby
The standard approach of the various authors of books
on Japanese gardens is to describe the historical development of gardens in Japan, then to illustrate the different styles and elements of traditional Japanese gardens. In more recent times, some have also featured designs of a few Japanese style gardens outside of Japan.
This publication is different: it contains no references to historical gardens but instead demonstrates by example how the elusive principles of the Japanese tradition can be employed in a western setting. It is simply a selection of designs by Maureen Busby, an acclaimed designer of Japanese style gardens, which were created for her clients, covering a broad range of locations and styles.
Published by and obtainable from: The Japanese Garden Society
"John Milne: the man who mapped the shaking earth" by Paul Kabrna
John Milne made his name and reputation in Japan where he is better remembered than in his home country. He was appointed as Professor of Geology and Mining at the newly formed Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo in 1875 when still only 25, whereupon he began an epic overland journey described in fascinating detail by Kabrna.
Once in Japan Milne was ideally placed to initiate study of such geological phenomena as volcanoes and earthquakes and it was his development of an effective instrument, the seismograph, which allowed him to make substantial contributions to our understanding of earthquakes. Not least of these was the realization that major earthquakes are not related to volcanic activity. Using his seismographs, which he continued to develop and improve throughout his life, Milne measured thousands of Japanese earthquakes. He was one of the first to realize that large earthquakes can be measured anywhere in the world. Review Amazon.co.uk
‘Pro Bono’ – a new translation by Andrew Clare
Matsumoto Seicho (1909 – 1992) was Japan’s most successful (and certainly most prolific) writer of detective fiction. His novels are characterised by their psychological complexity (of both plot and characters), his high quality literary style, extensive research of his subject matter and, perhaps most significantly, his emphasis on social realism.
In the latest translation of a Matsumoto Seicho mystery, written in 1961, ‘Pro Bono’ (Japanese title: Kiri no hata), the story revolves around the failings of the judicial system in Japan and the efforts of the sister of the wrongly-indicted defendant in a murder trial to secure legal representation by an eminent defence attorney in Tokyo. A classic tale of murder and revenge, Matsumoto wrote the book in the wake of several prominent miscarriages of justice and the story can be said to represent his critical views of the ineptitude and injustice he perceived to be inherent in the Japanese judicial system of the time.
Publication date: 13 November 2007
"JAPAN IN ANALYSIS: Cultures of the Unconscious" by Ian Parker
Ian Parker addresses three key questions: ‘Why is there psychoanalysis in Japan?’, ‘What do we learn about Japan from its own forms of analysis?’, and ‘What do we learn about ourselves from Japan?’ The book is about the development of psychoanalysis and modern subjectivity in Japan. It shows how forms of individual selfhood amenable to therapeutic intervention emerged as Japanese culture has opened up to the West. It is also about how approaches to analysing the self have encountered Japan and how analysts tried to make sense of a culture that once seemed at odds with the aims of psychotherapy.
IAN PARKER is Professor of Psychology in the Discourse Unit at Manchester Metropolitan University.
