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.
Upcoming JSNW Events
Bonenkai
Saturday 14 December 2013 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Join us for a delicious buffet dinner prepared by Taka. Menu
We will also have an Awa Odori dancing demonstration and workshop by Awa Siren.
The price is £15 for JSNW members, £18 for non-Members. There is a bar with soft and alcoholic drinks. Please don’t bring your own drinks.
If you would like to attend this event please contact our Events Co-ordinator.
Venue: Main Hall, Padgate Community Centre, Station Road, Padgate, Warrington WA2 0QS
Steve Smith: "The Japanese Consul"
Saturday 18 January 2014 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm
Steve Smith gives a talk on Liverpool wool merchant James Lord Bowes, the first foreign-born Honorary Consul of the Japanese Empire in the United Kingdom. More
Admission: Free
If you would like to attend this event please email 
Venue: World Museum, William Brown Street, Liverpool L3 8EN
JSNW Social and Japanese Conversation Evening in Manchester
TBC January 2013 7:00 to 9:00 pm
Let’s have a drink, enjoy food, and meet someone new. Our former Newsletter Editor, Yuko Howes, who is also a Japanese tutor, will host this fun event. You don't need to be able to speak Japanese, so you can just relax.
If you would like to attend this event please email
Venue: Samsi, 36-38 Whitworth Street, Manchester M1 3NR
Manga Workshop
Saturday 22 February 2014 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm Instructor: Sarah Turner
Workshop plan:
Manga in Japan right now and how it's changed; Special characteristics of manga compared to other comic styles; Finding your style; Coming up with a manga idea (genre); Character Archetypes (the hero,the villan); Designing your characters; Normal body and chibi style; Showing personality; Backgrounds; Making a manga
Participants should bring their own pencils, pens, and papers. Cost is £5 for JSNW members, £8 for non-members.
Venue: Room F13, Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount St, Manchester M2 5NS
A Japanese Conversation Evening in Liverpool
TBA 7:00 - 9:00 pm 
Angela Davies, a very experienced instructor of Japanese, will host an evening of Japanese conversation, over delicious food at Etsu restaurant.
If you would like to attend this event please contact our Events Co-ordinator.
Venue: Etsu Japanese Restaurant, 25 The Strand, (off Brunswick Street) Liverpool, L2 0XJ
What's On
Shine Like Tokyo - Northern Soul Goes East!
BBC RADIO 4 on iPlayer
DJ Annie Nightingale looks at how Northern Soul music has become popular in Japan.
Northern Soul is often thought to be firmly rooted in place and time but four decades on from the opening of the Wigan Casino, Annie discovers how it's capturing the imagination of people as far east as Japan.
She looks back at the roots of Northern Soul before hearing from DJs spinning their discs in Kobe, a Northern Soul band in Tokyo and regulars at night spots in several Japanese cities. Soulies in England and Japan reflect on what it is that helps them 'keep the faith' while Annie tries to work out if there's a connection between the Northern England of the Seventies and the Japan of 2013.
Produced by Liam Starkey, a regular at our conversation evening in Manchester.
Japan's Sakoku Period
Thursday 4 April 2013 9:00 am and 9:30 pm Radio 4
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Japan's Sakoku period, two centuries when the country deliberately isolated itself from the outside world. Sakoku began with a series of edicts in the 1630s which restricted the rights of Japanese to leave their country and expelled Europeans living there. It was not until 1858 and the "gunboat diplomacy" of the American Commodore Matthew Perry that Japan's international isolation finally ended.
Noriko Ogawa in conversation with Melanie Spanswick
An interview with Japanese pianist, Noriko Ogawa which took place in December 2012 at Jaques Samuel Pianos in London.
Find out what kind of child Noriko was, and what kind of sound world she lives in in this biographical interview.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnm2Q5fJ-ds&feature=youtu.be
Study Tours to Japan
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
New Book
The Japanese Consul: The Life of James Lord Bowes in Liverpool
In 1888 the North West of England was honoured by the appointment of Liverpool wool Merchant James Lord Bowes as the first foreignborn Honorary Consul of the Japanese Empire in the United Kingdom. His collection of Japanese art works grew so extensively that it numbered well over two thousand pieces and, two years later, he constructed a large private museum of Japanese art in the grounds of his home, Streatlam Tower, in Princes Road.
Bowes opened the museum to the public to benefit the church and orphanage charities he supported in Liverpool, and published several books on Japanese art which are still being printed and which stand as part of the foundations of Western understanding of Japanese art. More
A book by local historian and Japanophile, L.S. Smith.
http://liverpoolhistorypress.co.uk/thejapaneseconsu.html
JSNW +
Welcome to the new catch-up service from jsnw! If you were busy last December, here's what you missed:
And here's what happened in August:
Japan Photos
Explore JapanPhotos.org.uk for a high resolution tour of Japan.
