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.
Next JSNW Event
Sheila Cliffe
Saturday 21 February 2009 3 pm to 5 pm
Qualified kimono dresser Sheila Cliffe will be giving an illustrated talk on various kinds of patterning and dyeing for Japanese kimono. This will be followed by a demonstration of kimono dressing and a small exhibition of her kimono collection. She will be offering some of her kimonos for sale.
Cost: free to JSNW members, £2.50 to student non-members, and £5 to non-members. If you would like to attend this event please contact our events coordinator.
Venue: Manchester Metropolitan University
What's On
European Eyes on Japan / Japan Today
12 November 2008 to 9 January 2009
This interesting and important Euro-Japan collaboration comes to Liverpool for the first time. Now in its 10th year, the European Eyes on Japan / Japan Today photography project brings photographers from the various countries of Europe to Japan to rediscover in their work aspects of contemporary environment that we have take for granted and overlook. Earlier this year four photographers including Liverpool-based John Davies, spent some time photographing landscapes and people in different parts of Japan. The resulting exhibition and book features the industrial area below Mt Fuji, the people of a small village in Ibaraki and a small island and bomb-affected area of Nagasaki. Flyer
Venue: Contemporary Urban Centre - North West, 41-51 Greenland Street, Liverpool L1 0BS
Study Tours to Japan
19th December - 4th January 2009
Anime and Manga trip
31st March - 12th April 2009 Cherry blossom hunting trip
11th - 21st April 2009
Cherry blossom hunting trip
10th May - 24th May Haiku ( in Basho's footsteps) trip
Visit Akemi's web site for more information.
Shochiku Grand Kabuki: Twelfth Night after William Shakespeare
24 - 28 March 2009 7:00 pm
Marrying traditional Japanese theatre, Kabuki, with Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, celebrated Japanese director, Yukio Ninagawa creates a visionary new production. Working for the first time with two of Kabuki’s greatest performers, Onoe Kikugoro VII and his son Onoe Kikunosuke V, Ninagawa relocates Shakespeare’s well-loved comedy to a fantastical and colourful world set in Japan’s historical past. Through stylised gestures, speech and music; executed with precision timing, Kabuki brings a new energy to Shakespeare’s comedic moments. Ninagawa’s striking staging reflects a fanciful but nonetheless quintessential Japanese world producing a Twelfth Night of timeless beauty. In Japanese with English surtitles.
Venue: Barbican Theatre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS
Sapporo Christmas Menu
JSNW members can receive their usual discount off Sapporo's Christmas menu.
Japanese Speech Contest
Midori
Sunday, 10 May 2009 7.00pm
Now in her thirties, the dazzling technique and charismatic performance that Midori was known for as a child prodigy is ever present along with an interpretative depth to match her virtuosity. Tackling the devilish challenges of both standard repertoire and new and less well known works, Midori’s playing is spell-binding.
Venue: Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
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
Photos from Japan
Explore Photos from Japan, our exclusive high resolution tour of Japan. New photos from 2008 are being added regularly - keep checking for updates.
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.
