1930s Japan—a time of emperors, tension in the Pacific, and mysterious unspoken social rules of the Showa Era. When Dorothy…
The World’s Longest Running Pandemic—Quarantine in Japan
With most of us confined to our homes, jaw-dropping unemployment figures, and over 60,000 deaths worldwide as of April 2020,…
A “Very Japanese” Arrangement to Dismantle a Soviet MIG-25
On September 6, 1976 a MIG-25 (foxbat), the most advanced Soviet fighter jet at the time, landed at Hokadote Airport…
Sound, Fury, Brilliance & Booze: Faulkner in Post-War Japan
William Faulkner, among the most decorated writers in American literature with the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature, the Pulitzer Prize…
Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship: The 1951 Treaty of Peace with Japan
The San Francisco Peace Treaty, signed by 48 nations on September 8, 1951, officially ended Japan’s position as an imperial power,…
Observing the Fiftieth Anniversary of VJ-Day in Japan
How to commemorate an important anniversary of the country in which you’re posted when it marks a low point in…
The U.S. Returns Okinawa to Japan, 1971
In 1945, towards the end of World War II, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps invaded Okinawa with 185,000 troops; a third of the…
Escape from Japanese Internment in China
In June of 1937, Beijing became one of the first cities to fall as Japanese forces began their conquest of…
Douglas MacArthur, America’s Emperor of Japan
He was a general’s general, tough, unrelenting, a man who embraced the role history thrust on him. He was also…
The Tumultuous Economy of 1990s Japan
The Lost Decade marked a tumultuous time in Japan’s economic history, as corporations and banking systems played fast and loose…