The Passenger: Japan

The Passenger: Japan
Author: The Passenger
Publisher: Europa Editions
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2020-08-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1609456424

Explore Japanese society in the lively series that collects the best new writing, photography, art, and reportage from around the world. Visitors from the West look with amazement, and sometimes concern, at Japan’s social structures and unique, complex culture industry; the gigantic scale of its tech corporations and the resilience of its traditions; the extraordinary diversity of the subcultures that flourish in its “post-human” megacities. The country nonetheless remains an intricate and complicated jigsaw puzzle, an inexhaustible source of inspiration for stories, reflections, and reportage. Caught between an aging population and extreme post-modernity, Japan is an ideal observation point from which to understand our era and the one to come. The subjects in this volume form a portrait of the country that ranges from the Japanese veneration of the dead to the Tokyo music scene, from urban alienation to cinema, from sumo to toxic masculinity. “The Passenger readers will find none of the typical travel guide sections on where to eat or what sights to see. Consider the books, rather, more like a literary vacation.” —Publishers Weekly In this volume:Ghosts of the Tsumani by Richard Lloyd Parry Living in Shimokitazawa by Yoshimoto Banana Why Japan Has Avoided Populism by Ian Buruma Plus: a Shinto sect in the shadow of power, fleeing debts by disappearing into thin air, the decline of sexual desire, the obsession with American blues, the strongest sumo wrestler of all time (who isn’t Japanese), the revenge of the Ainu and much more . . .

The Passenger: Japan

The Passenger: Japan
Author: Aa Vv
Publisher: Passenger
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2020-05-12
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 9781787702196

"Some Japanese stories end violently. Others never end at all, but only cut away, at the moment of extreme crisis, to a butterfly, or the wind, or the moon."--Brian Phillips Visitors from the West look with amazement, and sometimes concern, at Japan's social structures and unique, complex culture industry; the gigantic scale of its tech corporations and the resilience of its traditions; the extraordinary diversity of the subcultures that flourish in its "post-human" megacities. The country nonetheless remains an intricate and complicated jigsaw puzzle, an inexhaustible source of inspiration for stories, reflections, and reportage. The subjects in this volume range from the Japanese veneration of the dead to the Tokyo music scene, from urban alienation to cinema, from sumo to toxic masculinity. Caught between an ageing population and extreme post-modernity, Japan is an ideal observation point from which to understand our age and the one to come.

The Passenger: Brazil

The Passenger: Brazil
Author: The Passenger
Publisher: Europa Editions
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2020-10-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1609456556

An in-depth look at Brazilian culture in the series that collects the best new writing, photography, art, and reportage from around the world. In the second half of the twentieth century Brazil made extraordinary contributions to music, sport, architecture. From bossa nova to acrobatic soccer to the daring architecture of Oscar Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa, the country seemed to embody a new, original vision of modernity, at once fluid, agile, and complex. Seen from abroad, the victory of the far right in the 2018 elections was a rude awakening that suddenly turned the Brazilian dream into a nightmare. For locals, however, illusions had started fading long ago, amid paralyzing corruption, environmental degradation, racial discrimination, and escalating violence. Luckily Brazilians have not lost their desire to fight, minorities are still determined to assert their rights, and, now that the glorious past is dead and buried, a desire to rebuild for the future is emerging. Today the challenge of telling the story of this extraordinary country consists in finding its enduring vitality amid the apparent melancholy. “The Passenger readers will find none of the typical travel guide sections on where to eat or what sights to see. Consider the books, rather, more like a literary vacation.” —Publishers Weekly “Much more than a travel guide, The Passenger is indispensable for any reader who is curious about the world.” —Il Venerdì In this volume: Order and Progress? by Jon Lee Anderson Funk, Pride and Prejudice by Alberto Riva On the River, I Was King by Eliane Brum Also: the road that dissects the Amazon; the TV tycoon who shaped Brazilian history; the neo-Pentecostal community that is winning the hearts (and wallets) of Brazilians; politicized samba dancers, idealist gangsters, and much more . . .

Dave Barry Does Japan

Dave Barry Does Japan
Author: Dave Barry
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 222
Release: 1993
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 0449908100

The award-winning author and syndicated columnist shares his humorous observations on his trip to Japan, sharing his thoughts on culture shock in all its numerous forms--from kabuki to public bathing. Reprint.

Black Passenger Yellow Cabs

Black Passenger Yellow Cabs
Author: Stefhen F. D. Bryan
Publisher:
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2009-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780615268101

"Black Passenger Yellow Cabs" is an erotic auto/ethnographic memoir exploring in easy layperson's terms the socio-psycho-sexual dynamics of Japan and the erotic capital of the Western male. It offers an exploration of deviant behavior in an exotic land and a journey from self-destruction to self-actualization.

The Passenger: Berlin

The Passenger: Berlin
Author: The Passenger
Publisher: Europa Editions
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2021-06-08
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1609456696

The best new writing, photography, art, and reportage from and about Berlin—in the series that’s “like a literary vacation” (Publishers Weekly). In 1990s Berlin, the scars of a century of war were still visible everywhere: coal stoves, crumbling buildings, desolate minimarts, not a working buzzer or elevator. To visit the city then was a hallucinatory experience, a simultaneous journey into the past and into the future. The abandoned ruins, the hidden gems found at the flea market, the illegal basement raves are a thing of the past. The era of Berlin as a site of urban archeology is over. Almost all the damaged buildings have been repaired, squatters have been removed, the shops selling East German furniture have closed down. Without its wounds, the landscape of the city is perhaps less striking but more solid, stronger. Even the city’s inhabitants have lost some of their melancholia, their romantic and self-destructive streak: today you can even find people who come to Berlin to actually work, not just to “create” or idle their days away. Yet, Berlin remains a youthful city and retains its aura as “the capital of cool.” Its only sacrosanct principles are an uncompromising multiculturalism and the belief that its future is yet to be written. This volume of the series includes: The Greatest Show in Town: The Resurrection of Potsdamer Platz by Peter Schneider · Berlin Suite by Cees Nooteboom · Tempelhof: A Field of Dreams by Vincenzo Latronico · Plus: the controversial reconstruction of a Prussian castle, Berlin’s most transgressive sex club and its disappearing traditional pubs, a green urban oasis, suburban neo-Nazis, North Vietnamese in the East, South Vietnamese in the West, techno everywhere and much more . . . “These books are so rich and engrossing that it is rewarding to read them even when one is stuck at home.” —The Times Literary Supplement

Tokyo in Transit

Tokyo in Transit
Author: Alisa Freedman
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2011
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0804771456

This work discusses literary depictions of mass transit in 20th century Tokyo in the decades preceding WWII. It cuts across literary and historical/sociological analysis, and contributes to the growing body of work examining Japanese urbanism, gender, and modernism.

Ghosts of the Tsunami

Ghosts of the Tsunami
Author: Richard Lloyd Parry
Publisher: MCD
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2017-10-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0374710937

Named one of the best books of 2017 by The Guardian, NPR, GQ, The Economist, Bookforum, and Lit Hub The definitive account of what happened, why, and above all how it felt, when catastrophe hit Japan—by the Japan correspondent of The Times (London) and author of People Who Eat Darkness On March 11, 2011, a powerful earthquake sent a 120-foot-high tsunami smashing into the coast of northeast Japan. By the time the sea retreated, more than eighteen thousand people had been crushed, burned to death, or drowned. It was Japan’s greatest single loss of life since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. It set off a national crisis and the meltdown of a nuclear power plant. And even after the immediate emergency had abated, the trauma of the disaster continued to express itself in bizarre and mysterious ways. Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, lived through the earthquake in Tokyo and spent six years reporting from the disaster zone. There he encountered stories of ghosts and hauntings, and met a priest who exorcised the spirits of the dead. And he found himself drawn back again and again to a village that had suffered the greatest loss of all, a community tormented by unbearable mysteries of its own. What really happened to the local children as they waited in the schoolyard in the moments before the tsunami? Why did their teachers not evacuate them to safety? And why was the unbearable truth being so stubbornly covered up? Ghosts of the Tsunami is a soon-to-be classic intimate account of an epic tragedy, told through the accounts of those who lived through it. It tells the story of how a nation faced a catastrophe, and the struggle to find consolation in the ruins.

Miki Soejima. The Passenger?s Present

Miki Soejima. The Passenger?s Present
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2018
Genre:
ISBN: 9789490119676

The Passenger?s Present? proposes a multilayered view of Japanese contemporary society at a time in which the country faces great uncertainty. The work ponders how our imagination can initiate a process, which questions the narratives that surround us and the frameworks that sustain them. It comprises photographs taken in and around Tokyo, Okinawa and other places since 2013, which are interspersed with constructed still-life images. A sequence of pictures ? a kamikaze aircraft, a nuclear reactor, reappearing rainbows, American candy named after the atomic bomb ? evokes a web of histories, myths and constructed narratives, which lie beneath the surface of the society. ?The Passenger?s Present? starts with an old photograph of people dancing during a memorial service for the war dead of the Japanese Imperial Army. Above them, the flags of Japan, of the Imperial Army and of the puppet state Manchukuo are visible. This photograph was selected from the author?s grandfather?s photo album, which he made between 1931 and 1945, while he was in Japanese-occupied Northeast China, Manchuria. He once said, ?There is nothing to believe anymore?, as if to remind himself. Reviewing this historical period and its legacy, while reflecting on the meaning of these words became an important guide to look at the present and to develop the work.

Japanese National Railways – Its Break-up and Privatization

Japanese National Railways – Its Break-up and Privatization
Author: Yoshiyuki Kasai
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2021-10-25
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 900421397X

This is a rare look into the politics and economics of the largest and arguably most dramatic privatization undertaken in Japan. Yoshiuki Kasai, President of JR Central, guides readers through first-hand accounts of the history of JNR’s break-up, the political and internal obstacles faced in the reform process, and the major lessons drawn through his experiences. At the end of the book Kasai is joined by Diethelm Sack and Sir Steve Robson in a discussion of major issues encountered in railway reforms in Japan, Germany and the UK.