BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA; BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and BETWEEN FOUR LANGUAGES ‘The Japanese mentality is, in most cases, unfit for abstract thinking and takes interest merely in tangible things… Yukawa Hideki.  1. The Original Theory 2. Origins of Differences3. Principles versus Rules4. Japanese Perfectionism5. On Rationality 6. Finding Terminology 7.

Phenomenalism  A Japanese propensity, which someone once described as phenomenalism, is part of the same collectivist picture. People focus solely on the phenomenon put before their eyes, without bothering to seek out the reasons for it, or its consequences.  Japan’s many bogus scandals provide examples. The media will focus in

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES Yet another Career, foolishly 1. More Shangri-la2. The Land Boom is Coming3. The Problem Maker, IWNC4. The Lockwood House5. Becoming a Builder6. Creating a Community7. The Land Aphrodisiac8. Rural versus Urban Japan9. The Japanese Weekend10. Chiba is

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES. And by a Murdoch writer too 1. The J.P.Keating Scholarship 2. The Surprise Scholarship Offer3. Embassy Plots?4. Battling the Bureaucrats5. Bureaucracy Gone Mad6. Ex-Vietnam Types7. More Spies? 8. A Squalid Affair Meanwhile my problems with the Australian official presence

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES. 1. Raising Two Bilingual Children2. Reviving Australian Connections?3. Blocked on Every Side4. A Failed Canberra Connection5. Australian Policy Flip-flops. By the mid-eighties life had settled into a routine.  The Japanese lecture circuit ground on. And the committee

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES. Battling the Irrationalists 1. Australia’s Troubled Economy2. Rely on the Foreigners3. The Terumo Story – Killing the Golden Goose4. The Exchange Rate to the Rescue5. The Great Australian Car Industry Confusion6. Australia’s Past Manufacturing Prowess7. The Tariff

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES. 1. Failure of  Hashimoto Restrictions2. A Chronic Lack of Domestic Demand3. High Savings Harmful?4. The Unbalanced Post-1973 Economy5. The Bicycle Economy 6. The Self-Standing Economy  My impudent belief that I could tell Japan how to solve its economic problems

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES. Saving Japan’s Demand-Deficient Economy 1. Exports, Oil Shocks and Mini-Bubbles2. Oil Shocks to the Rescue3. Asset Bubbles also to the Rescue As domestic demand relative to supply began to fall off in the early seventies, goods makers

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES. Say What you Like; It’s Still a (Fairly) Free Country Japanese Media Meanwhile here in Japan things were happening which made me realise I did not need to be chasing vague Australian possibilities. For some Japanese reason

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES. Try Walking on Two Legs  1. Trade Problems 2. Endaka (yen appreciation) Problems3. Harmful Exchange-rate Protectionism4. Textbook versus Sensible Protectionism5. Trade Frictions6. Merits of Local Production7. Manufacturing versus Services8. Anti-Service Sector Bias9. The Colin Clark Factor As we

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES. 1. Herd Instincts2. ‘It’s Crazy Therefore We Like It’3. The Honshu Paper Scandal4. A Nation of Cowards?5. Beyond Reason ( Rikkutsu Nuki ) As we moved into the eighties the economy continued to prosper, despite the shock

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES. Something wrong with the Japanese mentality? 1. The Tanaka Kakuei boom2. Asset Price Insanity Begins3. Bubble Beginnings4. Bank Foolishness5. The EIE Scandal6. Bloated Collateral Values7. The Anti-Bubble Realists8. The Shiodome Fiasco9. Mythical Assets (Fukumi Shisan)10. The ‘Resort’ Boom11.’Yutori’ to the rescue12.

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and BETWEEN FOUR LANGUAGES:  Post – Bubble 1. Back to Front Land Taxes2. Living with the Bubble3. More Japanese Book Writing4. Campus Life5. Pride before a Fall With the Bubble out of the way we could finally begin to clean up

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS AND FOUR LANGUAGES. Seeking Education Reform 1. The Committees2. The Education Ministry3. The National Peoples Commission of Education Reform4. The University Education Sub-Committee.5. The High-school English Language Committee6. Reform Impossible. A Book Education ‘reform’ was another problem needing attention. It

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES. Dogged by a word: ‘Reform’  1.  Economic Reform Dogmas2.  Nikkei’s ‘Structural Reform’ Hangup3.  Retaliation via Voice4.  Foreign Advice also Rejected5.  Asahi and Others Too6.  TV, NHK too7.  Western Media Too Throughout the seventies and well into the

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES. Bad Education in a Top-Ranked University 1. Stimulus Lacking2. But One Very Satisfying Course3. The Brave French Student4. The Derelict American Student5.  Living with Legalism6. Tama University – An Attractive Offer By 1996 my relationship with the

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES. Seeking System Improvements 1.  Tama University2.  Motivation in the Classroom?3.  Provisional Entry (Zantei Nyugaku)4.  Other Improvements.5.  Merits of the Zemi (Seminar) System6.  The Successful Graduate School7.  Trying to Repair English Teaching8.  Winding Down In 1997 I am

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES 1. An IDE (Institute of Developing Economies) Offer2. The Elite Japanese University Problem3. The Amateur Columnist and the Yugoslavia Problem4. The Kiwi Farm My six years as president at Tama had started to run out. I began

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES. The Incredible Invitation 1. The Russian Ambassador to Japan2. The Russian Embassy, Tokyo3. An Incredible Russian Invitation 4. Into Moscow5. Into Crimea6. Back to Japan I long had a good connection with Alexander Panov, former Soviet and then

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA;BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES Opening an all-English University, in Japan 1. The Initial Request – Vice-President2.  Nakajima Mineo3.  Akita International University4.  Problems and Praises5.  Another Career Change?6.  The Ark Hills Club With the children graduated and the lecture circuit out of

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES 1. A Book on Education Reform2. Akita International University3. Trying to Improve English Language Teaching4. Teaching Current Affairs5. Japanese for Foreign Students6. Trying Improve  Business Japanese Reading Ability7. One Small Satisfaction When I finished at Tama I felt I

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES. Taking Risks on the Lecture Circuit 1. Northern Territories2. The Two Island Demand3. The Four Island Demand4. A Possible Compromise5. The Group of Four – 2000-20016. Foreign Ministry Mentality7. Trade Frictions 8. The Tanaka Makiko Committee Meanwhile the

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES Problems of War Guilt, and Territorial Claims War Guilt 1. Atrocities2. War Responsibility3. Blaming the Guilty If Russia was a sensitive lecture topic, China was even more so. Even in talks to progressive Japanese one sensed an

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES 1. Political People2. Prime Ministers  – Miyazawa, Hosokawa, Obuchi, Mori, 3. The Koizumi Disaster  A historian friend once told me how important it was that people like myself who have lived through what he called ‘slabs of history’

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES 1. Premonitions2. The Warning3. The Abductee Issue With time I began to feel my lecture audiences were not reacting quite as sympathetically as before.  Maybe it was partly my fault; my irritations over Japan’s foolish economic, foreign

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES 1. The NBR Discussion Site2. Discussing the Megumi affair3. Enter the Viper: Komori Yoshihisa4. Sankei Shimbun5. The Exclusion Begins6. The Mitsui Connection7. The Bone Pointed8. Skin-deep Regret My Japan career had begun through trying to explain the

BETWEEN FOUR WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FOUR LANGUAGES 1. The House in Amatsu2. A Disaster Occurs3. Leukemia4. Tribal Exclusion5. A Failed Operation6. All is not Doom In a long career I have been fortunate to meet some wonderful women who have cared for me, helped me

BETWEEN FIVE WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN, PERU AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FIVE LANGUAGES To A Very Different World – Latin America 1. Nakadaki Development Sold2. Enter Peru3. Latin America: Beauty amid Poverty At age 70, blackballed in Japan over the phoney North Korea abductee issue, and with no more

BETWEEN FIVE WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN, PERU AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FIVE LANGUAGES 1. Learning Spanish2. The Visa Problem3. The Immigration Reform Committee4. Asylum Seekers5. Worker Immigration Problem6. Visa Overstayers7. The Ten Year Wait8. Rescue Carolina9. Discovering Peru My interest in Spain had been kindled while at university in

BETWEEN FIVE WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN, PERU AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FIVE LANGUAGES  A Story of Regime Brutality and Media Mendacity 1. Images2. Background History3. Tiananmen Square Massacre?4. State Department Records5. Tankman photo From the beginning it should have been clear simply from the conflicting images of Tiananmen Square

BETWEEN FIVE WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN, LATIN AMERICA AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FIVE CAREERS and FIVE LANGUAGES How to summarise the events, ideas, and conclusions from a 65 year long career spanning five continents, five jobs and five languages, but focussed largely on China, Russia and Japan? In the wings, so to

BETWEEN FIVE WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN, PERU AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FIVE LANGUAGES 1.  Sino-Indian Dispute2.  Vietnam3.  Afghanistan4.  Ukraine5.  Korea (and Vietnam)6.  Yugoslavia and Serbia7.  NATO Pretexts8.  The Vicious Circle9.  Anglo-Saxon ‘Values’10.Khrushchev-anti Cold War11.Memory Notes More than sixty years, spent in five continents, gaining fluency in three difficult languages,

BETWEEN FIVE WORLDS: CHINA, RUSSIA, JAPAN, PERU AND AUSTRALIA.BETWEEN FOUR CAREERS and FIVE LANGUAGES Japan – Is it Unique? 1.  Japanese Honesty. Can it be found Elsewhere?2.  The Outsider View3.  National Togetherness4.  The Empirical Test5.  Indonesia, the Philippines6.  South Europe,South Asia7.  North Europe8.  Meanwhile in Japan9. Meanwhile in China10.China: The