As a little white girl, naively comforted by the romances of Madame Butterfly and Disney’s Mulan, I had developed a pretty enduring schema by which to evaluate Asian women: they must either be supplicants donning opulently embellished kimonos, or they must be men. By the time that movies like Godzilla and Aloha came around,…
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The mass abuse of women always seems to follow in the wake of war. During World War II, the government of Imperial Japan was involved in the management of so-called ‘comfort stations’, or brothels for Japanese soldiers. Historians estimate that between 50,000 and 200,000 woman and girls from various countries were kidnapped, coerced, or…
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Winter Garden is a travelling exhibition from Japan that introduces Australian audiences to contemporary Japansese art and, in particular, the concept of Micropop. A term coined by exhibition curator Midori Matsui, Micropop describes the ways in which a generation of contemporary Japanese artists have reinterpreted meaning and cultural values to create a set…
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My first thought is, ‘I really did not think this one through.’ That is my first thought when I sit down on a bench, clutching my backpack in the middle of Tokyo. My second thought is of a display I passed as I disembarked from my plane at Narita a couple of hours earlier. It…
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While researching for my earlier piece on rape during wartime, I kept coming across the Japanese military use of “comfort women” during the mid-20th century through World War II. I had never heard about this before, which prompted me to read further. Comfort women, or “ianfu,” a euphemism for “shofu,” meaning prostitute, were women and…
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The Harbour is an emotive historical epic which sees an unconventional Western couple surviving the brutality of Japan’s World War II invasion of Hong Kong. Stevie is a Brooklyn writer who takes pleasure in disarming people with provocative statements. She throws off gender norms impressed by traditional society, and is sensual, determined and proud. She…
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Stephanie-Bowie Liew reviews the acclaimed Japanese film Norwegian Wood.
Dramatic, vivid, loud, beautiful… These words spring to mind when admiring the stand- out photography of Mika Ninagawa, with almost every colour in the rainbow making an appearance in many of her photos, along with daring and dramatic lashings of femininity. Ninagawa, born in 1972 in Tokyo, Japan, specialises in both portrait photography and still…
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Watching the horrifying aftermath of the earthquake in Japan, all most of us can do is send our wishes. It’s overwhelming, perplexing. It’s easier to just hide away and shut it out. But if you’re feeling too defeated by it all to even send hope out into the universe, this lovely drawing by Kelly Smith…
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