April 5th
Before I begin, I would like to extend a heartfelt thankyou to all those people who worked behind the scenes in this project, as it was these people who enabled the project to run as smoothly as it did. You know who you are.Sitting back and looking at what we have done over the last 5 months has really amazed me. We have been to both Tokyo, Japan and explored my city, Canberra and talked to leading experts in their fields; we have interviewed professors, teachers, curators, project managers, government ministers and representatives and even an Ambassador Plenipotentiary. We were given more time in the National Press Club with Australia's Foreign Minister and Japan's Ambassador to Australia than most journalists.Naturally, we were very interested in the more popular issues between the two countries such as whaling and WWII, however I would like to mention that the main idea that has come out of this entire project is the fact that despite the differences that Australia and Japan have in the national spotlight, there is an underlying relationship of goodwill and friendliness between the two countries. It is just unfortunate that this side of the relationship is very rarely seen in the media. I suppose it's just not as exciting having good trade and exchange relations.This project has also increased the depth of my understanding not only of the culture of Japan, but also of Australia. From the two worlds of Japan; the old and the new, to the idea that Australia has no culture as it is too young (with which I respectfully disagree; I think that Australia has developed a very unique culture due to its own unique history and population). Even though I lived in Japan in 2007, I found that this program showed me a different side of the culture and of the people. I feel that this is an important lesson for Australians to learn as we live in such a multiculturally-based society (In fact, there are some universities in Japan that use Australia as a case study for modern multiculturalism)There are some stark contrasts between the two countries in this respect; Japan is a very homogenous society, while Australia has I-don't-know how many hundreds of languages on the one island. Japanese people are generally reserved and polite, while Australians can often be loud and outgoing. However I think that these differences are part of what makes each country attractive to the otherAs soon as the project finished I was back into my schoolwork as I am in year 12. After Talkback Classroom I found that my workload was not as big as it seemed a couple of weeks before. I suppose that says something for the amount of hours we put into Talkback Classroom, but I'm glad we did, as it really emerged during the final interview. We knew our stuff, and so instead of a bunch of teenagers asking misinformed questions that we pulled off a website, we were a well-organised team of interviewers with the background knowledge to be able to question properly.As for the team, I felt that I really got to know my fellow interviewers and producer. Two weeks may be nothing in the long run but I feel that I have made friends that I will keep for the rest of my life. I was surprised at how fast our Japanese counterparts adapted to Australia during their short stay. Perhaps we have a couple of Japanese Ambassadors on the rise. But then again, we were all ambassadors for our countries in the respect that we represented more than just ourselves in the interviews that we conducted. In fact, we have all grown so much through this program. We have increased our ability to actively listen and analyse what has been said in order to form a greater knowledge of the subject and then pursue it in the space of a couple of seconds. We have picked up a trick or two in diplomacy; that is, asking the right question at the right time. I also think that our public speaking skills have increased exponentially-I guess this must have happened through talking about Japan's scientific whaling to the man who has the power to ban my next Japanese visa!At any rate, I wish the entire team all the very best, and we have been staying in contact since the end of Talkback Classroom, and I intend to travel to Tokyo (and Melbourne) again in some point in the future to catch up.Before I finish, I would like to acknowledge the driving force, our manager, director and producer of Talkback Classroom, Steve Cutting. If it weren't for his inspiration the five of us never would have come together, and I certainly would not be writing about how amazing my experience on this program has been. Thanks, Steve.And thanks again to all those involved in the project. Even those who watched, I hope that you have taken something away from Talkback Classroom. I know I sure did.
March 12th
Today we were lucky enough to visit the National War Memorial. Even though I live in Canberra and have been several times, I always find something new that is interesting. We concentrated on the extensive WWII collection; there is a lot of material on the conflict between Australia and Japan in the Pacific theatre.It is apparent that the Japanese forces were clearly underestimated and overlooked as a serious enemy in the earlier parts of the war. However, they were quite ingenious in certain areas, for example a whole platoon of troops once commandeered several bicycles from a village in order to speed up an advance.After the War Memorial we made our way over to the National Museum (Our Japanese friends were somewhat taken at the architecture) and spoke to Peter Stanley, who is attached to the museum and who was once a curator at the War Memorial. Mr Stanley has published a couple of books, one on whether or not Japan actually intended to invade Australia. We spoke in-depth on this somewhat controversial issue (as are most historical issues that conflict with collective memory). Mr Stanley opposed the idea that Japan had its eyes on Australia during the war, refuting ideas such as the "Brisbane line" as having no actual evidence and reasoning that the bombing of Darwin was simply an attack on a strategic supply port. Mr Stanley also asserted that the submarine attacks in Sydney were part of a larger Japanese strategy to distract America from the Pacific theatre, as the attacks were simultaneous with other similar attacks occurring outside the Pacific Ocean.To tell the truth, Peter Stanley makes a pretty good argument; however on the flipside I am sure that a scholar who supports the idea that japan intended to invade Australia does too. I am aware of scholarly bias, but it does serve to start you thinking on the issue. I had previously assumed that because past politicians played up the idea in the media and because Darwin had been bombed, Japan had intended to invade Australia. Now I'm actually attempting to consider the issue without following the easy path of relying on collective war memories; that is, analysing the facts, not opinions.The relationship between Australia and Japan in Mr Stanley's opinion is that the two countries are "like two friends that had a quarrel a long time ago but just can't seem to get over it." In my opinion, this may perhaps be the case with some older people, however not so with the younger generations today. I think that young adults and youths in both countries see the war as something terrible that is in their country's past, however they do recognise that (despite the fact that some characteristics have been established through the conflict in each country i.e. "Australian mateship") this was in a different era, and that is history, and not a representation of each country's present attitudes and culture.I have also heard about the multiple convictions of Japanese war criminals post-WWII in Australia (over 900, I believe), but I have yet to hear of any Australians that were convicted of war crimes. Did we actually commit any?Our final interview for the day was with the project manager for the Emily Kame Kngwarreye exhibition that visited Japan. The Emily Exhibition, as it came to be known, was rated in the top five exhibitions in Japan in 2007, and in the art world, this is no small feat.It is pleasing to see that, although when we travel to a different country we encounter language barriers, cultural barriers and sometimes even economic barriers, the inherent humanity in everyone is still there.Even though Emily was from an obscure location out in the middle of nowhere, in a country where the vast majority would not be able to speak her language, her art still connected with over 130 000 people when it visited Japan. This just shows how there is something in all of us that is able to understand, no matter where we come from. And on this note I will end my last blog for Talkback Classroom. I hope you learned something, because I sure did. March 11thBecause we spent the entire day at Parliament House, we managed to speak with several politicians or political advisers.Four, in fact. We talked to Andrew Dempster, the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Foreign Minister; Warren Truss, the Shadow Minister for Trade; Greg Hunt, the Shadow Minister for the Environment and Carl Ungerer, the Director of the National Security Project in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. We also talked by phone conference with Reece Turner, a member of Greenpeace Australia, and we did this all before lunch.Another group of people who deserve a mention are the PEO (Parliament Education Office) people who set up all the interviews and who were generally just very professional at being awesome.With the politicians today we went into more depth with the different relationships between Japan and Australia. We again went into the FTA (Free Trade Agreement), as well as many, many other issues and concepts, and I'm afraid that I don't have time to go into them as much as I'd like.All over the world, it seems that there is a tendency for nations to look inwards in times of economic peril; protectionist policies emerge in an attempt to protect the country's own industry. This has been time-tested to only be more detrimental to the global economic problem, as there is less trade between countries as they focus on themselves. The best example I can think of to illustrate this point is, consider a single human being. After entering a room that has been allowed to become cold, this person, through their own body heat, will gradually add some warmth to the room. However, this takes a long time. Now if you add five or six people to the mix, the room (which is actually the global economy) will heat up a lot faster and warmer after being cold, as the people (countries) can interact more and eventually the room will be back to normal temperature.This example is relevant because in today's current economic crisis, Australia needs to get as many of its trading partners into the room as possible, and this is what the FTA with Japan should achieve. However it was said to us today that Australia must take care when negotiating this agreement, so as not to replicate the controversial FTA with America, where many of Australia's agricultural interests were overlooked in order to push the agreement through for perhaps political or other reasons. In my opinion, Australia is taking steps to keep the FTA with Japan as relevant as possible to Australian economic interests, with the eighth round of negotiations starting this week.In my opinion, Japan has by now recognised that China, a rapidly-developing potential super-economy, is going to have an increasing relevance to Australia in future trade, especially with raw exports such as coal. Despite assurances that we have heard over the last couple of days that "just because Australia has a more involved role in trading with China does not mean that it will have a decreased role with Japan," (and I will speak some Economicalese here) I can not see how China and Japan aren't going to become more and more competitive with each other as Australian businesses (ie involved in coal mining) start producing at their full capacity to produce. When these businesses are producing at their peak and resources are limited, it will be a case of either ‘first in best dressed' or ‘the highest bidder,' something that I am sure Japan is eager to avoid.I think Japan is eager to avoid this, as they have requested in negotiations a guarantee that Australia will supply raw materials to Japan. Are they pre-empting an even larger Chinese expansion that will threaten Japanese supply interests? I think yes.We also talked about the pressure to protect the agricultural industry in Japan. Japan is of the opinion that their agricultural industry has what is termed, ‘multifunctionality,' that is that multiple benefits emerge from only the one industry. In this case, things like rice farming also have an intrinsic cultural benefit though the various ceremonies and techniques that surround the ancient practice of rice farming. If I can be outwardly Australian for a moment, I would say ‘that's a fair call.' I think that the only problem the Australian government has with this is that if Japan is going to quote cultural benefit on industries such as rice, it should perhaps fund some sort of cultural preservation project instead of subsidizing the heck out of the product. It was estimated to us today that if all tariffs were removed from Australian beef in Japan, prices would drop from anywhere between 40-60%. The same could be said for Australian fruit. Just imagine, a 50% off sale on any kind of meat whenever you visit the supermarket… Something else that we heard today from Mr Greg Hunt (Shadow Minister for the Environment) was that the government, as an election promise, had promised on eight separate occasions that it would pursue court cases with Japan over whaling, which differs from what we were told from a separate source that the government had promised to consider court cases. At any rate, this should be very interesting as it develops.
March 10th
Today the items that came out through the interviews we conducted were the different aspects of the relationship between Japan and Australia, so we learnt a lot about things like multilateral issues in the surrounding countries, security and trade. Can you tell we were in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Japanese Embassy? Tonight I'll recount a bit of what we learnt at these places.First, with regard to multilateral issues, as both Australia and Japan are major players in the greater North-East Asian region, they have a responsibility to interact with and get involved in issues in this area. This is both my opinion and the opinion of the respective governments. An example of this is the issue of North Korean missile tests over Japan. Even though a country is not directly affected by a certain issue in its vicinity (eg Japan or Australia), if conflict were to arise between any country in the region, the broader implications of this conflict would inevitably affect the country, either through political, social or economic channels. Therefore, as a responsibility to its own people and for the sake of greater co-operation between countries in North -East Asia, Australia and Japan both see the need to co-operate on multilateral issues.It is also apparent that Japan and Australia work together on many security issues, with the (relatively) recent Joint Declaration on Defence placing more emphasis on co-operation in sectors including border security, nuclear non-proliferation, terrorism and disaster relief.
March 9th
If you're at all interested in POWs or Japan and Australia in WWII, then I suggest that one of the first places that you visit in Australia is Cowra. Even if you're not, the stories of life and death, mateship and survival in this town during and after the war will amaze you. During WWII, between 1941 to 1947, the internment camp based in Cowra housed about 4500 internees and prisoners of war, including about 2000 Japanese soldiers. The story was like something out of a movie script; on the 5th of August, "fanatical Japanese" POWs charged the barbed-wire fences and machine guns of the POW camp in an attempt to die honorably by escaping the enemy. The reason is said to be the fact that as the Japanese military ethic was to choose death over capture, this was preferable to sitting out the rest of the war in the camp. To cut a long story short, 334 prisoners escaped and took 9 days to recapture. 65 years later, ex-soldiers still make the trip to Cowra.Lawrance Ryan is the current president of the Cowra Breakout Association and was also our first interview today. Standing in front of the site where the internment camp used to be, he gave us a brief history of the place, showing us the different sectors of the internment camp and the events surrounding the breakout. We then traveled to what is possibly the most significant show of reconciliation in the world; the Cowra Japanese war graves. But what makes them so significant? The fact that these graves were established by and cared for by the RSL (Returned Servicemen's League). The RSL in Cowra at that time consisted mainly of returned soldiers who had just come back from fighting the Japanese. These men had every reason and more to detest their erstwhile enemy, however in a show of amazing reconciliation and respect for their fellow soldier they located every body of every Japanese nationalist that died on Australian soil and those bodies have since been laid to rest here. This I found to be an incredible show of the innate humanity in every person, no matter what nationality. I also feel really proud of my country and the qualities that its people have shown and continue to show throughout our history throughout tough times, when it is so easy to take the easy path and do nothing. (Take the huge response to the Victoria bushfires for example)Our next interview took us to Bang Bang Street in Koorawatha (We also visited Koorawatha falls; unfortunately it was all dried up. But I digress). There in a beautiful little house built in 1915 we met a lovely lady called Coralie D'Elboux who worked at the Cowra hospital at the time of the breakout. We were welcomed in and given cut sandwiches and lamingtons, and we discussed at length the nature of the relationship between the Japanese and Australians in Cowra. According to Coralie, when POWs came into the hospital for surgery, there was a big difference in demeanor between the Italians and the Japanese. The Italians in the camp were very cheery and trusting, and would chat with the staff while receiving treatment. The Japanese, however, were very distrustful and surly. There was one case Coralie mentioned where she was taking medicine to a Japanese POW, but, thinking that she was trying to poison him, knocked the medicine out of her hand, opened his shirt and pointed to his chest, crying, "Shoot! Shoot!"Why this difference? Scholars who study books about the war say it was the war ethic I mentioned earlier. Remember, though, that many of these soldiers were about my age, 18-21. Coralie, who worked with actual Japanese soldiers, is of the opinion that these soldiers were just scared youngsters who were in a foreign country and couldn't speak English. After learning that what Coralie was trying to give him was medicine, the POW took it and the next time Coralie saw him he waved at her with a big smile on his face. Reconciliation.
Friday 30/01
We had some very high-profile interviews today. We interviewed Mr. Masashi Takahashi, the Principal Deputy Director of the Oceania Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Yoshihide Miwa, who is attached to the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Sports and is responsible for textbooks, Mr. Susumu Arai, a former Japanese foreign correspondent who lived in Australia for three years and Mr. Shigeki Chiba, a documentary producer who produced Railroad to Love, about Australian POWs working on the Thai-Burma railroad in World War II.There were several interesting opinions that emerged through the interviews today and then again, some that didn't or couldn't. I have learnt that if you are interviewing a government representative, you are not actually interviewing them but are interviewing the government behind them. This too, can be very informative because at the same time you gain more insight into what the government line is, and how policy affects how they interact with other countries. The government view on Australia-Japan relations is that they are very strong. Australia and Japan enjoy a strong export-import relationship, with a free trade agreement underway and a strong political relationship with things such as a joint security declaration made in 2007.When we brought up the previously controversial issue of Kevin Rudd supposedly `snubbing` Japan, and instead going to China on his first round of Asia visits when he was first elected, the response was that Japan accepted that he did not have much time, and that because Mr. Rudd knew that he would be invited to a G8 conference later on that year, left his trip to Japan until then. However, when we interviewed Mr Arai, a foreign correspondent, his impression was that it was a "big shock to the Japanese people." It's interesting to have two conflicting views from two people who are very well-informed in this matter.
There has been international controversy over Japanese textbooks and the wording of some key points concerning the war which make Japan appear as a victim, not an aggressor. There is also the point that Yuika and Makoto raised that they know little to nothing about Australia, and this was reinforced by a professor earlier in the week telling us off-record that he would be hard-pressed to make a lesson about Australia go for over 20 minutes, even less if he only used the textbook.When we asked Mr. Miwa from MEXT about textbooks he informed us that it is the private sector that writes the books, based on a national guideline, and that the government can not force the private sector to do things. However if a company does go against the national guideline, the government will not print the book. So in a way, I think the government can have an influence on the private sector. Of course, the foreign countries that get a mention the most are China, Korea, Russia and the USA, but that is to be expected as these countries played a bigger role in the war. Still, it would be nice if our history appeared more. In Yuika`s history textbook, there are seven pages on World War II, I wonder how much of those seven pages Australia features in.For me the most interesting opinion that came out today, though, was when we were interviewing Mr Chiba. After visiting Tokyo National Museum and Yasukuni Museum, and through our interviews we have already concluded that there is little to no information about Australian Prisoners of War. The burning question is "why?" It would be easy to say (and it has been said) that Australians played such a small part in the war that they don't really rate a mention compared with America, China and Korea, however Mr Chiba thinks that there has been something of a political decision to bury the whole POW treatment issue. Reasons include not wanting any more trouble after taking all the flak from the world about its treatment of China and Korea.What do I think? I think that a bit more recognition of Australians would go a long way to healing some wounds that some soldiers and their families still carry to this day. This week has been amazing. It will be interesting to see what will happen when we do this in Canberra in March.
Thursday 29/01
I'll keep this one short because we don't have much time tonight. Today we conducted the most enjoyable interview we have done so far, at Makoto's home school, Kumon Kokusai School. It was enjoyable because it wasn't anyone representing a company, or guardedly defending a point of view, it was teenagers our age who didn't have any other entity to worry about save themselves. This meant that they were able to answer our questions freely and enthusiastically and not concern themselves with possible repercussions to their answers, which led to a great interview about multiple issues in Japan.
One of the things we talked to the students about was whaling. You can definitely see how the media affects the public viewpoint in both Australia and Japan. I have mentioned before that I am opposed to whaling, after researching the facts, however I was opposed to whaling before I started investigating based on what I saw and heard in the media. It is the same in Japan, except opposite sides of the same coin.
With regard to the other issues that we discussed, my impressions were:
The Japanese schooling system has many flaws, such as relatively little student-teacher interaction and the fact that the students have a huge amount of workload and stress, and many other problems. However the points that the students raised in favour of Japanese schooling were that, by not being in an environment where students raise their hands, the teacher's flow becomes a lot smoother and thus they can move through more material. This is apparently good in maths because they can get through a lot of the same type of question so students get more practice.
Also, the point was raised that all students get the same amount of education, so instead of in a western learning environment, "the smart get smarter and the stupid stay stupid," everyone receives the same amount of information.
However upon reflection I wonder if that would just have the effect of producing a basic level of intelligence, where an unusually bright student would not be given extension work and therefore not flourish?
I was shocked today when we started talking about World War II and Australia's role in it, a 16 year old girl said, "Was Australia even involved in World War II?" This just shows how little the Japanese are taught about Australian involvement in the war.
We also visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine today. Yasukuni Shrine is a shrine dedicated to those who have fallen in war. Here they are worshipped as deities. While I can't say I agree with the whole worshipping thing, I would say that were it not for the class A war criminals enshrined here, it would just be another quirky little Japanese cultural ‘thing'but because war criminals have been enshrined here, this Shrine has been given a bad reputation. However this place was here long before WWII, and was here for warriors such as the Samurai. It feels like such a shame that because of WWII and the events following, this shrine is now dead to the world. Of course, I am opposed to the elevation of war criminals to godlike status. It just seems like a waste of a good temple.
Inside the Yasukuni Museum I found what I expected; quite a Japanese viewpoint of the war. It was also quite restrained in the telling; I only saw the word ‘kill' once and that was only used when referring to America's role in the war. The whole place was very carefully worded in that respect.
The thing that not only disappointed me but also gave me a pang of patriotism, was the fact that at the Yasukuni Museum there is a real train from the Thai-Burma railroad, the railroad on which Australian POWs worked and died yet here was no mention of Australia here , actually there was no mention of Australia anywhere in this museum. The closest we got was "Allied Forces".
Wednesday 28/01
Today we went to some pretty cool places. First we went to Tokyo National Museum, then Ghibli Museum, and ended up in the office of the Japan Whaling Association.
We were welcomed to the Tokyo Museum by Midori Suzuki, the Curator for Education there. An example of how hardworking Japanese people are; she and her boss stayed at work until eleven o'clock last night working on a PowerPoint presentation to give us today!
Unfortunately we didn't have much time to spend at the museum. We were given an hour and a half but I think to see the museum properly you would need at least a good four hours. There were lots of swords, armour, and even a winter kimono that you sleep in instead of a futon.
For all those non-anime watchers out there, Ghibli Studios is the company that has released massively popular anime movies such as Spirited Away, Princess Monnonoke, Howl's Moving Castle and Laputa. While we toured the anime-like building we spoke with the PR manager, Akiko Omi, who was a very nice lady and a little nervous at having to talk to 4 people at once with a camera as well. One thing that came from that interview was the fact that many themes we have been investigating have an influence on anime, such as WWII, which can be represented in several battle scenes in Ghibli movies.
We were surprised when we saw lots of signatures on the wall of the interview room. It had drawings and signatures from animators and directors such as Steven Spielberg!
Although we didn't conduct formal interviews here per se, our visit to these cultural bastions served to improve and deepen our background knowledge and understanding of Japan and its culture.
Without belittling the importance of the museum visits, the big event of the day was the interview with Komonu Kubo, the Secretariat of the Japan Whaling Association. We were all very nervous going in, and that, coupled with the fatigue from the day caused some pretty interesting effects. I got a blood nose about an hour into the interview (a couple of minutes before we finished, thank goodness!) and Bridget had turned a beautiful shade of pink for some of the interview.
This aside, we addressed some very important questions without starting an international incident. However I did get the impression that Mr Kobu did a slight bit of manoeuvring around some questions that we asked (in a very professional way). While I personally didn't agree with some of the reasoning that they used to justify whaling, after this interview I feel that the whaling problem could be more easily resolved if there was more dialogue and more information passed between the two countries.
In fact, we found that it was the same at the Australian Embassy. Japanese people seem to be worried about certain things when considering going to Australia, such as the accent with which we speak, but this problem too can be solved by increased dialogue between Japan and Australia.
So I'm still opposed to whaling with one of several reasons that, although they may be at marginally safe numbers, they are still an endangered species, but the interview today caused me to ask myself, "WHY am I opposed to whaling?" I'd advise others to do the same.
Tuesday 27/01
Today we interviewed another three very intelligent people. We talked to Richard Andrews, the political Minister-Counsellor for the Australian Embassy in Japan. While we were in the Australian Embassy we also interviewed Professor Sekine, the President of the Australian Studies Association of Japan. We also interviewed Peter Alford, a foreign correspondent for The Australian newspaper.
Richard Andrews, who represents the Australian government, was able to give us a lot of information about how the diplomatic channels between Australia and Japan work, and we established through this interview that emotion bilateral issues such as whaling also hold political importance.,Japan and Australia are like two friends who do not see eye to eye on every issue but whose friendship runs deep. So while arguing over whaling, Australia and Japan are also able to work on things like a free trade agreement.
Professor Sekine talked to us at length about the inherent multiculturalism in Australia, and how we manage to have so many races and religions with minimal friction. Compare this to Japan, where foreigners are called "gaijin," in English, "aliens," even if they are born in Japan with foreign parents.
We spoke to Roger Pulvers yesterday about how Japan, when it first started industrializing, looked at other countries, found their strengths and learnt from them. I believe that this is what Japan is doing with Australia's multiculturalism, to learn and see how they can apply this kind of strength to Japan.
We discussed with Peter Alford the issue of Japan appearing to take a backseat to China in terms of tourism and trade, and the same thing is happening to Australia as more and more Japanese choose to take a short trip over to up-and-coming China instead of taking a long flight to Australia.
It looks like while Australia and Japan have a very strong relationship (that may not be seen through the mass-media), it will take a strong bilateral effort in order to sort out problems such as tourism and the lack of multiculturalism in Japan.
Monday - 26/01
Today we interviewed three eminent foreigners living in Japan. Mark Willacy, a foreign correspondent for the ABC, Phillip Seaton, a scholar specialising in World War II and Roger Pulvers, who is the head of World History at Tokyo Institute of Technology. The main recurring theme that I gathered from these three interviews today was the fact that there are culturally two Japans; the ancient (often clichéd) version which involves well-known cultural icons such as sumo and geisha, and the modern one where there is a proliferation of capsule hotels and bored-looking businessmen. The fact that these two versions of Japan's culture are intrinsically different would lead to the conclusion that there would be a sort of collision of worlds; old and new. However, after hearing these people talking today about the universality of the culture, old and new, I have come to the belief that Japan's culture is like both sides of a magnet. Some aspects of it attract, and some tend to "stick" to different cultures. Sumo and Geisha are known worldwide and are renowned for their uniqueness and can attract interest in Japan, while things like manga and anime have been absorbed into countries all over the world, from Germany to Egypt to Australia. This is to me incredibly riveting and I will be interested in following this up as the program progresses.