The Japan Society
Events Past Events

Past Events

ARCHIVED After Tokyo 2020: Discussing Post-Games Japan with Author Robert Whiting

Thursday 9 September 2021 / 9:00am
After Tokyo 2020: Discussing Post-Games Japan with Author Robert Whiting

Date
Thursday 9 September 2021
Time
9.00am- 10.00am (BST)
5.00pm – 6.00pm (JST)
Check the time in your location

Booking Details
Free – Donations Welcome
Registration essential

Book online here

The activities of the Japan Society are made possible thanks to the support of its members. This event is free of charge and open to all. We realise that this is a difficult time for many people. However, if you are planning to attend and do not have a membership subscription as an individual or through your employer, please consider making a donation. You can find details of membership and how to join the Japan Society community here.


For the next Japan Society webinar, we are delighted to welcome Robert Whiting, author of the recent book Tokyo Junkie: 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys... and Baseball, who joins Japan Society Chairman Bill Emmott for a conversation following the end of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Bob Whiting was there for the 1964 Olympics; and for the 2021 Games; and for so much else in between, which he has documented in his many bestselling books, starting with The Chrysanthemum and the Bat (1977) and culminating in his memoir of life in the city to which he, as a young US serviceman and then teacher, encyclopaedia writer and then author and columnist, became addicted.

Can there ever have been a bigger contrast between two Olympics than between 1964, an Olympic Games widely seen as symbolically marking Japan’s re-emergence on the world stage in a mesmerising cocktail of modernisation and transformation, and the 2021 Games staged in front of empty stadiums amid the pandemic and states of emergency, but in front of worldwide television audiences? And yet the sporting achievements of 2021 have caught many imaginations, while the Japanese public drew special pleasure from their team winning the baseball gold medal by defeating the United States.

Our conversation will try to assess what the recent Games have meant for Japan and the world, culturally, economically and politically, while looking also at how Tokyo has evolved since 1964, both in its brighter, more public aspects and in its grimier ways. To the British, the relationship between Japan and the United States, whether over baseball, security or politics, has always been by turns intriguing, baffling and frustrating, so we will assess that, too, as well as pondering that ultimate UK-Japan historical question: why didn’t cricket catch on, while baseball did?

With the Olympics and Paralympics ensuring Japan’s capital has been front and centre in the news this summer, join us for what is sure to be an insightful, entertaining discussion.

Robert Whiting is an American journalist and author who has lived in Tokyo on and off for more than half a century. One of only a few Western writers to have a regular newspaper column in Japanese, he is the author of several highly successful books on Japan including You Gotta Have Wa (on baseball in Japan) and Tokyo Underworld: The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan.

Explore our series of webinars with leading experts in politics, economy and media. More details on upcoming events and past webinar videos HERE