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Watch the video of our latest webinar on Wednesday 22 July 2020 in which Japan Society Chairman, Bill Emmott, in discussion with Yoriko Goto and Heather McGregor considered gender equality in Japan and the UK.

Historians will tell us that four months is far too short a time for permanent social or behavioural changes to occur, even if the pandemic already feels as if it has lasted forever. But one thing that really is clear is that those months have proven that video communications technologies such as Zoom are mature and easy enough for widespread use.

The Japan Society invites children and families to celebrate Sports Day, a Japanese national holiday, by playing typical Japanese sports day games at home or in the park.

Let’s start with some good news, for once. Regular readers will know that I have been especially interested in the pioneering work on a Covid-19 vaccine being done at Oxford University’s Jenner Institute, not out of loyalty to my alma mater but out of a belief that the remarkable speed of their work offers a ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy period.

If you are stuck at home, and have a little more time on your hands, perhaps you are thinking of developing or honing new skills. The Japan Society is delighted to be able to offer our first online manga workshop with UK-based manga artist, Fumio Obata, which will focus on the healing aspects of creativity and being mindful of your surroundings.

Watch the video of our latest webinar on Wednesday 8 July 2020 in which Jeremy Hunt and Tomohiko Taniguchi, both well-known to members of the Japan Society, discussed the relationship between our two countries.

If nothing else, this pandemic has over the past few months taught us how vulnerable we all are and given us some inkling of the sort of steps that are necessary to reduce that vulnerability. Our friends in Japan perhaps needed less reminding of that, given the prevalence since time immemorial there of natural disasters.

Watch the video of our latest webinar on Thursday 2 July 2020 about the current situation on the Korean peninsula with Chung Min Lee, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and John Nilsson-Wright, senior lecturer at Cambridge University.

As a boy I was always more interested in subjects like history and geography than in science, but for some reason I have always remembered watching Professor Eric Laithwaite of Imperial College giving a lecture about magnetic levitation, a topic which seemed to the youthful me to be akin watching magic.