Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama announced his resignation this week, leading to the first major leadership challenge for the ruling Democratic Party of Japan since taking office in a landslide last year. The selection of Kan was not unexpected, but highlights a number of more subtle, long-term trends in Japan’s post-war evolution.
On Tuesday, January 5th, 2010, I headed to my local train station, as usual, to head toward the Tennoji section of Osaka. The traditional new year’s holiday is called o-shogatsu, an honorific term referring to it being the start of the first month of the new year, and typically strings along from the first to [...]
