Takahiro Miyao's Radio Institute of Global Communications: No. 17, March 6, 2005

Takahiro MIYAO (Professor, GLOCOM)

Partial transcript and translation from Prof. Miyao's Radio Program, posted here with permission of Radio Nikkei

Takahiro Miyao's Radio Institute of Global Communications: No. 17
Radio Nikkei daiichi hoso ; BS Radio Nikkei 300 ch.
Broadcast time:	March 6 (Sunday) 19:00-19:30
Recording place:	Recorded in Radio Nikkei's Studio
Program:	1. Introduction 2. Virtual Discussion 3. Trend Research 4. Concluding Remarks
Audio:	Radio Program  (Windows Media Player) (Mainly in Japanese but some parts in English) Asia Station Web site (in Japanese)

Introduction

Hello, how are you? It is already in March and we are supposed to be in Spring, but it is rather cold and the weather seems quite changeable and unpredictable. So we just have to wait and see. Today, we will have a telephone interview with Professor Toshihiko Kinoshita, who is among the most active Asia specialists in Japan and is currently working on an international education program by using the Internet at Waseda University. After the interview with Professor Kinoshita, I will also mention my own seminar on Japan's soft power and pop culture, which was held at Stanford, California last week. So please stay tuned.

Virtual Discussion

Today, we will have a telephone interview with Waseda University Professor Toshihiko Kinoshita, who is going to talk about human resource development and management in Japan and Asia. Professor Kinoshita is also a foremost specialist in Japan's FTA and the idea of the Asian Economic Community, so we might ask him about that as well.

(Interview with Professor Kinoshita in Japanese)

Trend Research

In this corner we don't have much time left, so I just would like to mention that I went to Stanford to organize a seminar on Japanese soft power and pop culture last week. I had a great time interacting with a number of excellent researchers and students on the attractiveness of Japanese pop culture such as anime, manga, games, and movies, while there seem to be some problems with Japanese business and industry in this area, as pointed out by the specialists at Stanford. You can see a summary of the Stanford seminar at the GLOCOM Platform:www.glocom.org/special_topics/activity_rep/
20050302_miyao_stanford/

By the way, the English word, "pop culture," is widely used to represent popular culture such as movies, animation, games, pop music, pop art, etc. But there is no exact counterpart in the Japanese language, and it roughly corresponds to "young culture" or "subculture" in Japanese, although movies are not necessarily for young people in Japan as in other countries.

Concluding Remarks:

If you have any comment on today's program, please contact us through our Radio Nikkei hompage (www.radionikkei.jp/joho). Actually you can hear our past broadcast program on our homepage by clicking the "on-demand" section in the upper righthand corner. I hope you enjoyed today's program. Our next program will be on the first Sunday in April, that is, April 3. In the meantime, please stay warm and take care. See you next month.