Japan

We were discussing civilisation, as one does, and its relationship with cuisine. Pasta in Italy, paella in Spain, the roast beef of Old England; wurst in Germany, burgers in the States –though with those latter examples we are moving away from the concept. What about Japan, a complex society which is full of paradoxes? For three-quarters of a century, the Meiji Restoration was the most successful revolution since the Glorious Revolution itself. It was part of a process which opened Japan to western influences and vice versa. Rather as in the UK, ancient forms were preserved, which helped to ensure social stability during a period of rapid change. Japan often

My parents gave up on Christmas altogether once I left home for university. They had never been people for celebrations and we were a household like Belfast in the religious sense – my father, the Catholic, went to midnight mass; my mother, Anglican, to the parish church at 8 a.m. I alternated, year by year, for the sake of fairness. It was a strained time. As an adult, living in my own place the moment I could afford rent, I never returned home for Christmas Day, but went to various generous friends – the sort of normal friends who had proper festivities, puddings lit with brandy and paper crowns, the

If you are looking for a pointer for the future of the world, the free-diving fisherwomen on the matriarchal, shamanistic South Korean island of Jeju are not an obvious example of where we’re heading. Because the haenyeo are famously unique. And famously hardy. But what is happening to them should concern us all. In simple wetsuits they spend hours in the cold, clear waters, seeking out sea slugs, oysters, conches and abalone. They are fiercely independent – they spearheaded resistance to the Japanese in the 1930s and 1940s. But here’s the thing, as Nari (age 70) tells me in the haenyeo’s coastal mud-room: ‘We are probably the last. We have

Thailand has just passed a ‘landmark’ marriage equality bill, which will pave the way for the recognition of same-sex unions in the Land of Smiles. The upper house in Bangkok comfortably approved the measure on Tuesday, and as soon as King Maha Vajiralongkorn signs it off Thailand will become the first Southeast Asian jurisdiction to formally legalise gay marriage. Equality campaigners in Japan will be watching these developments closely. With a general election expected before November and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s scandal-wracked Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) administration under considerable pressure, advocates for same sex marriage in the one G7 country that still denies it, will have hopes that, following the