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Oink! Oink!

The flap over Princess Masako, Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne, a book about the Japanese Imperial family by the Australian journalist, Ben Hills, seemed to have come and gone rather quickly. It was last February.that Mr Hill's Japanese publisher, Kodansha, dropped its plans to publish a translation of the book, after the Imperial Household Agency threw a wobbly over its sneering portrayal of life inside the Palace. (see my post on the subject here). But six months later, the book has found a new Japanese publisher, and stirred predictable outrage among the sound truck-driving, Yasukuni Shrine-loving, Nanking Massacre-denying classes.

As the Kyodo news agency reports:

'Princess Masako' author, publisher threatened ahead of translation

SYDNEY, Aug. 21  KYODO   
     The Australian journalist who wrote a controversial biography of Japan's Crown Princess Masako has received death threats ahead of the release of the Japanese translation of his book.
     The Tokyo-based publisher of the translation, Daisan-Shokan, has also reported being targeted in protests by right-wing nationalist groups.
     The translation of ''Princess Masako, Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne'' by Ben Hills is due to be published in early September.
     Hills told Kyodo News he has received several e-mail death threats, via his website, in the lead-up to the Japanese publication.
     ''I have had death threats. They were saying things like, 'Die white pork!' They were quite racist,'' Hills said.

None of that is particularly surprising except for one thing.

WHITE PORK?

What is going on with Die white pork?

Flying Seoul-o

Writing about foreign stereotypes last week, I made sceptical reference to the popular notion of Japan as a land awash in bizarre pornography, where every other salarymen spends his lunch break hunched over rape manga, downloading bukkake videos, and purchasing schoolgirls' underwear from his office vending machine. Japanese smut is certainly distinctive, I acknowledged, but if it really is more widely consumed than in the rest of the world - show us the evidence.

Committed Asia Exile reader Joseh Miller has taken up the challenge by sending me a link to this fascinating page on the website Internet Filter Review. It goes some way towards answering a profound question: who are the world's biggest wankers?

The answers will amaze and appal you.

Podded

In February, I spent a happy few days as a guest of 'Words and Ideas', the writers' and readers' segment of the Perth International Arts Festival, sponsored by Curtin University. One of my contributions, a conversation with the journalist, David Cohen, followed by questions and answers, can be downloaded as a Podcast here. (I hope that this link works - if not download it from this page.)

It last about an hour and consists mostly of a discussion of my book, In the Time of Madness: Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos (click on the image above for enlargement), although at one point, for no very good reason, I also start talking about my career as a teenage UFOlogist. A bit cringe-making in parts, but it could be worse. Interestingly, my voice becomes lower in pitch towards the end of the hour than it is in the beginning. Not smooth and cholcolatey exactly but less ... piping.

Ten minutes from the end, it goes completely silent for a while but that's because some damn fool member of the audience failed to speak into the microphone. The other effect of this is that the reaction of the audience is almost inaudible. You'll just have to take it from me that they were almost constantly applauding or issuing forth chortles of appreciation.

US Amazon link for the book is here, Japanese Amazon (for the English language edition) here. It's also been translated into Dutch as Indonesia: Tijden van waanzin.

Here's a smattering of reviews from The Times, TIME magazine, The Observer, San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian and a long and well informed one from the Columbia Journalism Review.

Your Christmas present problems, solved at a stroke! Buy, buy, buy . . .

Snaphappy

I don't want to overdo the YouTube links, but this is a good one. A TV commercial for Fuji Film, featuring the ultimate Japanese tourist, although I can't work out where it's from. Australia? Germany?