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Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan (2001)

por Alex Kerr

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382966,216 (3.81)11
"In an ancient tale, a Chinese emperor asks his court painter about the easiest and most difficult subjects to paint. The painter replies, "Dogs are difficult, demons are easy." To Alex Kerr, a longtime resident expert and observer, Japan's "dogs" are the vital activities that sustain an ecologically and culturally responsible economy, while the expedient "demons" are the million-dollar boondoggles that have bulldozed and cemented over so much of Japan today." "Dogs and Demons offers tales from the dark side of Japan's well-known modern accomplishments. For Japan's problems go far beyond its dire economic plight, beyond the failures of its banks and pension funds. And Kerr discusses subjects that are all too often disregarded in the Western press when the focus is on finance and business: Japan's endangered environment (seashores lined with concrete, roads leading to nowhere in the mountains), its "monument frenzy," the decline of its once magnificent cinema, the destruction of cities such as Kyoto and construction of drab new ones, the attendant collapse of its tourism industry."--BOOK JACKET.… (más)
  1. 00
    The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics: Lessons from Japan's Great Recession por Richard C. Koo (mercure)
    mercure: Richard Koo discusses the Need for Japan's government spending in the aftermath of the bubble. Alex Kerr reports about the consequences of Japan's government spending for Japan's culture and environment. The costs were not just financial.
  2. 00
    Contemporary Japan: History, Politics, and Social Change since the 1980s por Jeff Kingston (sinivalas42)
    sinivalas42: A more up-to-date and academic look at the state of Japanese society and economy, including its ills.
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» Ver también 11 menciones

Mostrando 1-5 de 9 (siguiente | mostrar todos)
An analysis of what went wrong with Japan's growth in the 1990s and beyond. The author calls out bureaucratically driven construction of useless monuments, cronyism, fake financials, environmental degradation and isolationism. Some arguments were more about the author's preferences, eg. cinema, Hello Kitty. The outlook was depressing bu it made me wonder what has transpired for Japan since this book was written in 2001. It predicted more decades of stagnation for Japan -- which has pretty much occurred (as of this writing in 2019) with the addition of the Global Financial Crisis (2007-2008) and the Fukushima nuclear disaster (2011). Concerning the latter, the book specifically mentions a culture of shortfalls and cover-ups concerning safety in the Japanese nuclear power industry, and talks about the Tokai nuclear accident in Tokyo in 1999 (at that time the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl; since eclipsed by Fukushima). ( )
  questbird | Aug 1, 2019 |
You could just read chapters 1, 3,4 and 5 ( )
  Baku-X | Jan 10, 2017 |
An unflinching, objective look at Japanese culture & systems, political, financial, and international. The author does not fall into the typical trap of most 'Japanophiles,' in glossing over Japan's problems. He takes an unwavering but compassionate look at the problems facing Japanese society today, and gives voice to many Japanese frustrated with their own society. If Japan is to overcome its problems, it must first summon the courage as a society to acknowledge them, and we as international friends and neighbors do not do them any favors by continuing the farce of 'all is well,' when we ignore or gloss over the problems plainly covered in this book. Honesty is it's own form of compassion, and the purest. ( )
  RecklessReader | Jan 24, 2016 |
You could just read chapters 1, 3,4 and 5 ( )
  BakuDreamer | Sep 7, 2013 |
This book was published in 2001, and some things improved during the Koizumi and DPJ eras that have passed since then. However, much of the basic problem described remains, namely that Japan still runs on pork-barrel spending by unaccountable and not particularly competent ministries and their corporate cronies. Dogs and Demons is in principle a good introduction to that problem and its roots.

However, while I found myself mostly agreeing with its general conclusions, the problem lies in how the book arrives at those conclusions. To put it bluntly, this book badly needs a cold-hearted editor and fact checker armed with chainsaws to work it over. As it stands, it is an unending parade of factoids cherry-picked to support the author's polemic. I often ended up skipping pages at a time when the author went off on a long, questionable digressions about P/E ratios, how manga and Hello Kitty symbolize the infantilization of culture or such. To make matters worse, some of these digressions appear in several chapters in slightly different guises.

While Dogs and Demons is a much-needed antidote to the hype regarding Japanese customs, culture and economy (the latter has fortunately dissipated during the past 20 years, though it has still not entirely disappeared), I really can't recommend it as a book, especially for readers without some background knowledge regarding Japanese government and society. Even overlooking the huge number of loose facts of varying quality thrown at the reader, the torrent of barely-founded beside-the-point material is too staggering.

That said, while investigating the background of some pronouncements, this book did lead me to some particularly tasty treasure troves of bureaucratic absurdity, such as the "Relocation of the Diet and Other Organizations" committee (running since 1992) of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. It's like real-life Monty Python. ( )
  sinivalas42 | Feb 11, 2013 |
Mostrando 1-5 de 9 (siguiente | mostrar todos)
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To my father, Andy Kerr,
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"In an ancient tale, a Chinese emperor asks his court painter about the easiest and most difficult subjects to paint. The painter replies, "Dogs are difficult, demons are easy." To Alex Kerr, a longtime resident expert and observer, Japan's "dogs" are the vital activities that sustain an ecologically and culturally responsible economy, while the expedient "demons" are the million-dollar boondoggles that have bulldozed and cemented over so much of Japan today." "Dogs and Demons offers tales from the dark side of Japan's well-known modern accomplishments. For Japan's problems go far beyond its dire economic plight, beyond the failures of its banks and pension funds. And Kerr discusses subjects that are all too often disregarded in the Western press when the focus is on finance and business: Japan's endangered environment (seashores lined with concrete, roads leading to nowhere in the mountains), its "monument frenzy," the decline of its once magnificent cinema, the destruction of cities such as Kyoto and construction of drab new ones, the attendant collapse of its tourism industry."--BOOK JACKET.

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