On the initial leg of the long series of flights to Japan, the five-plus hours to Los Angeles, I spent  time reading through the Sunday edition of the New York Times.  Two articles particularly caught my attention.

One, a satirical record of a supposed interview conversation, dealt with issues raised by the author of Dutch, the biography of Ronald Reagan in which the writer appears in a series of fictional interactions with his subject.  At one point the interviewee defines history as "gathering the particular in support of the general" (or something to that effect). 

I like that notion of what the historian does and hope this series of brief reports from the scene will do a bit to supply the particulars out of which a more complete general understanding of Japan 1999 might arise.  At the same time I hope the reader will see this series as little more than observations made by a single individual which, in the grand scheme of things, ought not to carry that much weight.

A second article, of more direct relevance, cautioned readers against writing off Japan as a "failed economy", a categorization the author felt no more valid than the one of an economic giant-killer that prevailed in the 1980s.  She pointed to rising standards of living for the majority of Japanese, the permitted purchases of ownership shares in Japanese corporations by non-Japanese outsiders, the significant revamping of manufacturing processes and the announced mergers of large Japanese banks as ample evidence that Japan could not so easily be dismissed despite our willingness to do so.

I recall my last visit to Japan as the head of a local Cleveland delegation to an international meeting of Japan - America Societies held in Fukuoka in May of 1997.  I had spent six months living in Hikone at the end of 1996 just when the economic downturn was beginning to have widespread effects.  I had expected to encounter more dramatic evidence of malaise by mid-1997 than I in fact found.  Aside from an obvious decline in business entertaining, little seemed to have changed from six months earlier -- Fukuoka, particularly, seemed prosperous and bustling.  I guess I won't see much evidence of economic decline on this trip either.

What I will be able to illustrate is the "look" of Japan today since I now have a digital camera with which to document the scene.  I will be able as a result to include photos like that above in each of these reports.  Ain't technology grand!