Parasol, circa 1930 (silk, bamboo, ivory, leather). All images courtesy of the Honolulu Academy of Arts “Tipsy (Horoyoi),” 1930 (woodblock print, ink and color on paper), by Kobayakawa Kiyoshi.

For one, modern Japan has "zero tradition" of women rulers, said Kenneth Ruoff, director of the Center for Japanese Studies at Portland State University in Oregon.

“Songs for Modern Japan” has things there well covered. SONGS FOR MODERN JAPAN: Popular Music and Graphic Design, 1900-1950. At Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., through Sept. 2.

Despite its modern appearance Japan holds closely onto its traditions. In the age of global migration, that's a good thing.

“Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan” is a building-wide exhibition and much of it shows a fusion of old and new, traditional and modern, Japanese and foreign. Skip to content.

The Japanese language now in common use is an intricate combination of picture signs or characters with a phonetic alphabet. It is as though all words were written with symbols followed by letters.

A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Japanese Prints and Drawings in the Cotsen Collection (1800-1950). Princeton University ...

“And going back to what Greg said earlier about 1600 feudal Japan, is that in the modern world, there’s always a din of something around us. What we aimed for in this show was quiet, because ...