Word: names
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...were scrubbed clean of ethnic markings and sold instead as prototypes of a postnational world. The cultural distancing is understandable. Japan's wartime defeat equated nationalism with suffering. The occupying Americans discouraged indigenous martial arts like karate and kendo from Japanese schools, just as an Emperor whose name was used to justify a terrible war learned to focus on safer pursuits like marine biology. What aspiring Japanese fashion designer would want to, say, revive historical motifs when the rising sun still draws revulsion in Nanjing or Bataan...
...renewed sense of identity has also stoked a spiritual rediscovery. Under Shinto, the country's native religion, which blends a reverence for nature with Japan's founding myths, the Japanese Emperor is considered the direct descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu; it was in Emperor Hirohito's sacred name that Japanese soldiers fought in World War II. When a battle-vanquished Hirohito announced in 1946 that he was not, in fact, a god in human form, some Japanese distanced themselves from the animist tradition. While shrines remained and festivals continued, Shinto was initially condemned by the occupying Americans...
...Matsui's pursuit of aesthetic pleasure is something Japan's traditional craftsmen understood well. Few nations imbue objects with as much import as Japan does. Tokyo must be the only government that designates the best potters or woodblock printers as Living National Treasures, or, to use the formal name, Bearers of Important Intangible Cultural Assets. The appellation currently applies only to artisans whose crafts have not strayed from the confines of the past. But with younger Japanese now introducing the world to updated versions of ancient culture, Japanese bureaucrats might do well to expand the definition. The new "Made...
...Seoul, as she prepared to return home with one of her brand new Boogers, Bernann McKinney initially denied that she is one and the same Joyce McKinney who is still technically a fugitive from British justice. But confronted by the weight of circumstantial evidence - Joyce McKinney's middle name is Bernann, both are former beauty queens, both owned pitbulls and even appear to share the same social security number, birth date and home address - Bernann McKinney confessed to being a reinvention rather than a clone of her former self. "I thought people would be honest enough...
...This is more difficult in the sense that many international organizations require statehood as the basis for admission. But for organizations like the World Trade Organization, which could take in countries under the name of a separate customs territory, we did exactly that. We were admitted in 2002 with a very awkward name: Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan. Chinese Taipei for short. This is a new model. We are trying to get into the World Health Assembly. The first obstacle is the name we are going to use, pretty much like WTO, we're not using Taiwan or Republic...