Philip Patrick

Philip Patrick

Philip Patrick is an exiled Scot, who lectures at a Tokyo university and contributes to the Japan Times

Even a robot assistant can’t help you make sense of Japan

Tokyo The late A.A. Gill, in his notorious ‘Mad in Japan’ essay, concluded that the only way you could make sense of Tokyo was to think of it as a vast open-air lunatic asylum, with inmates instead of residents. Gill would have loved Arisa. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anything more stereotypically Japanese than

In defence of Naomi Osaka

‘Kawaisou’ or ‘wagamama’ (poor thing or spoiled brat)? That’s the question Japanese tennis fans have been asking ever since world number two Naomi Osaka quit the French Open, having refused to fulfil her post-match press conference obligations. The tennis superstar cited mental health problems for her reluctance to be quizzed by journalists, after which she was censored

The strange truth about Japan’s climate change target

Japan has just raised its target for reducing carbon emissions from 26 per cent to 46 per cent (by 2030 from 2013 levels). But how was this figure arrived at, environment minister Shinjiro Koizumi was asked? Through a careful analysis of the threat and a realistic assessment of what could be achieved, taking all relevant

Olympics’ organisers could regret banning ‘taking the knee’

Knee-taking and fist-raising protests have been banned at the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, with the International Olympic Committee warning athletes who flout the rules that they will be punished. The IOC clearly hopes this will mean the delayed and accursed Olympics – already set to be loaded with a slew of joy-killing Covid restrictions – can take place without the

Will the Tokyo Olympics go ahead?

Tokyo This week was the tenth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the country. It, along with the tsunami it triggered, claimed an estimated 19,000 lives. I was walking in the Shibuya district of Tokyo when the quake knocked me off my feet. I recall being first

What’s behind Japan’s vaccine scepticism?

Japan finally began its Covid-19 vaccination programme this week after a consignment of 60,000 vials arrived by charter flight from Europe. Medical staff will be first in line to be jabbed, followed by Japan’s innumerable seniors (presumably starting with the super-centenarians), then those with pre-existing conditions, and finally the general population. A rapid and successful

Japan Olympic chief resigns over sexism. But did he have to go?

Yoshiro Mori the 83-year-old former Japanese prime minister has resigned from his position as president of the Tokyo Olympic Organising Committee less than 6 months before the games are due to start. Mori’s crime? Making spectacularly unwise comments during a discussion of how to increase women’s representation on the committee. ‘When you increase the number

Yoshihide Suga is the Japanese Gordon Brown

‘Analytical intelligence, absolutely. Emotional intelligence, zero’. That was Tony Blair’s withering assessment of his successor Gordon Brown. It is a description which could as easily be applied to Japan’s beleaguered prime minister Yoshihide Suga. The former chief cabinet secretary, long-time right-hand man and ‘brain’ of long serving PM Shinzo Abe is showing alarming Brownite tendencies in

Is it all over for the Tokyo Olympics?

Any long-term resident of Japan will know that ‘reading the air’, as the locals put it, is an essential skill for understanding what is really being communicated behind the glossy lacquer box patina of courtesy and understatement of Japanese discourse. Bad news is never expressed directly and you need to decode the subtle hints embedded

Japan has the answer to Scotland’s drugs crisis

As a Scot, I found the news that my country had registered, by some distance, the most drug-related deaths in Europe last year profoundly depressing. But my sprits sank even lower when I saw the reaction. Rather than provoking a genuine debate about how to tackle this crisis, the dismal statistics merely set off yet

Why lockdown scepticism is growing in Japan

‘We all know it’s bull and we’ve had enough.’ This is not the kind of language I have come to expect from the Japanese. But this protester, who lived for twelve years in Reading, which accounted for his excellent, if rather fruity English, was clearly angry. He was one of hundreds outside Tokyo’s Shinjuku station

Nike Japan’s lecturing was bound to backfire

David Ogilvy once said that ‘a good advertisement is one that sells the product without drawing attention to itself’. If so, the new Nike ad currently running in Japan is about as big a failure as you can get. It has certainly drawn plenty of attention to itself, producing more angry denunciations than sales.  The ad snappily

Why academics hold Thatcher and Trump in such contempt

‘Has that orange baboon gone yet?’ asked a senior professor in the teacher’s room at my university yesterday. The remark went down well, despite the unfashionable remark about someone’s skin colour and the dubious zoomorphic comparison. As did an earlier comment from another colleague joking about how he’d like to replace Trump’s corona medication with

Why Japan’s new PM is desperate for the Olympics to go ahead

There is a rare treat for classical music fans in Tokyo this week with the visit of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under their star conductor Valery Gergiev. And it’s even more of a treat when you consider the conditions under which the concerts are taking place, with full audiences rather than the socially distanced half