The Japan Research Centre, at SOAS London, has launched a series of Japanese-language seminars, in addition to the weekly English ones, reports JRC chairman, DrTimon Screech. If this is successful it will be expanded in future terms.

There are ten visiting academics from Japan, one of the largest numbers yet, and most of them will stay at least until spring. The inauguration of the Centre for the Study of Japanese Religions was a success, and it is to host a regular series of lectures. It will also be the home for the new MA in Japanese Religions. The new centre has its origins in a generous donation from the International Shinto Foundation.

A forecast that restructuring in the banking sector in Japan will lead to a fundamental change in the way Japanese companies do business comes from Shigeki Saito, director general of Jetro London, in looking to the year 2000.

"This will have more far-reaching consequences than most observers now perceive. The planned mergers of DKB, IBJ and Fuji Bank, and of the Sumitomo smd Sakura banks - cutting across keiretsu boundaries - will in particular lead to a shake-out in other sectors of the economy as companies seek finance, customers and suppliers from outside their traditional keiretsu groups.

One of the bestknown and widely-respected contacts on Anglo-Japanese matters in London, George Bull, has been preseented with the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Ribbon, by Ambassador Sadayuki Hayashi at the London embassy. The award was presented in recognition of his distinguished contribution to the promotion of economic relations and mutual understanding between the UK and Japan.

Mr Bull has served as director of the Anglo-Japanese Economic Institute since 1986, and is editor of its journal, Insight Japan (see our Journals page on this website). After Brasenose College, Oxford, he was a journalist at the Financial Times, and was also editor-in-chief of the Director magazine until 1984. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1982, and was awarded the OBE in 1990.

More English teachers for Japan

A shortage of native English-speaking teachers working in Japan has prompted the Ministry of Education to plan a big increase, as well as to update the national curriculum. Though English has long been recognised as a world language, Japan has fallen behind other Asian countries in communication tests, especially in conversation (writes our Education Correspondent).

The prospect of more posts in Japan for English teachers has already aroused interest in the United States, which for many years has provided the greater number, but education officials are believed to be planning to attract more from the UK, Australia and other English-speaking countries.

A detailed report from one of the bestknown of Western correspondents in Japan, Jonathan Watts, in the Guardian, London, says the ministry plans to introduce English conversation classes for six-to-12-year-olds from April, as part of a "revamped" national curriculum that will be phased in by 2002.

The Guardian report says schools devote considerable resources to teaching English, but they focus on grammar and reading. "After seven years of secondary school, many students can phrase a sentence better than native speakers, but very few are confident enough to speak the language."

It says the ministry is considering ways of improving the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) programme, which provided 5,241 overseas graduates last year to work in secondary schools. These posts are popular with young British graduates, who account for more than a fifth of all JET recruits.

New Director for Daiwa

Mari Conte-Helm, the wellknown writer and lecturer on Japan, has been appointed director of the Daiwa Anglo-Japan Foundation. Born in the US, she has degrees from both the City University of New York and the University of Hawaii, where she was based at the East West Centre.

She has held important appointments since moving to the UK in 1975, including five years as cultural officer for the Japanese Embassy, head of Japanese Studies at the University of Sunderland, and reader in Japanese Studies at the University of Northumbria.

SOAS and the new Sainsbury Institute

The SOAS chairman, Dr Timon Screech, has welcomed the new collaborative venture with the University of East Anglia, with a significant expansion in the form of the new Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (SISJC).

Thanks to the generosity of Sir Robert and Lady Sainsbury, the new institute begins with a mission to promote the study of the material and visual cultures of the Japanese archipelago, acting as a catalyst for international research in the field.

Nicole Rousmaniere, director of SISJAC, says "a splendid building" for the institute in the Cathedral Close, Norwich, is being provided by the Gatsby Foundation (the Sainsbury's charitable arm) free of charge for three years.

SISJC will make a significant grant to the SOAS library each year for use in Japanese studies materials, in return for full access to SOAS facilities. Dr Screech has been taken on (half-time) on secondment from SOAS, for the next three years.

Plans for SISJAC expansion include links with other institutions around the world. Lord (David) Sainsbury has donated "a considerable sum" to support joint proposals with Colombia University in New York. James Brennan

Japan 2001 in the UK

Lord Blakenham, director of the UK-Japan 21st Century group, has been appointed chairman of the UK side of Japan 2001. Mr Naohiko Kumagai, deputy chairman of Keidanren, is chairman of the committee in Japan.