11 Oct, 2015
Fukuoka honors Asians for work to preserve and reinvent culture – Japan Times
More than a century and a half after Commodore Matthew Perry’s “Black Ships” forced open the country to Western trade, vestiges of the sakoku (closed country) mentality arguably still linger on in the Japanese psyche. Although kokusaika, or internationalization, has been a buzzword since the 1980s, few cities along the archipelago seem to be able to do it right.
Enter Fukuoka, a city often unfairly overlooked by the foreign community — or, at least, by Westerners. In this compact city, deemed by Monocle magazine to be the 12th “most livable” in the world, you will find splendid food and drink, and fun-loving people for whom home is rarely more than a short taxi ride away, meaning the last train is a mere afterthought. Fukuoka is also, most crucially, a port city and gateway to the rest of Asia.
Read the rest: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2015/10/07/issues/fukuoka-honors-asians-work-preserve-reinvent-culture/#.Vhnpg6QyhoN
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