Even though I am deeply immersed in China while I work on the book, I made a slight detour back to Japan this morning. Studio 360 on NPR broadcast an interview with the travel writer Pico Iyer. I was aware that they were in Japan while I was there and I have been waiting to hear about their visit. Pico Iyer has been living in Japan for the last twenty years. I think his description of Japanese culture and society and of his status on the fringes largely sums up my feelings about Japan. You can listen to the interview here.

http://www.studio360.org/flashplayer/mp3player.swf?config=http://www.studio360.org/flashplayer/config_share.xml&file=http://www.studio360.org/stream/xspf/122032

The video and a slide show can be found here.