Radioactive fallout

Negotiating Japan’s fraught relationship with nuclear power

Featured in

Buy $27.99
  • Published 20240806
  • ISBN: 978-1-922212-98-6 
  • Extent: 216pp
  • Paperback, ePUB, PDF

ON 9 JUNE 2021, my teenage son and I were at the theatre of HOTA, Home of the Arts, on the Gold Coast with a couple of hundred new Aussies. Mayor Tom Tate was onstage and congratulated us in his distinct husky voice. He asked, ‘Who is from the UK?’ ‘Who is from South Africa?’ ‘Who is from China?’ The attendees reacted in subtly unique ways. The Brits replied in low, steady murmurs; the Koreans and Taiwanese were quiet; the Chinese were jaunty; and the Brazilians’ cheers were the loudest and most musical. 

‘Who is from Japan?’

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

Tweet
Share
Share
Pin
0 Shares

Subscribe to great writing

Access starts at just $6 per month. Print and digital options to suit every budget!

Learn more

About the author

Haruko Koga

Haruko Koga is an emerging writer currently working on her first novel. Born and raised in Japan, she worked as a writer specialising in...

More from this edition

Healthcare is other people

Non-fiction IN 1977 A gastroenterologist named Franz Ingelfinger had cancer, a cancer that originated in his gastroenteric tract. He was perhaps the most informed patient...

Finding the right phenotype

Non-fictionAs a recently diagnosed transgender person, I was already part of a highly online, over-educated and underemployed cohort, routinely blamed for stifling free speech as well as both maintaining the gender binary and destroying it. The alt-right discourse was already aflame, decrying the social scourge of everyone wanting to be seen as a ‘special snowflake’ and the creeping ‘politics of victimhood’. Did I really need to inhabit a second suspect identity? Did I need another personal attribute I felt deeply ambivalent about to become a public part of my persona?

The great divide

In ConversationIn the ’80s, and maybe the early ’90s, fashion was a political statement just like art was…and real art wasn’t about selling out or succeeding in a mainstream context; it was the opposite. The whole idea was that you didn’t want to conform. Anyone who was trying to make money off your art or helping you make money was corrupt or compromised. The last thing you did as an artist or a writer in the ’80s was self-publicise – it was so naff, it wasn’t done. Street cred was what mattered. And I’ve been watching, with social media and the internet, this 180-degree shift over the last few decades.

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.