Includes bibliographical references and index.

Japan as an Assemblage / Dolores P. Martinez
pt. I Roots and Branches
Cafe Society in Japan: Global Coffee and Urban Space / Merry White
`A Japanese in Every Jet': Globalism and Gendered Service in the Jet Age / Christine R. Yano
Rewrapping the Message: Museums, Healing and Communicative Power / Joy Hendry
pt. II Contemporary Configurations
Football in the Community: Global Culture, Local Needs and Diversity in Japan / John Horne
Relocating Japan? Japan, China and the West in Japanese Television Dramas / Griseldis Kirsch
Japanese Reggae and the Def Tech Phenomenon: Global Paths to Intra-cultural Pluralism / Bruce White
pt. II Technological Connections: Past, Present and Future
More I Shop at Yaohan, the More I Become a Heung Gong Yahn (Hongkongese): Japan and the Formation of a Hong Kong Identity / Hoi-Yan Yau
Global Technologies, Local Interventions: Or Musings on Japanese Film / Dolores P. Martinez
Branding Humanoid Japan / Hirofumi Katsuno

This book focuses on Japan's modernization as a long-term process that is reliant on changing technology and that has led to the nation's full engagement with the global system. Some chapters examine the themes of modernity, technology and Japan's global experience though popular culture, from reggae to football, from television to film. Other topics include coffee, travel, economics, cultural politics and technological innovation in the field of robotics. All of the contributions aim to show how these global interactions have occurred and continue to take place in twenty-first-century Japan. Because Japan today is part of global processes that have influenced contemporary social discourse within and about the nation, the editors' arguments address the tensions, synergies, and dynamism that have informed the waves of modernity and globalization that have buffeted the country since the Meiji period.