Anna Matsushita

There was a deafening bang, followed by a deep, rumbling tremor that shook the ground beneath me.   The elderly pedestrians all dropped to the pavement in unison, as if rehearsed.   Across the street, an old man lay flat on his stomach, waving urgently in my direction. “Down!” he bellowed.   Instinct took over. I flung myself onto the pavement without a second thought.   Moments later, the wail of sirens filled the air—fire engines, ambulances, police cars, all racing past in a blur of flashing lights.   And then, just as swiftly as they had dived for cover, the prone figures around me picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and strode away as though nothing had happened.   I had arrived in Britain in the 1980's at the age of fourteen, dragged along by my parents on account of my father’s job. I hadn’t wanted to come. Life had been perfectly fine back home, thank you very much. Germany was still split into East and West, Marga...

    Permit me a moment of reminiscence, an old woman's soliloquy, if you will. This is a story from some forty years ago.   For a brief three-year period, my family found itself living in Britain in the late of the 1980’s. It was the height of Japan’s bubble economy, a time of exuberance and affluence. Britain, in contrast, was grappling with economic stagnation. Not only was the economy sluggish, but the sudden influx of Japanese imports and the expansion of Japanese businesses left many in Britain feeling uneasy. Some, particularly those who had lived through a different era, harboured a deep resentment towards the prosperity of Japan.   A significant undercurrent to this tension was, of course, the legacy of the Second World War. Britain, once master of the seven seas, had held colonies across Southeast Asia, including Burma and Singapore—regions where it had clashed directly with Japan. Even in the late 1980s, the memory of that conflict persisted amo...