Born in St. Louis Missouri, Robert C. Neff has lived in Japan for almost 26 years, spread over four stays from 1960. He is currently the Executive Communications Consultant for Kikkoman Corporation.

Mr. Neff was the Tokyo Bureau Chief of Business Week from 1989 to 1995, the Executive Director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan from 1995 to 1996, and Contributing Editor of Business Week from 1997 to 2004.

He is the author of Japan's Hidden Hot Springs (Charles E. Tuttle 1995) and Pacific Partners (Boeing: 2003).

Mr. Neff holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan (1969), and a Master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri (1974). He is fluent in Japanese and dabbled informally with Italian.

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Interview: January 31, 2005

We ask this question because every answer is different: what brought you to Japan?

I moved to Tokyo in 1960 as a 13-year-old with my missionary parents.

Can you tell us a little about your role at Business Week? And your current role at Kikkoman?

I joined Business Week (BW) in 1977 in its Los Angeles bureau after brief stints at Pacific Business News in Honolulu and the Kansas City Star. In 1979 BW sent me to Japan as a correspondent for four years. Then BW's parent company, McGraw-Hill, sent me to London for three years as managing editor of a monthly called International Management. Then BW took me back to New York to be editor of its international edition for two years before send me back to Tokyo in 1989. My job at Kikkoman is purely part-time: four hours four days a week. I write a daily news summary for senior executives based on three English-language newspapers; help manage the English-language website; edit correspondence and publications; write speeches and letters; help prepare English-language presentations; translate; and consult on sensitive intercultural issues.

What gets your vote for best and worst book on Japan?

There are so many good books, but my vote would go to Karel van Wolferen's The Enigma of Japanese Power. It's now a bit outdated but still a seminal touchstone. Worst book? It would have to be a novel called Shibumi published in 1979 by Trevanian. It was hopelessly unrealistic, uninformed, non-nuanced and stereotyped. But it apparently sold well, going into paperback claiming to be a world-wide bestseller and getting a rave review from at least Playboy magazine. It was much worse than James Clavell's Shogun.

What are you reading right now? In general, what do you like to read?

I'm now finally reading Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. I normally prefer non-fiction, but love Peter Tasker's novels on Japan.

Can you tell us a little more about your current projects? What are you working on now?

I'm chairman of a committee of American School in Japan alumni committed to saving a 40-year-old exterior mural that dear to us but about to go under the wrecking ball. As chairman of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan's Entertainment Committee I'm helping to organize various events for the Club. Last night I hosted an extremely successful India Night. Many people keep urging me to do an update of my hot spring book and I'm trying to figure out how to do so but right now lack the time and money.

What books needs to be written on Japan? Will you be writing it?

Alex Kerr needs to write more along the vein of Lost Japan and Dogs and Demons. These rank close to Wolferen and Embracing Defeat I don't have those kinds of books in me. What probably needs to be written at this time is a serious, responsible, balanced analysis of just how far Japanese politicians, bureaucrats, and public opinion are moving to the right (i.e. extreme nationalism or even militarism). And what does this mean for U.S.-Japan and Japan-China relations?

Why did you become a journalist? Why Japan? What was the story that brought you here? What is the story that keeps you here?

I became a journalist because I'm naturally curious, wanted to be a generalist, and think I'm a decent writer. When I came back here in 1989, Japan was the hottest story in the world for a publication like Business Week. The "Bubble" was an obviously enticing story and my magazine was keenly interested. It gave me lots of cover stories, which made me a player in the whole U.S.—Japan dynamic at the time.

What was the most interesting/rewarding story you covered? The most difficult?

The most interesting was the one called "Rethinking Japan," in late 1989. It was in that story that I created the term "Revisionism" to define a new way of thinking about Japan in the West. It had an impact far beyond my imagination. The most difficult story was one I was ordered by my chief editor to write in the early 1990s about Japan's growing anti-Americanism and nationalism. I didn't believe it at the time.

Are you satisfied with the way Western media covers Japan? How should Japan be covered?

The Western media are essentially ignoring Japan. Business Week's Tokyo bureau has gone from four full-timers to one over the past few years. That's because Japan is now longer viewed as an economic, industrial or technological threat. Major Western media organizations are no longer sending their rising stars here. Up until the early 1990s, the New York Times bureau chief here was Nicholas D. Kristoff, now a star columnist for the NYT. Steve Weisman was bureau chief for the NYT here 15 years ago and is now foreign editor of the Times. Fred Hyatt, the Washington Post Tokyo bureau chief is now the editorial page editor of that paper. Norman Pearlstine, Tokyo bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal in the late Seventies is now the editorial guru at Time Warner. Robert Thompson, a Tokyo correspondent for the Financial Times in the early Nineties, is now chief editor of the The Times of London. With rare exception you don't see those kinds of Roman-candle journalists in Tokyo these days. What needs better coverage now? The impact of Japanese culture on the world, be it from anime to music to food, to the security dynamics of the Japan-China relationship.

What are your thoughts on Kisha clubs?

This a a tired old subject that both upsets and bores me. It is a classic form of Japanese monopolism that almost certainly will not go away in the foreseeable future. Slight openings are occurring and the Governor Tanaka of Nagano is setting a good precedent but I don't expect much more progress on the national front very soon. Our best hope is the EU, which is properly making into an economic issue.

Where do you go for news on Japan?

I read all four English-language dailies and the Nikkei in Japanese. Also go to Nikkei's website.

Can you tell us a bit about the current group of journalists covering Japan?

This is very hard to generalize. At the big wire services like Bloomberg, Reuters, and AP, virtually everyone can work in Japanese and many are locals. This is a big change. At the major U.S. newspaper and magazine bureaus, not many correspondents can work in Japanese, with the exception of the Wall Street Journal. What is more, they tend to be younger than those of 20 years ago and to lack natural curiosity and comradeship.

Which news organization does the best job? What kind of stories interest them?

Although Business Week has drastically cut its Tokyo bureau, I would say it still does the best job. Major papers like the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times seem more interested in soft, offfbeat, human interest stories. The Asian Wall Street Journal does okay on hard news but has fallen way off on features and analysis. Putting aside the wires for hard news, Business Week provides the most balance analysis, context and reporting. The Economist tends to be ideological and shallow.

How does US news coverage of Japan differ from Japanese or European coverage?

U.S. coverage is becoming less adversarial despite a rise in the current-exchange imbalance, There are several reasons: The U.S. economy is looking up and less threatened by Japan, Bush and Koizumi seem to enjoy an exceeltn personal relationship, and the media increasingly recognize the importance of a Japan-U.S. alliance against a rising China.

Tell us a little about how your onsen book, Japan's Hidden Hot Springs (Charles E. Tuttle 1995), came to be.

The book came about because I was looking, in the early 1990s, for the "furuki, yoki" Japan I had fallen in love with in the early 1960s. The hidden hot springs I found thirty years later preserved and evoked that aesthetic.

Which one of the onsens are your favorite? What makes a good onsen?

My favorite place is Seni Onsen in Nagano. It features a remarkably romantic, mixed-bathing cave bath with comfortable, mineral-infused water. The food and service are remarkable. A good onsen to me means relative isolation, affinity with traditional aesthetics, synchronicity with the natural envrionment, hospitable service, good food, and good boths.

What makes a bad onsen?

A bad onsen is a hotel in a concrete jungle lacking traditional aesthetics, hot food, genuine spring water, and warm service.

We are sure you’ve heard all about the Debito Ardou (né David Aldwinckle) case. As a published authority on hot springs in Japan, is it news? Is it important? Why do you think so many people are fascinated with it? Why do you think it garnered the world wide attention that it did?

As I have told Debito Arudou, I think much of his campaign is faux because most of the places he is going after are in Hokkaido trying to protect themselves from drunken Russians. I have bathed and/or stayed at well over 200 onsen establishments and been stopped only once. People, including me, are fascinated by Debito Arudou because we wonder why he wanted to become Japanese in a country where he finds so many wrongs. He would almost certainly argue that he can better move for change from within, but he's actually doing it from without. I admire his gumption.

Have you ever been discriminated against at an onsen?

Twice. Once at an inn in Izu where I had stayed once before with my Japanese wife and another couple. Everything went fine. A year or two later, my Japanese assistant phoned to make reservations for me and my New York-based boss and when the okami-san heard our names, she said "Giaijin, yada." Fortunately, my assistant persuaded her to take us. In another instance, on a business trip to Fukuoka, I wanted to try a lonely onsen in nearby Saga. My assistant called and they absolutely refused because I was a gaijin.

In a 1989 Business Week article, you coined the phrase "revisionism" to refer to four Western writers on Japan (i.e., Chalmers Johnson, James Fallows, Karl van Wolferen and Clyde Prestowitz). Can you tell us how this came to be?

I was flying over the Pacific on the way to Japan for my new assignment as Tokyo bureau chief for Business Week and I came across Jim Fallows' seminal "Contain Japan" cover story in The Atlantic. That closed some synapses for me. Within the past year Karel van Wolferen had written Enigma and Clyde Prestowitz had written Trading Places. This told me that the formerly crude bashing of Japan by American officials and convergence theory by the likes of Reischauer were wrong.

Do you the see the concept having changed very much since 1989? If so, how?

No, it has not changed much. The Japanese political economy still operates according to non-conformist Western norms and the bureaucracy, although somewhat changed since "Enigma," is still pretty much the same.

Do you consider the "Blindside" thesis of Eamonn Fingleton (i.e., a strong unitary, top-down state guiding an even stronger macro-economy unbeknowst to the Western media) to be in keeping with your phrase? If so, why?

As I said in my Business Week review of Eamonn Fingleton's book, it was flawed and overly alarmist. But at the time it came out, I thought it delivered an important and accurate messsage: that however humbled Japan's economy had become, it still had numerous world-beating corporations that would catch Western companies napping. Yes, Eamonn Fingleton's argument that the Japanese economy would surpass that of the U.S. by the year 2000 was wrong and I never endorsed that notion. But read today's papers and you will see that a is about to overtake GM as the world's largest carmaker. Sony is killing Microsoft in computer games. Bridgestone and Yokohama Tire are dominating the F1 circuit.